September 01, 2006
Even Joni Balter might be right every once in a great while
Joni Balter is perhaps the least credible editorial writer in the region -- predictably misguided in her opinions, which are invariably argued with questionable facts and senseless logic and delivered with sneering condescension. But this week she happens to be right on something: "Seattle voters should say "no" to this long and winding road tax".
And even though she is right to oppose the bloated transportation tax, she still manages to throw in something characteristically stupid:
Eyman may be a Pied Piper who tells people in other parts of the state how to vote, but he is a sour note in the city limits. The legitimate fear is Eyman's presence becomes code to voters to change their tune and vote for the bloated proposal -- just to be on the other side of him.
So this plea to Seattle voters: Forget about Eyman and his views. He just needs the commission. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Does Balter seriously believe that people elsewhere in the state vote for lower taxes and accountable government only because Tim Eyman is a Pied Piper who tells them how to vote? Is she really that much of an idiot, or does she have such a low opinion of her readers that she thinks that they're stupid enough to believe this?
So this plea to Seattle voters: Forget about Balter and her views. She only needs her paycheck. Even the least credible editorial writer in town might be on the right side of an issue every once in a while.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 01, 2006
12:10 PM | Email This
1. Stefan -
Oh now, c'mon, Joni has a very important function: making Ryan Blethen look good.
2. Yes, yes, and yes. None of your questions really excluded each other, so I'm going for broke.
She's an idiot, and using herself as a reference point, has decided that everyone else is as well. After all, as a elitist Leftist, she MUST be one of the smart ones, so from her viewpoint anyone that disagrees with her must be stupid.
3. Note to Joani: THIS girl votes for lower taxes and accountable government NO MATTER WHO is advocating such.
4.
Hey Joni, why not pursue this line of questioning regarding whether or not additional taxes are needed? I would say that a good initiative would be one directing that 100% of these revenues be spent on transportation projects prior to any new monies being brought in.
What has Seattle spent the 11 cents per gallon part of State Gas Tax that goes to Cities on. When will the MSM ask the only question that is pertinent: "Eleven cents per gallon goes to cities and counties to pay for transportation related maintenance and improvement projects. Currently, Seattle receives $21.33 per resident annually. Can you tell me how the City has spent this money? Specifically which particular projects."
In investigating Tacoma’s spending of this revenue stream I found I located the DRAFT 2007 - 2012 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and what I found is that Tacoma has programmed $350,000 for "Business District Beautification," $981,952 for "Business District Capital Projects," $525,000 for "Citywide Streetscape Program," $425,000 for "Citywide Trees," $200,000 for "Historic Water Ditch Trail," $50,000 for "Pipeline
Trail," $50,000 for "Prairie Line trail," $350,000 for "Sidewalk Abatement Program" (incidentally the responsibility for the cost of this lies with the abutting property owner), $50,000 for "Spanish Steps Rehabilitation," $76,000 for "Public Safety" (Requested by TPD, although needed this hardly qualifies as a transportation related expenditure), $26,000 for Stadium Street Banners and Lighting," $198,384 for "Wapato Park Street lighting" (described as ornamental in nature). Yet nothing, not one thin dime programmed fro street maintenance.
Another thing that I found is that Millions and Millions of dollars are programmed for Local Improvement District (LID) participation on various alley and driveway projects. So while Bill Barsma has accessed this pot of money to help pay for the approach aprons and alley adjacent to his property, the vast majority of the people who paid out the 11
cents tax on every gallon of gasoline they purchased (the part of the State Gas Tax which goes to Cities and Counties for use maintaining and improving local transportation facilities) see none of the money being used to maintain the streets they live on. This is a
scandal and a disgrace, just ask yourself: how many people in the lower third of the income spectrum could afford to participate in an LID? What this effectively
does is tax those at the lower end of the economic ladder to pay for improvements to the alleys and driveways of those at or near the top.
We are already being taxed eleven cents on every gallon of gasoline we buy to pay for maintaining and improving local streets and roads, the problem is our money is being used for other purposes.
