Filed under the "no lie they won't tell" heading...
How often the local rag has lied to us about the horrific bridge replacement/loot rail project they want to ram down our throats... enslaving 65,000 commuting families for the rest of our lives to the tune of $1300 a year in tolls... to begin with... as others pay for THEIR agenda.
The entire project has been lie upon lie.
There never was any alternative from the one they selected that was seriously considered. These scum were so blinded by the vision of loot rail coming into our burg that they ignored real, genuine alternatives that actually COULD have made a difference to freight mobility and congestion on the I-5 corridor... before they finally let the public know their pre-ordained outcome, I was hammering on the fact that in spite of many other viable alternatives, the ONLY acceptable outcome to these vermin was going to be the most expensive and least effective: replace the I-5 Bridge with something the people of this county had ALREADY rejected, by overwhelming numbers: replacing the I-5 Bridge and running loot rail into downtown Vancouver.
How many times has our local stain on journalism told us that we HAVE to have loot rail with this bridge; that the fed REQUIRES loot rail... and that without loot rail, there will not BE any bridge?
Despicable.
A paper that lies to get its agenda across, as the Columbian has repeatedly lied to us about this project... a paper that puts their agenda ahead of the needs of the community... not to mention common sense... is a cancer on our society.
One wonders: how long did the rag know what we now all know?
The information in question is from Victoria Taft's Blog. It says, in part:
Friday, February 04, 2011
2nd Block Buster CRC Story of the Day: No Light Rail Mandate by Feds
Dear: Jim Karlock,
In response to your request for records dated January 31, 2010,:
" Please provide copies of all documents in your posession that claim that the federal government requires light rail as part of the CRC project. "
Please find the answers to the your questions below:There are no documents in our possession that claim that the federal government requires light rail as a part of the CRC project. The Columbia River Crossing project worked with the public, the CRC Task Force, local agencies and elected officials to develop the problem definition and the purpose and need statement. The purpose and need statement received concurrence from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and identifies six problems which the CRC project will address: growing travel demand and congestion; impaired freight movement; limited public transportation operation, connectivity and reliability; safety and vulnerability to collisions; substandard pedestrian and bicycle facilities; and, seismic vulnerability.
Loot rail for this area is the most expensive, least efficient, least flexible form of transportation on earth. The hundred million dollars criminally wasted on this project should cease immediately, and alternative efforts to identify 2 additional locations for cross-river bridges: one west and north of the I-5 Bridge and one East of the I-205 bridge... BOTH bridges COMBINED being cheaper then the horrific proposals confronting us now... should be started immediately... or the entirety of this project should be ended.
Studies have already concluded that the idea of replacing this perfectly safe and functional bridge will accomplish absolutely nothing when it comes to the goals of increasing freight mobility and decreasing congestion... so why are we wasting this money?
We need ADDITIONAL CAPACITY... and what we don't need is outmoded, archaic, horrifically expensive and inefficient form of transportation that is the reason these tens of millions of dollars have vaporized.
We also need a newspaper that will tell the truth... even when that truth conflicts with their vision or their agenda. And the local rag is not that... to our everlasting shame.
.
Last night, I got some insight into this "must have light-rail" requirement - apparently it comes from... Portland.
ReplyDeleteTa-da.
Apparently, nobody of either party in Vancouver has any balls.
For our congresscritter, that's a genetic component. Unfortunately, she COULD grow some and TAKE A STAND.
ReplyDeleteBut we both know that she won't.
I'm reminded of Carville's Tome:
"If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he'd have two."
And if she gave Herrera the remainder... it wouldn't make any difference.
After thinking about this for a while, I recalled that I was told point-blank, no-reservations that the Feds would NOT contribute money unless there was lightrail - "there will be NO bridge without light-rail."
ReplyDeleteI really, really, really don't like being lied to, or made a pawn in someone else's ideology! Therefore, I am making it MY MISSION to find out who started this lie and to expose them as a liar, and remind people over and over that they lied on something this important...
(Kind of like this blog does.)
My rage at government is unspeakable.
ReplyDeleteHow do we know when they're telling the truth... about anything??
Guilty until proven innocent? Just take the default position that they're lying and move on from there?
At some point... this has to stop.
"Government" is just a concept: governments don't lie - people lie.
ReplyDeleteThere is a person, or cadre, out there lying for their agenda. They may be manipulating government? Someone in the CRC or RTC or both is a LIAR.
p.s. Being wrong is not the same as lying.
But KNOWING you're wrong and pushing forward, is.
ReplyDeleteThere is no excuse for this situation; the paper is as culpable and guilty of aiding and abetting as the family of that guy who slaughtered four police officers in the donut shop a while back.
The local paper has an agenda. Those things that clash with that agenda tend not to be talked about... like the fact that they rarely ever quote the opposition to their agenda in any of their articles... ipso facto: there IS no opposition.
Taking it a step further, the paper's failure to ferret out and publicize this information, now into Day Two since it became known, is either bumbling incompetence or a deliberate effort to mislead us by keeping the news from us. After all, we can't have the voting public make a fully-informed decision... can we? Not if that decision conflicts with The Agenda.
It's not unlike The Liar's flip, post election. The most despicable thing about it (and him) is that he never opposed tolls. He just used that as a wedge issue to get elected... but he always supported tolls.
That wasn't being "wrong."
That was lying.
I definitely have a sliding scale: I know advertisers are lying, and people often innocuously lie. I'm not prissy - there is an acceptable level of lying. It's the BIG LIE I get angry at - when the person saying it knows what's at stake.
ReplyDeletep.s. If Leavitt was really lying, and not just a spineless weasel - he deserves jail time.
Martin, Kelly. I would LOVE to know who started the light rail commentary. And now I am loving every minute of the Jim Karlocke commentary
ReplyDeleteThank you for showing the light on it. :)
Karloche deserves a medal. I just wish I had been smart enough to ask the question a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteKelly, Jim has been asking these questions for nearly four years and guess how many times he was sneered at by our local politicians or told that he was from Portland that why should he speak at the city council meetings? (near the end of Royce's tenure, first of the year of Tim's first year as mayor?)
ReplyDeleteSame comment was directed at Sharon Nasset as well.
If you really want to hear what he has to say, go review the last four years of CVTV recordings. I can tell you he has been there saying what the has had to say. Thought he last six months, I have not heard him at the City Council OR Board of Clark County commissioners meetings.
And I'll sum it up here, I doubt Jaime has the balls to stand up and utter a position now that she is in congress. It may be less than six months BEFORE she is going to have to start campaigning again for her seat? (Am I wrong in that sentiment?) And that is going to be the same time frame in early 2012 when the light rail vote is going to start picking up steam and certitude.