Jim Moeller, Democrat 49th Legislative District Representative is as liberal and arrogant as they can get. He has long shown that what voters think is irrelevant to what he thinks, between dreaming up ways to stick constituents with more taxes during a deep recession to joining in to sue to invalidate their votes, Moeller marches to his tune, not that of his constituents.
Nothing gives a better example than his continued support of forcing them to accept Portland, Oregon’s ill fated light rail, even with them repeatedly saying they do not want it.
In short, Jim Moeller just “doesn’t get it,” as he told me in comments under the Columbian article, C-Tran seeks direction on light rail
Apparently, C-Tran ‘doesn’t get it’ either as we have been telling them since 1995 that we taxpayers do not want to Portland’s light rail and do not want to pay for it.
But this post concerns Jim Moeller’s comment to me where first I noted how C-Tran asking for “direction” is ridiculous considering they have been ignoring voters’ directions for years.
Jim Moeller • Follow • Top Commenter
You just don’t get it, do you Lew? Drop light -rail (LTR) and go to bus-rapid transit (BRT) or to “no transit” option at all and we all go back to the drawing board. With a new EIS (6 years minimum) or at the least a supplemental EIS (3 years minimum). Why that long? Because it’s not “just” about light-rail. It’s also about all the modeling for the bridge itself that includes design, transit options, congestion relief, freight mobility, etc. Secondly, we lose the federal funding for the light-rail and 850 million for its construction from Oregon into Washington. Maybe you don’t care that 850 million transit dollars will go somewhere else (it will go to another state) but I and MANY others do. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Oregon stated a decade ago when we began serious discussion about the I-5 replacement, that without light-rail there is no bridge project.
SO, we can spend another decade or longer arguing, suing, electing, etc about the transit piece (light-rail vs BRT), tolls (if so, how much?), number of lanes (10 vs.12), the height (lift span or no), etc and end up essentially where we began (only more expensive) or we can build the project we have NOW. That we have a Locally Preferred Alternative with 10 lanes, light-rail and tolls, a final EIS for the project, a federal Record of Decision, on a White House priority list with the “We Can’t Wait” initiative, with Oregon stepping up with it’s share and 450 million dollars and hopefully a Coast Guard Permit for the bridge height mitigating essential business up-river along the Columbia.
So, it is not as simple as you propose. “Dropping Light-Rail” means the end of the project for at least 10 years perhaps as much as a generation and we will end up older, with Light-Rail, and tolls later – just much more expensive.
Reply • 6 • Like • 2 hours ago
As a matter fact, I do get it, but obviously Jim Moeller does not. Clark County citizens have been speaking for several years now that we do not want light rail, voting it down directly by a 2 – 1 margin in 1995 and again in subsequent proxy votes on tax increases even perceived to support funding light rail, the latest being C-Tran’s Proposition 1 in 2012 to fund operations and maintenance for light rail, defeated by some 20,000 votes.
If the project is put off 10 years or so due to redesign, whose fault is that? Surely not the taxpayers who have been very outspoken against this mess for many years.
We have had economists, engineers, a forensic accountant, business owners and concerned citizens pointing out major flaws in the project as designed for too many years and our voices have been ignored. Now, as the chosen design faces problems obtaining needed permits to being construction, we hear in essence, “we’ve come too far to change now.”
There is no such thing. Continuing down the same flawed path knowing it is flawed, knowing it faces strong opposition from citizens who have to pay for it, knowing it will not solve any problems it is supposed to and that it is nothing more than a tax drain on our economy to benefit another community in another state over our own is not just folly, it borders on criminal.
Jim Moeller doesn’t get it either than we no longer fall for the lies used to promote this boondoggle. He claims a “10-lane bridge” that is a flat out lie as shown by the Columbia River Project themselves to still be only 3 through lanes each way as is the old bridges.
With light rail to be suspended under the new spans clearance for river traffic is impeded. In fact, it would be the lowest bridge crossing the Columbia River for miles, if not the entire length of the river.
That will restrict upriver jobs creation as businesses that now ship goods downriver will not be able to pass underneath unless they reduce their manufacturing. Even the Army Corps of Engineers dredge that must travel upriver from time to time would be unable to clear the called for design.
Crying the project is part of Obama’s “We can’t wait” initiative is just ridiculous. So what? Obama neither lives here nor does he travel through here. He has no expertise in bridges and even though dullards like Moeller think he can walk on water, he can’t. He signs what he I told to.
For years Jim and other proponents cry about “losing federal funding” without Portland’s light rail. That too is a flat out lie. The requirement for federal funding, which is also our tax dollars being returned, is for mass transit that buses or even a Bus Rapid Transit would fulfill.
Also not said is that including light rail makes the bridge project cost more than would be received from the federal government. In other words, they want to spend multiple Billions in order to receive a few hundred Million.
As noted, Oregon continues to state “no light rail, no bridge.”
Okay, what’s the problem? Why do we bend over for whatever Portland wants? Thanks to the Oregon Supreme Court we now know that the sole reason Portland’s Metro agreed to a bridge was in order to force us into accepting their light rail after voter resoundingly rejected it.
What is left out is that some 60,000 Clark County residents work in Portland. Portland is dependent upon Clark County for workers as much as we are dependent upon them for jobs, since we have elected officials like Jim Moeller that caters to Portland and does little or nothing to attract decent wage jobs on our side of the river.
But what happens to Portland should those 60,000 employees not make it to work every day? They would falter much worse than they already are.
They need those 60,000 people and the taxes they pay to Oregon while receiving no representation or anything, except demands for more of our tax dollars to go to Portland.
So no light rail no bridge will hurt Portland even more than it will Clark County.
It is well passed time Jim Moeller and others, like Vancouver hopefully soon to be ex-mayor Tim Leavitt, City Council members Jack Burkman and Larry Smith, Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart, Identity Clark County and several others to realize that they are promoting a project the majority of Clark County have repeatedly said they do not want.
We get it, those Like Jim Moeller do not. And it’s long past time too that those still in office revisit their own words over the years and those who used to be in office, even if they now support this boondoggle.
A March 26, 2001 Oregonian article, “Vancouver Mayor Revives Discussion Over Light Rail” reveals former County Commissioner Betty Sue Morris’ concern if “it would relieve our congestion issues for north and southbound traffic,” and “light rail would hasten the flow of workers from Washington to Oregon and make it more difficult to create jobs in Clark County.”
Vancouver lawyer Stephen Horenstein, a proponent of light rail is quoted in the same article, “If this is to be successful, it has to come not from government, but from the private sector, the business community and the community at large. I think if we are going to be successful, this has to come from the people.”
Campaigning for reelection in September 2010, County Commissioner Steve Stuart, a proponent said, “if Clark County residents don’t support it [light rail], ‘then the states have the wrong project’.”
In the 2012 election, as we did in 1995, 2002 and 2004 voters showed they still do not support light rail.
What part of that does Jim Moeller not get?
