This blog no longer supports David Madore and calls upon him to resign immediately!
Not even a month into his term as our newest County Commissioner and already David Madore is acting on his campaign promises, standing up for Clark County citizens and bucking the light rail swindle from Portland into our community, just as we asked him to do when we elected him.
As can be expected, that is not setting well with the ruling class elites pushing light rail in order to gain access to our revenues to bail out their deeply indebted transit folly, now sitting at about $1.6 Billion and growing every day.
We elected David Madore over keeping Marc Boldt and together with fellow conservative Tom Mielke, have a fighting chance to see some accountability where the CRC swindle is concerned.
Knowing now that our County Commissioners will stand on the side of citizens over the special interests of the CRC swindle, we can expect volleys of attacks aimed at the County Commission and they have already started.
The Columbian, which has opposed Madore ever since he stepped into the public light, began their assault softly when Madore requested a delay in approving a $200,000 payment to CREDC (Columbia River Economic Development Council) to let the Commission decide when he would be seated as Commissioner just days later. He was scoffed at and the payment was approved, only to have both Commissioners Mielke and Madore compose a letter stopping the payment after Madore joined the Commission, unless CREDC ended their support of light rail.
Although the Columbian has been highly critical of Madore and anybody not rolling over and buying into the CRC swindle, they seemed to defer the attack this time to their crony to the south, Portland, Oregon’s newspaper, the Oregonian. Or, as some like to call it, the Zero.
Saturday, January 26, 2013 saw the editorial Light-rail phobias in Vancouver shouldn’t slow CRC momentum: Agenda 2013 which is nothing more than a snow job critical of David Madore and any who see through the smokescreen carefully erected to try to hide that the CRC just may be the biggest swindle of Clark County Washington to date.
The editorial at one point says,
“Madore never refers to the Columbia River Crossing as a bridge project or as a highway replacement bridge that includes a MAX line from Portland into Vancouver. Instead, Madore refers to CRC only as a light-rail project — and worse, a light-rail project that is being shoved down the throats of Vancouverites who don’t want it.”
Madore has a very good reason to refer to it as such, the Oregon Supreme Court stated so in an unrelated ruling earlier last year, as we revealed by another Portland paper, the Willamette Week in their article, The $2.5 Billion Bribe.
If the Oregon Supreme Court reveals that it is a project designed to, more than anything else, ram light rail into our community after we rejected it by enticing us with some support for a new bridge across the Columbia River, I would think the Oregonian Editorial Staff would know that.
Or do they just shuffle to the back, behind the smoke screen?
Regardless, don’t demean Madore for that, demean your own Supreme Court.
They then go on to boast of how they thwarted the will of the people in Clackamas County, who also opposed the extension of Portland’s beleaguered light rail, only to have Metro do an end run around the people and force it on them anyway.
They then perpetuate the lie we put to rest long ago,
“The expanded bridge will replace the narrow Interstate 5 span that is a choke point for commuters and freight traffic. It will unlock congestion that threatens the health not only of drivers but of port operations on either side of the river, feeding jobs and the region’s economy.”
The “choke point” is not the bridge, but further south at the Rose Quarter and later at the Terwilliger Curves, both of which Oregon has adamantly stated they will not spend a dime to correct. Traffic begins backing up far south of the bridge and extends across the bridge, well into Clark County. Even with a new bridge, traffic will continue backing up well south and across the new bridge.
But in reality, since we know that light rail is the driving force behind the swindle, it is hoped and expected that people give up their cars and become dependent upon light rail with a fixed route likely to be miles away from the destination, which would force people to catch a TriMet Bus to get to work or wherever headed, increasing travel time, but directing more funds into TriMet’s deeply red accounts.
Money that could be spent in our own community to circulate and benefit Clark County, not Portland, Oregon.
Next comes the falsity of there is $850 Million of free money just sitting there from the Federal Government to cover light rail projects with a sign, “Come and get it!”
That it is tax dollars and the country is $16.4 Trillion in debt, borrowing money from countries like China as fast they can spend it doesn’t enter their heads. Nor does it dawn on them that our Congresswoman, Jaime Herrera Beutler, who would be responsible to directing that funding here has said she heard voters and wants a redesign, excluding light rail and hopefully one that will finally have adequate clearance for river traffic in order to gain the needed Coast Guard permit to build the bridge.
Mentions of that little part usually elicits a reply from Portland along the lines of “No Light Rail, No Bridge.”
What was that they said about it not being a forced light rail project?
The assault on Madore continues with,
“Madore, a newcomer to the county commission, steps up his attack. He accuses the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, a CRC advocate, of misrepresenting him and other business leaders in telling state legislators it speaks for 1,000 businesses in championing CRC funding. He recently led his county commission in a dramatic reversal by spiking $100,000 in funding to the Columbia River Economic Development Council, another pro-business CRC advocate.”
Again, Madore has very good reason to claim the GVCC misrepresented him and many business leaders as that is exactly what they did with a letter claiming support of over a thousand businesses, but sent to only a select few known to support the CRC swindle.
We also hear the canard of it will bring jobs, but who would want to open a business in Clark County needing to cross the river and having to pay upwards of $8 per crossing?
Their meme ends with, “It would be a sad outcome for a project that has gone from extravagant to lean, from bitterly contested to reasonably well-supported. This region needs the CRC now. This region need not start over. And this region should not yank the light-rail tail of something that really is, first and foremost, a bridge.”
Pure fabrication to state the swindle is “well-supported” since we have been denied promised votes directly on light rail and if anything, public opposition has grown, not decreased.
It could not be a “sad outcome” for Clark County’s citizens to be able to keep more of their own money instead of having to send it to Portland to bail out their folly.
It could be a sad outcome for some corrupt politicians and appointed officials that continue to ram this unneeded and unwanted project down our throats who I wouldn’t mind seeing wearing stripped suits in a prison yard somewhere.
But, if as the Oregonians tries to fool us, it really is “first and foremost, a bridge,” why then the “No Light Rail, No Bridge” attitude from their side of the river? That alone says it is just what David Madore called it, a “light-rail project.”
Make a deal with you, Oregonian. You keep your bankrupting light rail on your side of the river and we’ll keep our newest County Commissioner we overwhelmingly elected on our side of the river.
Put your light rail where the sun doesn’t shine. We don’t need it and we sure don’t want it!
