He's been a mystery to me in many respects: I urged and supported his position on the small potatoes' issue of the ballpark scam, (He was opposed) but in his rabid defense and effort to look for excuses for reasons not to find a vote on the biggest rip-off in the history of the Northwest since 54-40 or Fight!, the only conclusion I can arrive at is that he is a political coward.
It's been a long time since most of those in the downtown mafia or elective office in Vancouver have concerned themselves with the will of the people.
Marc Boldt wouldn't, and look what happened to him.
Burkman's colleague and major league slimeball, Tim "the liar" Leave-it, for example, ran on a campaign of lies detailed in this blog during his campaign... only to get elected once he convinced the suckers who supported him because of his anti-toll stance that he really, really, kinda sorta meant it... at least long enough to get elected.
Burkman, on the other hand.... Well, he first rose to prominence when a guy with no money and no real campaign kicked Burkman's butt in a primary because he'd been the hand-picked by the Seattle democrats candidate to run in the House race against then Rep. Jim Dunn.
He got clobbered. Burkman had something approaching $100K in that primary, his opponent, Pat Campbell (Something of a single-term city council debacle himself, bounced out in his next primary) had raised enough for a latte' in copmparison and he took our Burkman much like Boldt was removed... except, of course, Boldt's opponent had more money. Still, it was gruesome. And it should have been a lesson to Jack, but apparently, it wasn't.
Now, even though the Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that the entire CRC is a scam, start to finish, Jack Burkman and the other cabal of looter/tollers are bound and determined to ram this thing down our throats, accomplish nothing once it's built, and suck $100,000,000 or more a year out of our local economy to do it on a permanent basis, all to get the horrific camel's nose of loot rail under our community's tent flap.
Additional loot rail efforts on the part of Burkman and his Winged Monkeys will cost us additional billions if this carbuncle of a loot rail bridge is built, while sucking up scarce transportation dollars for a desperately needed 3rd and 4th bridge across the river; all while torpedoing equally needed local road construction to keep the transportation infrastructure a pace with the exploding population of Portland's refugees in Clark County who simply cannot abide living in the train wrecks known as Oregon... or Vancouver. (While the county population has doubled plus since I moved here some 25 years ago, few move in west of I-205, since living in a zoo isn't all that enticing.)
We get all the lies. Paul Montague of CRC fame tried that scam at a town hall meeting weekend before last and I let him have it by reading directly from the court decision referred to which detailed how the scam worked, and why the entirety of the project was to get light rail into Clark County generally and Vancouver specifically, and the only way they could get us hicks to bite on their rip off was to toss in a new bridge.
Montague denied that, at first, but he had little to say after I excerpted the decision in question and read it to the town hall crowd.
So even he knows it now, and if he had any honor, he'd resign from this scam in protest. He hasn't resigned. What does that mean?
Meanwhile, citizens of Vancouver have been trying to put a vote together by petition. If the clowns running Vancouver were threatened with a howitzer to their heads they'd refuse to do it.
Why?
Because the last thing they want to be confronted with is irrefutable proof that the people of their community or this county don't want this scam to by built.
Ibn the l;ast election, for example, both the scammer's efforts to jack up our taxes AND their CRC butt-boy were slaughtered in the election. That, apparently, had no meaning to these slime... but is this where I once again point out that the pro-CRC incumbent (Boldt ) recieved 21,000 fewer votes than the anti-CRC incumbent, Mielke?
Messages like that are far too subtle for people like Burkman.
Now, these people running the petition effort have worked very hard to get this thing passed so there will be a vote: the city, naturally, has done all they can to keep it from happening. This is, after all, a city that TWICE voted to SUE THEIR CITIZENS INTO SILENCE on the Pollard Hilton/downtown redevelopment scam.
Some of the details for that are here: Vancouver won't push to validate light-rail petition.
Not because they can't, you understand. But as a group, the majority of the city council are cowards and disgraces to democracy who believe their judgment superior to that of the people they would govern. No.... it's because they won't.
So, where does Burkman come in for special attention?
Fellow blogger extraordinaire, Lew Waters explains it. Note what Lew alleges, and then note Burkman's incredibly lame and false response:
Lew Waters · Top Commenter · Works at Stateside Associates Best Local Politics Blog
Since our elected officials continue to refuse to follow the democratic process, yes it is time it went to court.
Of course, the easy way to avoid it all would be to just allow the people to vote and express their opinion.
But I have a feeling they are counting it going to court, tying it up for years and being too late to matter, whatever the ruling will be.
Jack Burkman · Top Commenter · Council Member at Vancouver USA City Government
The current state law is very clear about how city initiative signatures must be counted. I could choose to ignore that and just accept the duplicate signatures, but I would be violating my oath of office where I swore to uphold the state law. I agree, this is likely to be changed by the courts, but it's the courts that have to decide this, not a City Council. We don't get to decide which laws we follow and which we don't, regardless of the court cases we may find.
Lew Waters · Top Commenter · Works at Stateside Associates Best Local Politics Blog
In the meantime, it travels through the judicial system while it is full speed ahead on CRC and light rail, right?
What code, charter or RCW prohibits the city from allowing the people to express their opinion by a vote?
If the people had been allowed to vote, as they were promised in more than one campaign, there never would have been a petition effort.
What Burkman leaves out is the obvious alternative:
Put the question to the voters WITHOUT the petition!
The idea that this CAN'T be done is shear, unadulterated, slime. The city of Vancouver HAS run advisory votes in the past: how hard would it be to write up an ordinance using the language in the petition...
.... AND PUT IT TO A VOTE AS IF THE PETITION (which is legally sufficient, according to case law) HAD UNQUESTIONABLY QUALIFIED?
Why, not hard at all.
Unless your name is Burkman, and, well, you simply don't want to know.
Then, ignoring this effort and the tens of thousands of people you govern who are becoming increasingly rabid in their opposition to this rip off becomes relatively easy.
And Councilman Burkman? Your efforts to block me from seeing your responses on Facebook are as lame as your complete lack of political will to allow the people to have a voice before you enslave them with tolls neither we, nor the small businesses of this community cannot afford, for decades to come.
Just sayin'.
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