Thursday, December 16, 2010

No surprises ...

BREAKING: Bi-State Bridges Authority votes 13-0 to approve toll-based financial report for the $4.1B Ohio River Bridges Project (leoweekly on Twitter).
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

9 comments:

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Now that it's confirmed that at least 13 of the 14 Tolling Authority members (one apparently didn't vote) don't give a damn about what the public wants, it's time to start focusing on the elected officials who have a say in all this-- mayors, county commissioners, town council, and state reps and senators.

Though some of them have tried to avoid it, they don't really have the luxury of ignoring public opinion if they hope to remain elected officials.

12:28 PM
Steve Magruder said...

I see this as a declaration of war on the Louisville region by these 13 unelected fools.

DEAD. ON. ARRIVAL.

1:01 PM
jon faith said...

Jeff that sounds rather odd, a strange, detached, hubris. I applaud you for maintaining a hope that local democracy is issue-based. That belief is a new system of Freudian totems for our age. That said, it doesn't correspond to reality, much like the local council campaigns for reform haven't changed the constituency at all.

I cringed the other day when I read that you stated that your citizen activists were running circles around the PR firms: unfortunately that analysis didn't affect the endgame.

4:24 PM
Jeff Gillenwater said...

We haven't come anywhere near the endgame, Jon. I'll take your comment under advisement, but it's more than a couple of years premature.

4:30 PM
Matthew Nash said...

"Stemler said he heard concerns from residents about tolls being implemented in the next 18 months — well before the project is complete. Stemler called that a misconception, saying they would not be in place until the bridges are built."

No decision on what will be tolled and when has been made, said authority member Pat Byrne"

These two paragraphs appear in the Newstribune.com article back to back.

Is it me or do they contradict each other?

5:44 PM
jon faith said...

Again, Jeff, it is optimism like your own which often powers me through my day. Cheers.

6:09 PM
Jeff Gillenwater said...

Cheers to you, too, Jon. I think optimism is the nicest thing anyone's ever called it.

6:34 PM
Karen B said...

Matthew: Of course they contradict each other. And Stemler's own words contradict what the Bridges Authority has said ad nauseum the last several months about starting tolling before construction even begins. So does this mean that with people so up in arms over tolls that they're running scared enough to back down on the tolling time table some? The hopeless optimist in me would like to think so. But my much louder cynical pragmatist side figures best case is left hand not knowing what right hand is doing/saying, and worst (and possibly more likely) case is that it's all just a ruse anyway to tamp down public outcry.

7:13 PM
Steve Magruder said...

Karen, I would go with your last thought.

As for today's recommendation being the final word, I see it as more of an opening salvo in a war, as now the public sees semi-concrete plans for this. It's something that can be touched, and referred to explicitly. It's no longer a nebulous concept.

Decisions can be reversed. And there are still a lot of tools at anti-tolls activists' disposal.

8:27 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)