5. JDH--well said; what bothers me is the lack of accountability--everyone dances around it--where have all those dollars gone over the years? who misspent them? where are the audits? like the $$ poured into the LA berms & levees all those years;
forget new taxes; if you can't use our money frugally and sensibly (like we do every day in hour home budgets)--and--show us what we actually bought--then no more;
6. I don't know where to go with this but am working on it. The State Auditor has been contacted, but so far nothing from them. Most definately some if not most of this money has been wrongly spent by Tacoma. It must be spent on "transportation improvements or maintenence" and much of this clearly lies outside of that restriction. Another thing I am currntly pursueing is that Tacoma has been raiding the Public Works, Utilities and other budgets by "borrowing" from them, my sources say that what what has been "borrowed" to finance various nonsense projects has not been paid back and that there appears to be no intention of doing so. What this means is that in a few years after years of "deferred maintenence" they will be back with a scheme to fund infrastructure maintenence via a levy, just like they have done with transportation. Just ask yourself why transportation is first? Could it be that the rest of the utilities are, are for the most part, burried. mark my words, this is next when it becomes impossible to hide the effects of decades of neglect any longer.
7. "how many people in the lower third of the income spectrum could afford to participate in an LID? What this effectively does is tax those at the lower end of the economic ladder to pay for improvements to the alleys and driveways of those at or near the top."
Um, those who pay for an LID are the property owners who benefit from it, and they normally have an opportunity to explicitly vote for or against it, and if the 'no' votes prevail the LID normally goes away.
So how are the lower-income taxpayers subsidizing properties that they don't own? Certainly not by LID procedures, which are regulated by explicit statutes that don't act as income transfer schemes.
Granted, the lower-income taxpayers can fairly claim they've been exploited even worse than the more prosperous ones, when the gas taxes are diverted away from road maintenance to put up billboards for diversity, or whatever other scheme the politos deem politically correct.
8. JDH: I agree with you 99.8% about Tacoma's spending - I recently left there after 20 years as a resident. But you're a little off on sidewalk abatement. Check out City of Tacoma vs. Rivett (I think that spelling's right). The State Supreme Court specifically said that sidewalk repair is the City's responsibility, yet they continue to send out threatening letters to property owners to coerce them into paying the repairs instead. $350K is a drop in the bucket when you see how much broken sidewalk there is in the city - I suspect it's for salaries for those writing the threatening letters.
Doesn't change your overall point, which - as I said - I agree with completely. But the sidewalk issue has been a giant irritation to me for a lot of years
9. Hey Hank, Transportation is my game and I know how to untangle the numbers (much to Tacoma's chagrin) and Mayor Barsma et all recieved north of 50% "matching money" DIRRECTLY FROM ACCT 160 on this very project. Which means every one in the State who bought a gallon of gassoline subsidized his alley restoration while people who are at the other end of the spectrum got NOTHING as far as maintenence of the roads they live on. If you want to go a round with me on this issue you better be more prepaired next time.
10. O.K. here it is LID 8631 - A majority of property owners abutting the alleys have signed an advisory petition requesting permenent pavement with storm drainage to replace their gravel surface. Alley's to be improved are (segment 1) Alley between Proctor and Madison St. from N 37th St to N 38th St. ..... that is the Mayor's address and it is one of eight total segments in this LID Property Owner Assessments $157,277 Fund 160 State Gas Tax Revenue $185,000 and Utility Participation $97,500. So there you have it, the Mayor gets new alley, every body else gets the Sh*t end of the stick, that is except for about half the Current City councilmembers and the Pierce County Executive who also have "participated." What they have done is set asside a pot of money that they and theeir friends have accessed that will double or tripple their "investment" in their properties. Tacoma's electeds are far out of proportion to every other group represented as having tapped into this pot of money. Oh, by the way, the News Bufoon covers this up, just like they did for Braime, The Frugal Gourmet, Jannovitch, Boyd Lundstrom and on and on and on
11. Back to the subject at hand...nothing gets published without deliberation and forethought. This is a sop being thrown to the masses just in case the tax add-on doesn't pass muster. And then, oh lucky us! We can rejoice in how our local media is fair and balanced, and our 4th estate masters can hold up this near-Pulitzer quality piece and point out how "The People" took their sage counsel and voted accordingly.
12. Back to Balter...
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day."
Dripping with irony, that.
Kzam and Kzam.
13. not sour grapes, and no, i'm not a writer putting bread on table, but many things from her are gently considered "Balterdash." why? too lib-centric; guessing she's never been robbed or victimized; perhaps an insulated life in the suburbs? add grain of salt to all;
14. JDH-
OK, the locals signed an 'advisory petition' for some goodies. That's not the same as the formation of a Local Improvement District. Are you saying that one was actually formed? And what were its boundaries, and what were the preliminary and final assessment rolls, and were the completed improvements all installed within the LID? Was some slushfund tomfoolery splotched around the edges?
