Once again, they just don’t get it (read our previous post from April 23rd).

Here’s what the Sound Transit Board says in an email re: the 1-2 minute per person “hearing” they received from potentially impacted taxpayers (homeowners and business owners) at the April 23rd Board Meeting:

“The Sound Transit Board on Thursday:

Heard continuing comments from residents, neighborhoods and businesses on various East Link alignment alternatives, impacts and concerns. The Sound Transit Board will consider the selection of a “Locally Preferred Alternative” route in May as part of the East Link Environmental Impact Statement process that continues into 2010.”

3 minutes has always been limiting enough for public comment, let alone LESS TIME.

In addition, Sound Transit has a rule that a citizen can usually only speak to “action items“- agenda items being decided on THAT DAY- by which time, public comment is not in time to actually influence the decision-makers’ process, or give Board members a chance to ask relevant questions of staff.

Public agencies such as Sound Transit, with a constant tax stream from taxpayers, can and should do far better to respond to and represent their constituents, by actually hearing them for more than 60 seconds, when the issue at hand has already been decided (privately) and is moot..

Obviously, the Sound Transit Board has to:

1. Conduct their business (action items) in a timely manner, and understandably,

2. The Board needs to hear staff updates re: the proposed East Link alignments (along with mitigation , costs, and environmental impacts, etc.), but to allocate 1 minute to 2 minutes per person to hear public comments regarding East Link  issues is really lousy and unresponsive, by any standard of accountability to the taxpaying public.

Ever thought of lengthening the meeting so that the public (between 10- 20 regular folks showed up, that aren’t on the transportation payroll in any way(staff, consultants, city representatives) ) can communicate with the Sound Transit Board?

Ever considered public access to government decision-makers as a Sound Transit goal or value?

We posted the other day (click here) about this disturbing development coming from Seattle Mayor (& Sound Transit Chair) Greg Nickels.

What doesn’t Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council understand? According to the Seattle Times,

“The state’s Open Public Meetings Act requires that meetings of public governing bodies be open. The law applies to their votes — but also discussions and deliberations leading up to votes.”

According to Times reporter Emily Heffter:

“A Seattle Times reporter was denied entrance to a budget briefing on Thursday afternoon. Tom Von Bronkhorst, a legislative aide to Councilmember Jean Godden, physically dragged the reporter away from it by the strap of her bag.

Does that sound like open government & transparency to you?

“Godden has said the mayor requested the meetings, and the council agreed to include no more than four council members at a time to avoid having a quorum, or a majority of the nine-member board. A meeting of a quorum must be public under the open-meeting law.

“That may comply with the letter of the law, but it sure doesn’t meet the spirit of the act,” said Tim Ford, the open-government ombudsman at the state Attorney General’s Office. “It sure looks like they’re trying to avoid the letter of the law, and that’s disturbing.”

“Michael Reitz, an attorney for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, said discussions leading up to a vote should be public under the open-meetings act. Council members could be personally liable if they break the law, he said.

“It’s not just the vote that has to be public, it’s all the debate and discussion around it,” he said.

“The public deserves to know everything that goes on in the discussion and the debates that are surrounding the budget items … They’re obviously trying to get consensus about some of the more controversial items before they go into a public forum.”

We don’t need any more secrecy in government. Here is the law, from the Seattle Times (click here):

Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act

THE ACT (RCW 42.30), which became law in 1971, states: “All meetings of the governing body of a public agency shall be open and public and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the governing body of a public agency.”It demands deliberations of a public board or agency “be conducted openly,” including “deliberations, discussions, considerations, reviews (and) evaluations … “

The act states “all public commissions, boards, councils, committees, subcommittees, departments, divisions, offices, and all other public agencies of this state … exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent … that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them.“

In an article in the Seattle Times, Reporter Emily Heffter mentions that :

“The Seattle City Council wants to discuss midyear cuts to the city general fund in a series of closed-door meetings with the mayor’s staff, budget committee chairwoman Jean Godden said. The private meetings raise a question about whether the council would be skirting the state’s Open Public Meetings Act.”

…”Alex Fryer, a spokesman for (Seattle Mayor Greg) Nickels, said the smaller meetings would allow decision-makers to “float an idea” and speak more openly than they could in public meetings, he said. “You want to do that in a more private fashion.”

Shouldn’t public officials have the backbone to ask questions and speak their minds regarding issues in a transparent, open fashion?

Shouldn’t their constitents be allowed to know what leads these folks to make decisions and know their stance so that they can vote accordingly at the next election?

What would our state, local & agency governments be like if their Boards could all meet in small groups to float ideas & form their opinions outside of the public eye?

Greg Nickels is also the Sound Transit Chair. Would the public be OK with Sound Transit, WSDOT, &/or other state or regional agencies dividing their Board members into small groups to skirt open meetings laws?

One has to wonder about the reason for their recent “Sound Transit Board retreat“, and what unnecessary amount of money that cost the taxpayers…

Here are comments from John Niles from March 31st via email:

“The following language setting up a careful last look at floating light rail across Lake Washington has been inserted into the State House version of the WSDOT funding bill now being considered in Olympia:

QUOTE: (17) The department [WSDOT] shall not sign the final environmental impact statement for the east link [light rail] project or negotiate an airspace lease with sound transit for the use of the Interstate 90 center roadway for exclusive use by light rail until completion of an independent facility asset assessment by the joint transportation committee. UNQUOTEThe complete bill is at http://leap.leg.wa.gov/leap/Budget/Detail/2009/ht0911bill_0330.pdf .

