Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 3, March 2004
Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.
Seattle Sun Letters to the Editor
Why I joined ON TRACK
I supported the monorail project at first but the news reports of miscalculation of income and the confusion of one track vs. two track together with the concerns of people downtown as to where the monorail is actually going is causing me concern and those little "tulip" things have got me worried.
I attended one public hearing on the GreenLine positioning and after hearing business after business expressing concerns about being put out of business and the confusion regarding running the monorail into the Seattle Center vs. outside the Seattle Center, it appears to me that perhaps the Monorail people are moving so fast that I hope City Council is planning to protect my interests as a citizen.
I don't know who is supposed to pay for the telephone pole removal and replacement or who is supposed to pay for any broken sidewalks, sewer lines being changed or broken, what the stations look like, how are they landscaped and where are all the people going to park that come to ride the monorail?
I also wonder why they want to start the system sort of "in the middle" because they know they can't build the monorail in its entirety as promised to the voters but they also know that once started the monorail project cannot be stopped no matter how many tax dollars it will cost?
It stands to reason that if you lose a huge amount of your income as the monorail project did because of miscalculation, you have got a big problem! If I lost even 30 percent of my income, I sure would!
Call me paranoid but I am worried! I want the system I voted for, not a pared-down version built on the cheap.
OnTRACK is a group of concerned people who want to be sure that we citizens get what we voted for, not a "boondoggle" but a real live system that works and keeps its promises! For more information call 686-3830.
- FAYE M. GARNEAU
(Resident of Broadview District, commercial property owner and Executive Director of the Aurora Avenue Merchants Association.)
Monorail project is waste of time, money
Nothing gets me madder or in a voting mood more than when some idiot starts babbling about the monorail.
I believe the monorail project is ill-conceived. It has already hijacked the taxpayers. There is little accountability in the current plan, aside from the stringent caveats associated with the government grant (good for them).
I believe the typical profile of people that are the driving force behind the monorail project is: the do-gooder, above-reproach, sensitive yet hostile eco-types Seattle so typifies.
FINE! So, fellow recyclers, why not make best use of the actual TRAIN tracks lying around? The monorail project is really (let's face it) a test anyway, so why not recycle what already exists, instead of as a test to see if people will abandon their SUVs (which you know they won't), use what already exists and reorganize it. Recycling: something Seattleites do best.
The idea of destroying what little road we have to make way for another transit system is nuts. Expensive nuts.
The environmental impact studies are incomplete, biased, have severe blind spots and thus are not accurate (as we are learning surprise) and certainly don't impact the well-to-do.
If something did go wrong, and there were "unforeseen" negative impacts, there'd be a population with bucks to fight it. But the population profile of, oh, for example Beacon Hill poses little or no threat to the project if things go wrong. The project is going to run right over the poor population, ramming it down their throats whether they like it or not. Decrease their already-lower property values, relatively speaking (those who don't rent, that is). A large enough segment living on Beacon Hill are first generation immigrants. The language barriers alone certainly work in favor of the project.
Such a cowardly, bullying avenue the leaders of the project have chosen.
Do not destroy our roads, sidewalks, quality of life, neighborhood character, while draining public coffers for something so ill-conceived, expensive, and wrong. For the sake of...?
We have bigger fish to fry in the Puget Sound.
JEANIE WALKER, Fremont
Recall monorail plan
For once the tax-and-spend crowd can blame Howard Dean instead of Tim Eyeman for the latest great adventure in the fight against burdensome taxes. His success with raising money via the Internet has shown that it may be the next great to not only get your message across, but to also distribute petitions and collect signatures as well.
I am inspired by those behind the idea of monorailrecall.com and am excited about the prospect of their success. At this site you are able to register your support and when they have the support necessary to force a recall initiative they will send out the petitions.
This recall campaign is important for the dignity of Seattle as the monorail plan (like that of Sound Transit light rail) is over burdensome and has little traffic improvement potential.
The monorail plan continues to change and more and more of the "promises" (lies) go unfulfilled. I am confident that the last lies will be cost and taxation. Not only is $1.7 billion a lie, but so is the length of years that the tax will be levied.
For the average middle class worker that buys just one new car the tax bill will be in excess of $5,000 (and up to possibly $10,000) over the life of this levy.
For a two-car family I can only suggest you better make it a '72 Pinto or you'll be forking over up to $20,000 over the life of this levy. That's a pretty big bill for people who are raising children, paying property taxes and trying to save money for retirement. Monorailrecall.com is not a bad idea in this Internet-savvy time.
So the people have the property tax under control and will lower that this fall by 25 percent (local burden) and will take the issue of recalling the monorail next.
Maybe the politicians would like to contribute and work on the sales tax. Let's face it, President Bush is not to blame for the Puget Sound economy lagging so far behind the rest of the country during this current economic recovery, but rather our own elected leaders siphoning off huge sums of cash for special interest projects that do little to nothing to improve the region's well being.
The average tax fighter is not generally politically involved, but the Internet makes getting involved more accessible. It's time to toss the lattes and lower the taxes. These are indeed exciting times for the anti-tax movement.
SCOTT LEACH, Lake City
Hale students deserve praise
For many years, John Rogers Elementary School (in the Meadowbrook neighborhood) has had two buildings outside the regular school building. One is a portable and one is a van (believe it or not). Both of these buildings have