Kudos to all who fought against this crime: With the most recent death of the CRC Scam.... now what?

It's really a damned shame that those leftists scamming for the CRC don't care what the people of Clark County actually want.

From Tim Leavitt to Marc Boldt to Kelly Parker to Paul Montague to Steve Stuart to Lou Brancaccio to Kitzhaber and Inslee.. we were lied to, shoved aside, ignored and belittled.  We were disrespected and thought to be stupid.  In fact, we still are if we oppose this Nazi-like autobahn project.

Downtown organizations lined up to press THEIR interests against the interests of the people of this community.

Identity Vancouver.... The Chamber of Horrors... CRUDEC... all of them hated us... hated ON us... and hated the very idea that we, who pay the bills, should have had the ultimate say in this matter.

They were wrong.  And now they know.

The lies they used: the lies about congestion, about freight mobility and about safety... the lies could not cover the truth: and the truth is that this entire project was about light rail.  Light rail was lied about so much that it will be a curse word for generations in Clark County. 

How can this kind of idiocy be avoided in the future?

I've written about this before:

How do we avoid this in the future?

First of all, no matter how badly those in authority want something, they should never lie to get it, or use liars to sell it.

Tim "The Liar" Leave-it along with Jim "Molehill" Moeller are the two worst people imaginable to champion this rip off.

Two proven liars out front on this scam, one in the pocket of his boss, a CRC contractor and the other in the pocket of the unions who own him like the 13th Amendment is the 13th Suggestion?

Please.

Second: don't lie as a policy.

We all now know that the entire basis for this scam was to get light rail into Clark County.  Every other reason was smoke and mirrors and lies.  Safety, earthquakes, congestion... none of it justified any of this garbage in the face of the Oregon Supreme Court decision that laid it all out there: it was all about light rail and light rail alone.

Everything else was eyewash.

Third: don't think people are stupid.

This thing has hung from the tree long enough to rot down to the bones.  Don't pee on our legs and try and convince us it's raining.

No one walking upright would dispute the idea that we need additional capacity to get across the river, given the explosive growth of the population here locally in particular and the West Coast generally.

But that "increase" has to BE an "increase."  Spending billions and indebting us for 40- plus years to gain one minute in the commute is sheer, unadulterated idiocy.  Tearing down a bridge claiming, falsely, that it's "old and unsafe" when everyone knows that the ONLY reason the CRC Scammers wanted to replace it was to get the fungus of TriMet over the river is yet another in the series of indications that the Scammers just thought we are stupid.

Here's a clue: if anyone suffers from a lack of intelligence, it's those who now look like blithering idiots for making this criminal attempt to ram this crap pile down our throats.

Grass roots, when properly motivated (And the chief motivator has been the combination of CRC Scammer lies and rank arrogance) can beat you every time.

Federal officials like LaHood have zero throw weight around here:  THEY are not going to have to pay tolls for this garbage for the next 40 years.  We are.

Morons like Inslee and Murray?  No one cares in the face of the facts what lies they repeat.

Fourth, it doesn't matter what Oregon will or won't do.

The only reasonable actions here are to build a third bridge to the west of I-5 and a 4th bridge to the east of I-205.  Those are the only options.

It's idiotic to push a bad hand when everyone else has both better cards and an intimate knowledge of what you're trying to hide.

If Oregon refuses, that's fine.  But Oregon's refusal to do the right thing does not magically turn the wrong thing, the CRC Scam, into the right thing.

We have to do the RIGHT thing, or we do NO thing.  Claiming the CRC Scam is "the best we can do" because Oregon won't do anything else is a non-starter.

Fifth, GET THE SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE.

Seriously.

Put whatever a project like this is going to be up for a vote... and make the vote BINDING.

One of the biggest problems here was the CRC Scammers kept insisting that they didn't need a vote, which was in keeping with their policy of not listening to us... And I mean POLICY.

Imagine where this project would be right now, today, if the Scammers had held a vote and had won?

These issues may not be the only ones needed to make this a success... but these 5 at a minimum ARE needed.

Now, the question is... who shills the next issue?

Those championing any upcoming project who have been shilling THIS project will start with zero credibility.

They lied repeatedly to get what they wanted.   They shut people out of the project.  How can they be believed in the future?

They can't be.  So, the next time we need to take their word for it... what do they think we'll do?