If you support this provision, now would be a good time to contact your legislators and say that. Light rail fans are screaming for its removal.

This provision fits nicely with the CETA input to the draft East Link EIS that demands a strong bus alternative be included in that light rail EIS assessment to put on record the higher transit capacity and wider geographic reach that is possible from Sound Transit’s billions.

This dust up is related to a House funding provision — described in the Seattle Times at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008952405_bridgerail31m.html and in the online PI at http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/165394.asp — that is proposing to delay State financial support for doing the restriping of the I-90 outer roadway lanes (3 lanes now into 4 narrower lanes) to get ready for passenger railroad takeover of that bridge’s center roadway, instead of filling it up with buses, vanpools, and carpools.

Point to remember — the Federal Record of Decision on East Link is at least a year away from completion. There is time available to do the analysis on I-90 the House wants to see done, and fold it into the final EIS.

Another point — Sound Transit’s daily tax revenue is about to double as a result of its Prop 1 victory. Why shouldn’t Sound Transit foot the bill for all I-90 changes related to light rail?

John Niles”

In an article on Horse’s Ass Blog (click here), the site posts verbiage from the House Transportation Budget (click here):

“(17) The department shall not sign the final environmental impact statement for the east link project or negotiate an airspace lease with sound transit for the use of the Interstate 90 center roadway for exclusive use by light rail until completion of an independent facility asset assessment by the joint transportation committee.”

In an article today in the Seattle Times titled: “State budget cuts could hit I-90 light rail”, Mike Lindblom reports:

“As they look for budget cuts, state lawmakers are backing out of their earlier $29 million commitment to help Sound Transit build light rail across the Interstate 90 Floating Bridge.”

Here’s an interesting bit, pointing out the financial relationship (and possibly implied bias) between Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC)  & Sound Transit:

” I think it is a betrayal to the voters, especially Eastside voters who are counting on the commitment to get rail,” said Bill LaBorde, state policy director for the Transportation Choices Coalition. (Sound Transit is a contributor to the coalition’s education fund.)

This looks like a negotiation to see who will pay for the project:

“State Sen. Fred Jarrett, D-Mercer Island, said Sound Transit will have to pay for access to I-90 anyway and the $29 million car-pool-lane cost would become part of that discussion.”…

Interesting point re: the history of what Sound Transit previously promised…

….”Michael Ennis, transportation analyst for the conservative Washington Policy Center, said Sound Transit should bear the full cost, because the agency promised two-way car-pool and bus lanes as part of the 1996 Sound Move ballot measure. “

This information re: funding the R8A center roadway came in an email from Representative Fred Jarrett:

“The I-90 center roadway was funded with a combination of federal funds and state gas taxes.  Gas taxes are constitutionally protected and cannot be used to fund transit projects, and the federal funds come with strings attached to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).   It is critical all three parties (ST, the state and FHWA) have a sense of urgency regarding the negotiations driven by the ST schedule for construction of light rail across the floating bridge.

Funding R8A is dependent on these negotiations.  I have no doubt that the ST share of R8A, the compensation for FHWA funding of the center roadway and tolls (HOT lanes or full tolling of general purpose lanes) will provide adequate funding for the project and on a timeline which will support East Link schedules.”

More to come…

The Seattle Transit Blog reports today that the Legislature has not funded a transportation project that, in STB’s opinion, would delay ST2 East Link Light Rail:

“March 25, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Legislature Blocks East Link

Today at 12:30, the state Senate Transportation Committee released their 2009-2011 budget proposed project list (see LEAP Transportation Document 2009-1, Highway Projects).

R8A, the I-90 HOV lane project that MUST be complete for East Link to be built, is completely missing. This blocks a $4.5 billion investment that we’ve already funded.

On the other hand, there’s plenty of money for I-405 widening, a project regional voters voted against in the 2007 Roads & Transit measure.

If no change is made here immediately, this decision will delay East Link, as well as up the price tag by hundreds of millions for every year of delay.”

Regardless, is there something we don’t know about the future viability of getting light rail across a floating bridge (never been done in the world)?

Is the Washington State budget so bad that delaying the project is necessary? STB doesn’t mention that because of the economy, Sound Transit’s tax projections are reported to be $2.1 Billion short. Click here

Are all of the East Link B segments so problematic (huge environmental concerns, condemnations, transportation & business impacts in Downtown Bellevue if B3 is utilized, historical impacts to numerous resources on the National Register of Historic Places & eligible properties, etc) that  none of them are affordable to mitigate?

Is it a glaring omission by legislators?

More to come…

In a New York Times article titled: “Under Strain, Cities Are Cutting Back Projects” , the changed economic situation for cities and agencies is outlined:

“Analysts said the dysfunction in the municipal bond markets appeared to signal the end of an era of relatively cheap money for governments and, probably, the start of an era of tough choices for communities.

When the market starts moving again, they said, it will look a lot like the municipal bond market of 10 years ago, before the arrival of financial wizardry in the form of structured-finance products, which lowered borrowing costs but added big new risks. Instead, governments will probably be issuing plain-vanilla bonds with fixed rates of interest, higher than they are accustomed to.

And higher rates suggest some degree of belt-tightening, especially difficult in places where tax revenues are being squeezed because of falling real estate values and the slowing economy.”

How will this difficult market for credit affect the ultimate cost of large projects like Sound Transit 2 (Prop 1)?

How might that affect the price of the Prop 1 tax proposal and subsequent tax burden on families?

Read the article at: “Under Strain….”