Curt's back from the tar sand battleground, and while his blog post focuses on the River Fields angle, don't neglect reading the entirety of Shaw's original piece in LEO.
Kerry "Screaming Skull on Acid" Stemler may have spent last Friday evening doing the goosestep through Paris NA, but perhaps his Bridges Politburo should commission a typically half-hearted study of future lawsuits sure to arise as it ignores the implications of the Sherman Minton closing in order to propagandize the transport gospel according to St. Daniels.
Louisville Republicans: Leave River Fields Alone!, by Curtis Morrison (Louisville Courant blog)
If you picked up a copy of this week's LEO Weekly, in Broken Bridge you'll see one of Louisville's finest journalist fairly laying down the law in several ways, but one specifically deserves attention at the moment: River Fields is not the evil holding up the Bridges Project."
Contrary to popular myth, River Fields’ lawsuit is not delaying the project — yet."- Steve Shaw
10 comments:
River Fields wants only a downtown bridge. In my opinion, they are using the "environment" as a smokescreen NIMBY. By doing so, they cause real harm to real environmental causes.
Curtis has a legitimate point. However, any elected official who has supported the continual diversion of transportation funds in support of ORBP in its dubious entirety bears responsibility.
They've not only helped keep the funding we have from being used more sensibly but also made us less competitive for the federal funds that have been recently distributed via Tiger grants and other programs. That list includes a lot of Republicans and Democrats alike.
They also filed suit over the EE bridge, and have an appeal on file over it. Lee Cory can talk till she's blue in the face over how there's no injunction preventing the project from moving forward, but the simple fact is that funding is more difficult to secure on a project when that project is under a cloud of lawsuits. River Fields can consider themselves an environmental group, but their obstruction of the EE bridge has meant increased emissions and gas usage from people sitting in traffic with no other river crossing option but downtown. They can call themselves a conservation/historic preservation group, but they think nothing of burying historic structures in downtown Jeff and Louisville under 23 lanes of concrete. Saying their spiel over and over and over again doesn't make it true.
Very well said Karen.
The building of a EE bridge should not be about Rep. or Dem. but because of a few it feels that way.
I would bet around 90% of Louisville, S. Indiana an heck maybe the entire state of both would be in favor of a EE bridge even if a Toll was in the planing. It's the Groups like River Fields and the man behind the Liberal Election Org. (LEO) John Yarmath that have stopped the EE bridge.
When I lived in Louisville in 2003 thru 2006 the money was there and IN it has been said the money was there just a couple years ago. What happened? What Changed in that time fame.
Like I said before, I think there has been some damage to the EE bridge maybe unintended by the No Tolls Group. Some people like River Fields flame the fire to stop the hole thing when the No Tolls (as I have been told) was to stop tolls on the existing bridges but they would be ok with tolls on a New EE Bridge.
Karen,
You said it much better than I did.
VM,
Agree with your list. Republicans, (you know, the fiscally responsible party), control the state of Indiana. How many of the elected Pubs have you seen push for just building the East End bridge? Hell, most of 'em won't even comment on it. Why? One answer that I received was that "nothing can be done". I guess that means we are supposed to take Bobby Knight's advice, "just relax and enjoy it". What kind of leadership is that?
Like you, I don't see this as Dem Or Pub problem. It is a political problem, however. Heat, more heat.
Over the past few years, the two states combined have allocated enough existing transportation funding to ORBP to have nearly built the East End Bridge (without the tunnel).
Cash. No tolls. No finance charges.
They just spent it on other items like planning and design for the downtown portion.
I think you all make valid points.
I knew I was going out on a limb with my perspective that River Fields is not the problem.
Does anyone here have a problem with the 2-bridge, 1 tunnel ORBP-compromise? Well, that compromise...that was David S. Jones, Sr.'s idea.
Between that detail, and his lifetime achievement of doubling the cost of healthcare, I am having a difficult time being objective about the his plan, I admit.
But I'm confident, even if Bobby Knight himself was proposing this rushed action, he'd at least make it conditional on knowing whether the Sherman Minton Bridge can even be fixed or not? Wouldn't that be a factor in this solution that Jones thinks we should start immediately?
The Republican Party's obsession with "smaller government" is at serious odds with a solution to the Sherman Minton crisis, and so it makes sense they are pulling out the plugs on their PR intimidation war against River Fields. I'm sure Jones and the McConnell are tight as ever, following Humana's fight against the public option.
Funny thing though, they're going about it cowardly. They lack the courage to identify Owsley Brown II, Christy Brown, and Laura Lee Lyons Brown by name. I guess if they did a billboard campaign like this against humans, it would appear a little bit too much like what it is: intimidation.
Replied at your place, Curtis, but just one more note here: This is far more about money equating to power than it is about party affiliation. The Democrats in Kentucky and Republicans in Indiana have been fawning over the same demographic for a long time.
Perhaps when the wealthy get finished with their social squabbles we can move on to um, I don't know, public input.
Courage is certainly lacking. I told one elected official that this week after I was told that nothing could be done. I guess not if "you" are just going to sit on your f-ing hands.
Post a Comment