I know ve haff vays to apply public funding here and there, but the statutes regulating LIDs are not usually conducive to blatant diversions to private enhancements.
15. Tacoma/Pierce pols have figgured out a way to transfer the publuic funds to their own use by setting up this scheme. So far I have been able to verify that about half of them have accessed this pot of money, as compared to
16. 1. Ewaggin:
Ha, ha, ha!!!! No kidding! I had a nice little e-mail exchange with Ryan. I told him that I'd call him a moron but I didn't want to insult morons generally. He mailed back that I called him a moron. I told him *again* that I hadn't and then he insisted that I had. I finally had to explain to him that he was LESS than a moron and let it go at that. Him fighting to BE a moron was just too much for me.
After that little exchange, it’s easy to understand why Balter still has a job.
17. Funny how when taxes just hit Seattle city limits, the urban folk become tax rebels. Remember the latte tax "for the children"?
Read the subtext here. The urbanites want to have the cost of their urban boondoggles spread far and wide.
I say we need to shove this tax increase right down their throats and tell them to enjoy it.
Sorry Shark. There is still room out here in the rural area, and it is a much better place to raise kids.
18. Balter, like many of her peers, is a product of Watergate and journalism professors who dodged the draft. She fits in pefectly at the Times. Don't look for her to slit her journalistic wrist ala Lance Dickey anytime soon. She has kids to feed.
19. After reading her article (barf bag on standby), I get the impression she is really for all of the mayor's projects, just not his idea of funding them all at once. I would have been impressed if she advocated that the city prioritize current revenues first before asking the turnips for more blood. As it stands the city's current budget is poised to spend more than it takes in (no surprise there) and roads get the short shrift as usual.
Once again the Seattle Times has missed a prime opportunity to get on the bandwagon and demand accountability from our elected officials, but, no, Baby Ryan is too busy having coffee and donuts with Mayor Nickelbag. Baby Ryan is a moron since he doesn't see a problem with declining subscibership. Obviously he was asleep during his economics lessons. Otherwise he would give Balter the boot and hire someone who could actually write intelligently about local issues.
20. Yeah, the piece reads like a reluctant apology. This is the closest the left comes to forward thinking strategy. Even blatant left leaning folks like Balter ultimately know that money does not grown on trees. So, there's an apology piece like this that basically implies that we'd love to fund everything, but it's not currently possible. Expect future pieces from Balter that justify more spending for at least some of what she mentions in this article.
And she'll feel good about that, because at one brief point in time, she held a more realistic stance.
21. Hank,
My digging has turned up about half the current council, the Mayor the Pierce County Exec have accessed this money to fund projects improving their properties. They pay a portion through the LID and you and I pay the rest. What they are refusing me is the names of department heads that have done so as well. Tacoma is more corrupt than you can imagine, look at the upper echelon of City Hall and it is all run like a club that benefits the members (that is in addition to their history of belonging to swing clubs in their spare time). They load the Utilities board with their associates and then - shazzam, such "projects" as utilities "projects" that require the road way and frontage to their properties to be "restored" with actually gold plated improvements moves forward. What's in it for their associates you ask? Well lets start with this one: When a certain restaurant owner (utilities board member) applies for a casino license he gets one when no conditions for variance are met. This hit the fan because he also had local elected's spouses on the payroll, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Try this one as well: they use State Gas Tax revenue for a fund called "Neighborhood Traffic Calming" and fund conversion of collector and arterial streets in THEIR business districts to angle parking severely reducing the capacity of these streets and subsequently increasing cut through traffic through the neighborhoods that surround these business districts. Who benefits from this? How about Bill Evans, Phillips, Ladenburgs and on and on. A good portion of the Pierce/Tacoma electeds owns these business districts. How about Bill Evans applying for ten-years tax abatement on a condo project in Proctor? WTF that is like saying that Mercer Isle is a redevelopment zone and needs tax abatement to attract development. He got stopped on this and was censured because the State stepped in. WTF are these people here thinking when they keep returning this filth to office? But with the News Buffoon running cover I guess it could be argued that they don't know what is going on.
22. Joni and the ST gang opened the flood gates on Rummy via today's opinion page. Time for the counter letters to pour in....and maybe they'll print one. Sure is fun being an editorial employee, using the paid positions to advance passive aggressive personality traits.
Read the garbage here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003241700_sunlets03.html