A liitle bird called me and told me the Craig Pridemore is trying to screw us for the bridge replacement.

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It wasn't that long ago... I hope you haven't forgotten.

A few years ago, C-Trans tried to nail us with a tax increase. In a county-wide vote to jack up our taxes in November, 2004, C-trans lost 73,959 (46.33%) to 85,684 (53.67%).

What to do... what to do.

The answer?

Gerrymander the C-Trans district so that every retail center of any size would be included in the taxing district... and then EXCLUDE the areas that had voted against the tax increase.

So, the result is that in the first election, 207,611 citizens of this county were eligible to vote on this measure, and about 160,000 did.

In the despicable abuse of power reflected in the SECOND election in September, 2005; about 51,000 voters were excluded from the vote, but not from paying the tax.

The result? The result was approval by 45,322 (67.78%) to 21,545 (32.22%).

That's right, they gerrymandered the borders of the taxing district, in some areas ONLY ONE STREET WIDE, so they could exclude 10's of thousands of us from voting on this tax increase, but not from PAYING the tax increase.

It was government at it's scummy worst.

And now, it's back.

Sen. Craig Pridemore, (The Downtown Mafia's own!) from the 49th District, also known as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Vancouver, has introduced a bill (SB 5540) to do the same thing... this time to screw us for light rail.

Pridemore, best known for screwing the people of the State of Washington by voting "yes" on a budget that even HE acknowledged, in HIS own floor speech, "was balanced on the backs of the poor and the powerless;" wants this bill so he and his fellow extortionists can, once again, draw the boundaries around each and every retail outlet of any size while working hard to exclude the tens of thousands of us opposed to the Downtown Mafia's extortion.

There is no excuse for this kind of criminal enterprise. If Pridemore or any of the scum supporting this effort had any guts, they'd be dropping a bill requiring a county-wide vote on this massive waste of billions of dollars. But that requires courage that Pridemore will never know.

Pridemore has been a gutless waste of skin since he was first elected. This despicable act on his part will forever be tied to the infamy where he and he alone will be responsible for screwing hundreds of thousands of people in Clark County.

I hope you choke on it, scumbag.
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