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Friday, April 25th, 2008
Posted by Joe Turner @ 01:52:32 pm
Michael Ennis at the Washington Policy Center (he's the transportation director) brought to my attention these excerpts from the Sound Move plan that was adopted on May 31, 1996:
"I would not only say that Sound Transit must keep their promise, but since this language was part of the plan that was passed by voters, Sound Transit may be legally obligated to abide," Ennis wrote today in an e-mail to me. So, as Sound Transit heads toward another ballot measure, I suppose it's fair to ask "How many defeats does it take to indicate that voter approval is not forthcoming?" Proposition 1's defeat was Strike One. Is this a Three Strikes situation? This next block of type also comes from the 1996 plan:
Right. Even so, those "consciously conservative" assumptions weren't enough to keep the project from doubling in price and falling years behind schedule. This is what Sound Transit was fighting when Proposition 1 was on the ballot, and what the agency will face again when they put another measure on the ballot.
Categories: Campaign news, Roads & Transit
• 8 comments
COMMENTS:
I don't really care about that wonky, obstructionist stuff and I think WPC folks are a bunch of right wing hacks (actually, I know they are). But... if a measure does come before voters in the three counties, it better have more benefits to Pierce County and Tacoma than possible new Sounder trains and possible help with expanding the Tacoma Link a little bit. Otherwise, it'll be DOA with voters. (I may still vote for it because I love to see transit built everywhere -- even King County -- but I'm weird that way).
Come on. This is the most affordable mode of transportation. What are we going to do? Get our pennies back from Sound Transit and then hope to buy a half gallon of gas? Get real. Rail around the sound is the only real solution to get out of gridlock. I am a Tacoma to Seattle commuter and my drive is awful every day.
You can verify the pertinent quote I am about to report by pulling up the voters pamphlet passed out for the election last fall.
Roads & Transit Prop 1, although defeated, was about approving Sound Transit's Resolution R2007-15. That resolution contains this language pertinent to tax rollback: "Section 6. The existing four-tenths of one percent sales and use tax, and the existing three-tenths of one percent motor vehicle excise tax approved by the voters as local-option taxes in 1996 shall continue to be levied or imposed for the purposes set forth in Resolution 75 and as provided in Sane Transit v. Sound Transit, 151 Wn.2d 60, 85 P.3d 346 (2004) notwithstanding the outcome of the election provided for herein." Catch those last words? No matter how Prop 1 turns out, Sound Transit is declaring that it is going to keep collecting the taxes it is already collecting, the ten-year taxes approved in 1996, the taxes that would supposedly be rolled back if voters chose to vote against further light rail extensions, as described above by Mike Ennis. I expect that Sound Transit's next ballot measure will contain exactly the same language. Why do I think that? Because Sound Transit has declared in two different places that the agency intends to keep collecting the Sound Move Phase 1 taxes through the year 2016, at least. Sound Transit made these declarations to its most recent bond purchasers and then also to the U.S. Government in its application for a $750 million grant to build the Seattle light rail subway to Husky Stadium. So bottom line, with language like I quoted from the Prop 1 measure, Sound Transit can take as many bites of the apple as it desires in getting more tax revenue for more urban railroad construction. Furthermore, Sound Transit will most likely need all of its 1996 taxes for as long as the Seattle light rail, Sounder commuter rail, Tacoma Link, and Regional Express buses are running, to pay for ongoing operations, maintenance, and refurbishment expenses that are more that what comes in through the fare box.
Current fares charges cover roughly 14% of the cost of operating transit in the Puget Sound area.
I am not sure what North Slope is smoking when He says it is the most affordabele form of transportation. It cost nearly $35,000 per year for every seat on the Sounder just to operate. Transit is not affordable and it is not saving the environment. We have refused to build roads for 30 years so we can be held hostage to transit. WE are causing massive pollution and CO2 emmissions by having millions of cars sitting at idle or moving very slowly on our roads due to congestion.
The above is typical of John Niles – he never knows what he’s talking about. That asphalt-lover has been in Kemper Freeman Jr.’s pocket for years. And no, I don’t know what he does in there . . ..
Niles is way off the mark when he says the agency only committed recently to collecting the taxes for decades more. Yes, everyone knows the tax rollback language is there in the 1996 initiative. However, the agency got around that limit by pledging its taxes to the 1999 bonds for thirty years. And that was in 1999. It was back in the previous millenium that the agency was able to cement into place how long the taxes will stay at the current rates, not because of the 2006 FTA filing like Niles says here. Bear in mind, Niles has a rich history of misreading the 1996 measure voters approved. He led a case all the way to the Supreme Court based on a ludicrous reading of Sound Move (he actually cites it above). Our Justices had to put him in his place, and explain to Niles that his “unique” reading of that measure was idiotic. Niles and his CETA pals actually thought the agency had to stop its taxing completely in 2006. Don’t ask me how he could have thought that – some people just can’t read what’s right there in front of them I suppose. Another thing – how Niles thinks anything in Resolution R2007-15 possibly could be relevant now is beyond me. That resolution mentions the “Sane Transit” opinion, but only in the context of the ST2 portion of Prop. 1. Voters rejected that ballot measure. More to the point of this thread, it isn’t anything in the Sane Transit case that eliminated ST’s requirement to roll back the tax rates – it was the pledge to the bondholders in 1999 – five years before that majority opinion was issued. Niles isn’t a lawyer – trying to get sound legal advice from him is a proven exercise in futility (just ask his sugar daddy Baerwaldt).
Mr. Larson is correct that Sound Transit's 1999 strategic bond sale -- made before ST actually needed the money -- is a key historical factor in ST's ability to spend as much as it wants for as long as it takes on light rail from Northgate to S 200th, the full extent of the Sound Move plan from 1996.
However, Mr. Larson is incorrect that Niles and CETA had anything to do with the legal case from Sane Transit, except to cheer it on. I'm not a lawyer and I don't give legal advice. Like a lot of people, I'm just trying to understand what's going on. I completely missed the significance of the 1999 bond sale until years later. It was in retrospect a brilliantly devious move by Sound Transit, not explained at the time. You've got to love that 1999 bond sale if you support ST's quest to dig a $500 million per mile low-capacity light rail subway tunnel from Pine Street to Northgate. More taxes and bonds are coming to get this segment done, and it's not by any stretch of the imagination the best use of $3 to 4 billion for regional mobility. Comments are not allowed from anonymous visitors. Please login or register to comment. |
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