For the last 3 plus months, the CRC has been wasting millions working on a bridge design that was far too short, and Leave-it knew... and did NOTHING about it!
Props to the Columbian for even mentioning another in the series of reasons to drop this bridge/loot rail plan into the river... even if they did bury it.
Those in the know knew CRC too short
Blog: All politics is local
When The Columbian broke the story about the Coast Guard's concerns that the Columbia River Crossing was too low, it blindsided a lot of people, like a boat into the bottom of a bridge.
But not all.
Obviously, the CRC staff and the Coast Guard knew what was up, but the CRC had also been quietly informing those "in the know" about the problem.
A Vancouver city official was among them. So was Mayor Tim Leavitt.
When I mentioned it to him during a coffee meeting last week, he said that with a bi-state, multi-agency project, it would be impossible to not have setbacks.
"To expect that everything is going to be smooth sailing is Disneyland," said Leavitt, an engineer in his private job.
He said opponents were "grasping at straws" for reasons to hate and kill the CRC. I pointed out that an impasse that could result in $105 million to $150 million more in costs may not be a "straw" to most people.
"100 million to a $3.2 billion project, that's almost a rounding figure," Leavitt pointed out.More:
Leave-it, who was elected on his ability to lie, should know better than to take that default view now.
Unfortunately, SW Washington is saddled with a dishonest, arrogant elected official who can negatively impact our lives for decades to come far our of proportion to his position as chief con artist for the CRC.
We could only hope that this rip off of a project had gone as smoothly as the development of Disneyland.
Now, of course, we've received confirmation that the entirety of this project is a sop to clowns like Leave-it, to get him to drink the loot rail kool aid. His failure to bring this issue out to the public should, naturally, result in his immediate impeachment and removal from office, but the people of Vancouver of course do have the government they deserve.
For any elected official to have the information we've now come to realize and keep it secret?
Somehow "despicable" doesn't quite cover it.
3 comments:
And to think, Leave-it is supposedly an "engineer?"
My grandsons could see that designing a bridge with significantly lower clearance than one just a couple miles away, with both handling the same river traffic, would present a problem.
They have their heads so far up their collective asses over light rail that obvious simple problems that will add millions are neglected.
The most obvious answer here, since there is also a FAA height restriction, dump the idea of the lower deck to run light rail.
Problem solved.
But, the only real reason this nightmare continues is to force light rail on us, whether we want it or not.
We're paying for it, but Portland is calling the shots because we don't have a mayor with any kajones.
I had an interesting email exchange with Jim Moeller about the Oregon Supreme Court verbage. Normally Jim's pretty straight up when he talks ("I'm here to spend money not cut it") but his email was like something from Jaime Herrera. I have no idea where he's at on light rail? If the Oregon Supreme Court can call a spade a spade, the light rail apologists can too.
So, was Nancy Boyd reaaly blind sided as she claimed or was that just a show?
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