See their website at: http://www.eastsiderailnow.org/proposition_1_redo.html

Here is the first 10:

1.   It would do little to reduce traffic congestion.

2.   It would provide little environmental benefit.

3.   Poor choices were made on selecting the rail routes.

4.   It would downgrade some existing bus service.

5.   It would result in wasteful construction of duplicative facilities.

6.   The start of rail operations would be too slow.

7.   It is mainly a transit system for Seattle.

8.   Serious technical problems remain regarding use of the I-90 floating bridge.

9.   It would have an adverse effect on freight mobility.

10.   So-called “bus rapid transit” may not be effective.

Read all “29 Reasons to Vote No”  at : http://www.eastsiderailnow.org/proposition_1_redo.html

• How long will the tax be implemented?
• What corridors are being considered for light rail?
• How will the measure affect existing and future bus service?
• Will there be environmental impacts from construction?
• What are the costs vs. the benefits of approving this project?

Ask these and other important questions on the proposed ST2 tax measure at the

Neighbors for Responsible Transportation (NRT) Transportation Forum on the Sound Transit (2) tax proposal for fall 2008:

When: This coming Saturday, October 4th

Where:  Bellevue City Hall (in Council Chambers): 450 110th Avenue N.E., Bellevue 98004

Time: From 10:00am-11:30am.

Moderator: Radio commentator and newspaper columnist John Carlson.

YES speakers: 41st District Rep. Fred Jarrett, and John Franklin of CH2M Hill

NO speakers: Dick Paylor of the Eastside Transportation Association, and Ted Lane, an economist and traffic-noise-impact consultant.

Free Parking:  There is street construction going on currently near Bellevue City Hall.

*Free parking can be accessed from the north, on NE 6th street, or on 110th Avenue SE coming from the north, as directed through a detour.

Here are some of ours:

• What will we pay in increased sales and other taxes?
• What can we expect in the way of congestion relief?
• How does bus rapid transit (BRT) compare to light rail transit (LRT)?
• Will there be noise impacts?
• Will we see elevated light rail corridors like at Sea-Tac?
• When will the system be operational?
• What will we get for our money?
• If we don’t approve Proposition One, what will happen?

Ask your own questions at the:

Neighbors for Responsible Transportation (NRT) Transportation Forum on the Sound Transit (2) tax proposal for fall 2008:

When: This coming Saturday, October 4th

Where:  Bellevue City Hall (in Council Chambers): 450 110th Avenue N.E., Bellevue 98004

Time: From 10:00am-11:30am.

Moderator: Radio commentator and newspaper columnist John Carlson.

YES speakers: 41st District Rep. Fred Jarrett, and John Franklin of CH2M Hill

NO speakers: Dick Paylor of the Eastside Transportation Association, and Ted Lane, an economist and traffic-noise-impact consultant.

Free Parking:  There is street construction going on currently near Bellevue City Hall. Free parking can be accessed from the north, on NE 6th street, or on 110th Avenue SE coming from the north, as directed through a detour.

Seattle is nannying again.

“Faced with more cars than places to park on Seattle streets, the city’s Transportation Department is considering restricting the number of residential parking permits people can have.”

Who gets to use a car? You or your roommate?

Will this proposal create more problems than it attempts to solve?

Read the article at : http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/373179_park01.html?source=rss

PROPOSED CHANGES

Limited to one permit per household:

Zone 4 on Capitol Hill

Zone 7 on First Hill

Zone 13 on Lower Queen Anne

Zone 21 in the Pike-Pine area of Capitol Hill

Zone 24 in the Cascade neighborhood near South Lake Union

Limited to two permits per household:

Zone 2 near Providence Hospital

Zone 5 in Wallingford

Zone 6 in the east University District

Zone 8 in Eastlake

Zone 10 in the west University District

Zone 15 in the Belmont/Harvard area on Capitol Hill

Zone 17 on north Beacon Hill

Zone 20 in Ravenna/Bryant

Zone 22 near Lincoln High School

Comment on the proposal at: www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/rpz_policy_review.htm

The city is seeking input until Oct. 20. Contact city parking planner Mary Catherine Snyder at 206-684-8110 or e-mail her at marycatherine.snyder@seattle.gov.

