As I suspected last year during the campaign for the 2012 election, Annette Cleveland has shown herself to be nothing more than another Jim Moeller tool blindly advocating for the Columbia River Crossing light rail project.
Cleveland, a Democrat from Washington’s 49th legislative district, the same district as Moeller was easily elected, even though she had no political experience that even the Lazy C admitted her opponent, Republican Eileen Qutub had the qualifications as they endorsed Cleveland.
But elected she was and as suspected, walks lock-step with the Democrat Party and Jim Moeller.
I say this as just this afternoon I received her June 3, 2013 e-newsletter where much of it is devoted to fearmongering over the collapse of the Skagit River Bridge after having 10 structural support beams damaged by an over-sized load on a semi-truck.
You can see a copy of the email here, but I am going to focus on one paragraph.
“I must admit I was shocked to see the swiftness with which a number of bridge opponents issued public comments so quickly upon the bridge’s collapse — not to voice any concern for public safety but to discourage people from drawing the obvious and logical correlation between the collapse and the tenuous state of the I-5 bridges across the Columbia. The state of our infrastructure, and our efforts to ensure safe roads for the public, should be a far more urgent priority than trying to score political points. I should think that ensuring public safety would be far more important than pursuing a personal bias against light rail.”
Funny how she could be “shocked” at how fast we that see through the CRC smoke screen responded to the immediate onslaught of comparisons of the Skagit River Bridge to the Interstate Bridge proponents call for being replaced to accommodate light rail. Somehow, she seems to have missed that the ‘light rail at any cost’ crowd could even wait for the dust to settle from the collapse before flooding articles with comments condemning opponents and dire warnings of a simple sneeze could cause this bridge to collapse too.
Even when it came out that it was caused by a truck impact, that did not dissuade proponents from “increasing the decibels” to launch into their weeks long fearmongering, led by the Lazy C.
As you should be able to see, Ms. Cleveland engages in it herself with “not to voice any concern for public safety but to discourage people from drawing the obvious and logical correlation between the collapse and the tenuous state of the I-5 bridges across the Columbia.”
Ignored by Ms. Cleveland and proponents is that the Interstate Bridge over the Columbia River is not unsafe. It is not structurally deficient nor is it in danger of collapse, verified by bridge engineers from both the State of Oregon and Washington.
But why let facts get in the way?
Cleveland then launches into her “ensure safe roads for the public, should be a far more urgent priority than trying to score political points” spiel, again completely ignoring that is proponents, her side who we continue to hear “no light rail, no bridge” coming from.
Where is any concern for “safety” by holding a bridge replacement they claim is “unsafe,” hostage to light rail from Portland, Oregon?
Is safety even an issue with her that she would join in holding up a new bridge in order to force her constituents, who have repeatedly voted down light rail and all funding measures put before them, to accept the financially failing and high costs of Portland’s light rail?
Does she condemn that call of “no light rail, no bridge?” No. She condemns those who call out for a safe bridge of the proper height to provide adequate clearance for all river traffic without the expensive light rail.
She ends this paragraph with “I should think that ensuring public safety would be far more important than pursuing a personal bias against light rail.”
Yet, public safety isn’t important enough to condemn holding bridges hostage to light rail that adds no safety, provides no easing for congestion or movement of freight, but does require the lowest clearance along the river for waterborne craft, leaving the bridge more susceptible to collision from vessels navigating the river, since light rail requires a lower bridge to be able to climb the grade.
Apparently, her pursuit of light rail is more important than a safe and adequate bridge, yet she ignores her own complicity in holding bridge safety hostage to light rail by pointing fingers and trying to score political points of her own.
Wouldn’t it be great if the 49th had elected officials who were more concerned with representing constituents in Vancouver than ensuring Portland Oregon’s folly is bailed out?
