Where both the Columbian and the Oregonian fail the communities they are supposed to serve, the Willamette Week blows the lid off of the CRC project.
A Bridge Too False “Turns out most of the case for the $3.6 billion Columbia River Crossing Isn’t true.”
“More than 20 lawmakers—Republicans and Democrats—have raised hard questions about the project. They say Oregon hasn’t taken a serious look at the project’s risks or at cheaper ways to fix the traffic problems at the Oregon-Washington border.”
“In the current legislative session, lawmakers have debated the proper size of chicken cages, whether it’s OK to use plastic bags, and what kind of dirt should be named the official state soil. But they have only glanced at the project known as the CRC.”
“We’ve had no substantive debate on the project,” says State Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland), a CRC critic who calls the project “a steamroller headed off a cliff.”
Millions of tax dollars have been wasted to date in useless “studies” with pie in the eye promises while citizen concerns have been scoffed at.
We elected a new mayor on his many promises of opposing tolls and he flip flopped soon after taking his oath of office. Instead of heeding the words of concerned citizens, efforts have been made to silence those voices or at the least, marginalize them.
Both the Columbian and the Oregonian refuse to take a critical look at this multi-Billion dollar boondoggle that, as uncovered by the Willamette Week, will not ease congestion and would only improve travel time to Portland by one minute.
As I said in a previous post, “people will turn to where they get the news first and all too often, it isn’t the Columbian.”
We deserve to know all there is about this proposed project. We deserve elected officials that represent the citizens and not the fatcats who stand to reap massive wealth by forcing this upon us. And, we deserve a newspaper that reports the news, not takes sides in agendas.
UPDATE: It should not be too surprising to see Mayor Tim Leavitt come out against the article critical of the CRC in the Willamette Week. In a reply to me on the Columbian’s web page, he has stated, “The Willamette Week article lacks credibility and substance. There are unsubstantiated and opinionated statements by the “reporter”….or editor, I’m not quite sure if its supposed to be a story or opinion piece. Seems more like a political blog than anything else.”
What the hell, right Tim? It’s only future generations getting stuck with the bills while the fatcats in the Loot Rail mafia become wealthy.