So far, the comments on the PI’s site are at 79- want to bet how high they go?

The Bellevue City Council will seek comments from people about proposed changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan and other recommendations related to developing a light rail system at a study session Monday at City Hall.

Light-rail opponents launch pre-emptive strike with radio ads Seattle Times, United States - Jul 10, 2008 Sound Transit hasn't decided whether to put a light-rail measure before voters this fall, but opponents already are airing radio ads against it. ...

Attorney-client limits debated The Olympian, WA - Jul 9, 2008 Two narrowly decided state Supreme Court decisions since 2005 — involving Sound Transit and a Spokane School District child's death — opened the door to ...

Proposed light rail project draws keen interest Eastside Business Journal, Washington - 3 hours ago A large crowd turned out for Monday's Council study session to hear Sound Transit staff update elected officials on a proposed East Link Light Rail project ...

See the article by Hunter George of the News Tribune:

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler told The Daily World, the newspaper in Aberdeen, that she has no plans “now or ever” to endorse fellow Democrat John Ladenburg’s campaign for attorney general.

That’s because he continues to diss her open-government bill that would require local governments to record their executive sessions. The Pierce County Council was fine with it, but lots of other local governments weren’t, so the bill died.

“Local governments are, obviously, still afraid of my bill even now and are trying to come up with every kind of excuse possible to avoid it,” said Kessler, D-Hoquiam.

Local governments afraid of tape recording their executive sessions. That can’t be good.

And remember, John Ladenburg was Sound Transit Chair when the agency’s furtive behavior prompted the Washington State Legislature to create a new law to notify people when agencies are planning to act to take their property.

Ladenburg still defends Sound Transit’s extreme behavior in that matter, and is not supportive of increased government transparency.

Ladenburg was also one of the chief architects of the enormously bloated Sound Transit/Proposition 1 tax proposal that failed in fall 2007, reportedly because taxpayers weren’t able or willing to pay the huge additional cost in taxes.

Is that the recipe for a “people’s advocate” (Attorney General)?

Reporter Larry Lange at the Seattle P-I reports that the Washington State Auditor’s Office is going to conduct, among other things, and audit of Sound Transit to see whether:

• “Whether its publicly disseminated financial information can be understood and is useful.

• The audit also will examine whether its public meetings are convenient for citizens and how “transparent” the agency is.“

Here are a few answers to those questions:

1. Public meetings of the Sound Transit Board are held in the afternoon (4pm) when most people are at work and unable to attend.

Usually the bulk of the people who attend these meetings are:

* paid contractors and consultants who make their living off of Sound Transit’s public funds,

* city representatives that support light rail alignments that bring said tax dollars to their respective cities,

* elected officials whose future candidacies and fundraising abilities depend on appearing to go along & get along with large public agencies such as Sound Transit,

* developers and property owners who would directly benefit from the accompanying land use upzoning (increase in allowed development density) along proposed light rail corridors (see Martin Luther King Way South), and

* a handful of regular citizens and/or agency critics attending in order to speak to the Sound Transit Board.

2. The public is usually instructed that they can only speak about “action items” on the agenda for discussion and direction on by the Sound Transit Board that particular day, by which time, a citizen has little or no impact on the thinking of Board members or the process.

3. Transparency-hmmm. The smallest request for information can result in a redirect to the public information officer, who then requires citizens to ask for information through a public disclosure process which can take weeks or months.

4. Sound Transit routinely cherry picks their result-driven (push) polls & surveys to their desired outcome, and then proclaims broad support for light rail tax packages that is tenuous at best.

5. This is the public agency that hid information (buried so deep in a website) regarding taking the Miller property in Tacoma, that the Washington State Legislature later hastened to create a NEW LAW to protect home and property owners, and REQUIRE Sound Transit to at the very minimum to NOTIFY people by certified letter when they were about to take their property. Does that seem voluntarily transparent?

Does this behavior bleed over into the usefulness or accessibility of the financial information that they provide to the public? Very possibly.

Lange reports that Mindy Chambers, spokesperson for the state Auditor’s Office, says that her office gets more questions about the Seattle-based agency (Sound Transit) “than pretty much anything else.“