The second special session ended shortly after 6 PM, June 29, 2013.
All of the whining, crying and gnashing of teeth won’t help now, only divine intervention will breathe any life into the CRC and Inslee’s massive $10 Billion Transportation package to be heaped on the backs of struggling middle class voters across the state with a 10.5¢ gas tax increase and other fee increases to fund it.
The Senate Coalition majority held fast and remained unified today as efforts get some to change their minds failed.
An AP report, Wash. Senate leaders decline $10B transpo plan indicated the final nail in the coffin late this afternoon.
The failure of the plan came despite Inslee, who had hoped the bill would be approved this weekend. Business leaders, which have often been aligned with this year’s Senate majority, had also asked for the bill, saying transportation improvements were necessary.
Ted Sturdevant, Inslee’s executive director for legislative affairs, said he has to “go tell my boss” after talking with [Democrat Rodney] Tom about the Senate decision.
“He’ll be disappointed,” Sturdevant said, but acknowledged “I don’t see a path.”
Governor Inslee might be disappointed, but the struggling middle class should feel elated over not facing the proposed increases, especially the 10.5¢ gas tax increase at a time gas prices remain overly high.
I suspect Inslee is not the only one disappointed this evening, having eagerly looked forward to further burdening the middle class taxpayer for a pet project too few wanted, forcing Clark County to accept Portland, Oregon’s financially failing light rail in spite of it being voted down 4 times, once directly and 3 times by proxy.
Mayor Tim ‘the Liar’ Leavitt, “Rep. Jim ‘sue your constituents to invalidate their votes’ Moeller, County Commissioner Steve Stuart, Vancouver City Council members Jack Burkman, Paul Montague, Jeff Hamm of C-Tran as well as Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber are not doubt deep in depression currently trying to figure out what went wrong as they felt they had this all wrapped up against the wishes of taxpayers.
An effort at a silly computer game was also made in an effort to grow support and convince people how the project would ease congestion, ignoring the revelation in an Oregon Supreme Court ruling early last year that light rail was the only reason Oregon agreed to a bridge, a bridge that sucked up $170 Million in studies and couldn’t even design one with a safe clearance for River traffic and requiring efforts to “mitigate” with businesses upriver that would see drastic losses in profits and jobs.
Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom said he looks forward in the coming months to working with other Senators and coming up with a real Transportation Package that I imagine will actually address our needs to repair and replace infrastructure over funding bloated mega-projects that really aren’t needed at this time.
I suspect the effort will also be one taxpayers can support and that will be affordable, not a ram it down our throats effort we have seen over the years with the CRC.
In spite of a clear indication the bill was dead; Senate Democrats tried the same procedural move as did the Republicans and two Democrats last year, the 9th order, to bring the transportation bill to the Senate floor for a vote.
The effort failed by a vote of 21 to 26, effectively killing the bill for this year.
So what do we do now? We first should rejoice as years of growing citizen opposition, educating the public through outreach, blogs like this one and Clark County Politics, informative websites like Stop CRC, CRCFacts.info, NoTolls.com, Couv.com and the relentless research and work of Sharon Nasset & Jim Karlock of Portland and the meticulous forensic accounting research of Tiffany Couch helped bring us to this day.
Electing reliable people like City Council members Bill Turlay & Jeanne Stewart an sending people like Sen. Ann Rivers, Liz Pike, Ed Orcutt and supporting Democrats like Rodney King and Tim Sheldon who broke from the ranks to form a true bipartisan majority put us on a path to making our state better.
The Transportation package already signed by Governor Inslee included “$200,000 for a specialized audit to see whether the project had misused public funds” Sen. Benton said in a news release this evening.
“The CRC project officials spent around $170 million dollars without even getting all the necessary permits – and out of that huge sum, they can’t explain where 20 million dollars went. This forensic audit is going to find out. We owe that to the taxpayers,” added Benton.
Some recommendations that came to me we should take serious;
1). Reassign CRC Staff or fire them.
2). Begin to redefine the purpose and need. Instead of Congestion relief lying at the bottom of the list – it will be elevated to the top.
3). Redefine the study area back to its original boundaries – and even larger – making this a truly regional solution, instead of the narrowly defined Bridge Influence Area that CRC Directors sneakily had reduced.
4). Hire competent bridge builders with predetermined dollar amounts for their wages and a rational list of purpose/needs to begin the process of determining the best new route for our new corridor.
5). With the new route in mind – begin the process for the 4th Corridor. The County/City Planners did this community disservice years ago (1985) when they anointed Light rail as king.
Where we go from here is up to us, the People and we should never again allow a group of elected and appointed individuals to circumvent our votes and our voices to place the needs of special interests above that of the People.
While proponents are licking their wounds and throwing out blame everywhere, a “government of the people, by the people and for the people” reined supreme in Washington State today.
We have several local elections this year and urge you all to do your homework, find out what candidates represent and what their values and plans are. Don’t vote for any who aren’t forthcoming and wish to hide their true intent in vague words.
Above all, remain vigilant against such underhanded tactics as we saw with the CRC. It’s our money they almost took, not their own.
