Two days after the election, the Bridges Authority has held its scheduled meeting, and guess what?
WAVE-3 sez: Get ready to pay up to cross over. Tolls are part of the plan to pay for the Ohio River bridges. That was the latest on the toll controversy Thursday from the Bridges Authority Finance Committee.
As we've been telling you almost daily since summer, local politicians like Ed Clere and Ron Grooms, eager to justify the endorsement by their pro-tolls paymasters at the Republican political action entity known as One Southern Indiana, always were seeking to avoid the pure reality of lying outright to the voters by their dissembling, deleting, ducking, covering and evading any semblance of straight talk on tolling existing bridges to pay for the bridges boondoggle.
Clere and Grooms kept saying we must wait, and it was too early to tell. It took all of two days, and Kerry Stemler -- 1Si's chief puppeteer, who (of course) donated to both of them, was the one to gently break the news while brandishing the KY-Jelly.
Like I said, we told you so.
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6 comments:
Fucking bastards.
Mr. Stemler,
You keep referring to "our charge". That the authority can only look at the 2 bridges as originally presented. It's like you are saying that your hands are tied. That it's not your fault.
Bull. There is nothing stopping you and your co-hearts from resigning from the authority and saying that you are doing it because the plan, as it stands, is not viable.
I don't believe the plan was ever viable but even if it once was, there is no way, in this economic climate, that it is now. Build the East End Bridge first and see if it is enough. If I'm correct, we save $2billion dollars(more actually-financing). If I'm wrong, then build another bridge. Building 2 at the same times does not allow for any error. If not needed, we can't return the 2nd bridge. We are stuck paying for it.
The whole thing is a charade anyway. They won't be building two bridges at the same time; the plan calls for (and has always called for) the East End bridge to be built first. The plan does not , however, call for tolls, so they're changing course by pursuing them anyway. This notion that the original plan cannot in any way be deviated from is a lie, and when they've been called on it, they change their story and say it's just not 'feasible' to pursue other options. More like it's just not 'feasible' for the kickbacks they've been counting on should the whole damn mess be rammed down our throats as planned.
Let's also look at a politically pragmatic possibility for our man Mitch.
Imagine the national exposure for a "possible" presidential candidate. A committee, that he appointed, says, "No. We will not spend money just to be spending it. There has to be another way to do this." The governor/candidate gets to point out that he did, indeed, pick qualified members with the highest integrity for the committee and he agrees with their assessment.
Yeah that's the part I don't understand. Mitch swooped in to save the day in Madison, making sure their bridge was going to be completed in less time and well under budget. Why do they get that kind of treatment and we get fucked over? He could soooo easily swoop in and save the day and tell them this plan doesn't make sense. I mean, from a fiscal conservative standpoint, it doesn't make sense when they're talking about paying for a second bridge with zero return on investment.
Hence the only answer I can come up with is "kickbacks".
That's exactly the same thing Stemler, along with the governor, said before the election just as Clere was explaining that tolls hadn't been proposed. But for restating the obvious lies, supposed do-gooders like Jerry Finn jump our shit and run to the defense of the liars.
This region is handicapped by seemingly infinite stupidity and fear. I'll die not knowing which particular defect makes it so damned important to so many people to make a good impression on certain lying, conniving shitbags, but it probably won't be here.
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