Good Evening
What a great night. Not only was the council meeting well attended, but the council got an ear full from concerned angry citizens. Chastised for eliminating "Rescue Three", Plotting and planning to waste our hard earned tax dollars, questioning how and why decision are made, to reading to Councilman Campbell the riot act for critiscizing a citizen via his city of Vancouver email, to having their ability to properly prioritizing Spending
Larry
My comments to th Council: Mayor Leavitt was absent.:
Good evening, my name is Larry Patella; I have been a Vancouver resident since 1976. If you have had the opportunity to read any of my email, You must know that I have repeatedly voice my concerns: (a) that nobody is minding the store and (b) my displeasure in the way most politician carry out their Fiduciary responsibilities. You are the custodians of our tax dollars. Yet our tax dollars have and continue to be wasted. From my vantage point you folks are planning on wasting more. Politicians at all levels (every elected official from the proverbial county Dog Catcher to Barack Hussein Obama) are plotting behind closed doors to dig deeper into our pockets.
Unfortunately, your track record in this area is nothing to write home about. Almost without exception, every crazy scheme that you folks or your predecessor have forced upon us has been a colossal failure. Lets take a short trip down memory lane:
Five times, we voted no on spending money we didn’t have for public swimming pools. Our no votes were ignored and several were built. We now have had our first failure. I hope this does not come as a surprise but it cost money to own things.
Twice we went to court with the city because we were denied our constitutional right to vote on building with some 73 million-tax payer dollars the Hilton hotel and convention center. Again we were ignored. To add insult to injury an untold number of taxpayer dollars were spent on studying a dumb hockey rink idea. In these efforts, we private citizens were forced to spent 10’s of thousands of our own dollars fighting in court those of you who were using our taxpayer dollar to silence us. We are now feeding that boondoggle some 2 million dollars a year.
You spent, against citizens objections millions demolishing Monterey Hotel and then gave it away to a friendly developer. You sold the peoples property valued at millions to developers for peanuts. You gave developers huge tax breaks the way Santa Claus gives away lollypops to children.
You have already spent some 14 million dollars on developing a known flood plain without a vote of the people. You are planning to spend another 20 or 30 million dollars that we don’t have. Why, because, without even asking our opinion, you have been convinced it is an opportunity we can’t pass up. Who cares if we don’t have the money to spend or that nothing will be realized, if ever, for another 30 or 40 years.
And Now Behind Door # 3, we must come to grips with the granddaddy of all boondoggles.
You are planning to build a four billion dollar bridge complete with a choo choo train. As I listen to those promoting this Gigantic boondoggle, it is going to solve every problem being experience by the Portland/Vancouver area and for that matter the entire west coast of the United States with one exception. It probably won’t provide us with a cure for cancer.
Now for the $64 Thousand Dollar question: You, Who were elected to listen to and represent us, are continuing to spend our hard earned tax dollars like a drunken sailor. I know how a little about that, I spent 31 years in the Navy. You have in my opinion, lost sight of the fact that we are, at all levels of government trillions of dollars in debt. There is not a hell of a lot of money left that you can squeeze out of us. Pretty soon, the pump will go dry. Then What? As I understand the current program, in order for the choo choo train to be even marginally successful, it will need the Citizens of Vancouver to pony up millions of dollars if we plan to operate and maintain “Light Rail the Gravy Train”. As you are all aware, we the people have been promised by this august group and the county commissioner and others that we will be allowed to vote on whether or not we will approve a tax increase that will pay for that needed operation and maintenance of this not very we
ll thought out program. If we don’t have the money to operate and maintain, why build.
Here is my question Why are we still spending money on studying the Choo Choo Train idea before you know how we the people will Vote. May I be so bold to suggest that (a) you put the choo choo train idea on hold until after we the people have voted? To save money we can ill afford to spend, that vote should be scheduled as soon as possible. The August 2010 Primary would be a good start. And, (b) when we vote no, shouldn’t you tell us what will happen to the entire Crossing project. Since Portland says there will be no bridge without light rail and a no vote means there will be no dollars to operate and maintain Light Rail the Gravy Train, what is your fall back position. I have repeatedly asked this question and have received nothing but blank stares from this council, and the RTC.
You all don’t have a secret plan to negate our no vote do you?
Thank you.
Larry Patella
CDR USN (ret)