Monday, March 31, 2014
The propagada never stops at Trimet
Every single aspect of anything they do publicly is carefully scripted, just look at the backdrop for this interview with Portland's Trimet cheerleader blog PORTLAND TRANSPORT
So Mcfarlane utters a few words what does the media do?
TriMet sets a new and better direction
As I've been saying for years and years now, whatever comes out of Trimet the media will dutifully reprint, no matter what it is.
Any investigation into the factual basis for the story? Of course not, just reprint what the a-hole says.
This is the media we get in Portlandia, a city so obsessed with its 'coolness' that all sorts of scams can be perpetuated on the citizens.
Read the crap HERE
The problem union members in Portland has is a media controlled by hostile forces
From where I sit it appears the union leadership was duped by the superior cunning of the Trimet management who knew exactly what they intended to do.
Fred Hansen, a master of manipulation, who with his hand picked disciples, created this 'myth' about himself while making millions and walking out with an absurd pension wanted no controversy to get in the way of that 'myth'.
But I believe that the management planned all along to renege on the obligations they made to their union employees and the union leadership just got sucked in by all the glad handing and compliments.
But the real problem is the Portland media, which refuses to cover our side of the story. Retirees have seen a 20+% drop in their pensions yet not one major media outlet has covered it.
Joe Rose, who has done some very good investigative reporting on Trimet always seems to include a line about 'the richest benefits package in the industry' in every one of his stories on this subject.
The article below tells the story how the media intentionally creates a false perception of transit strikes which the unsophisticated public absorbs without realizing what's happening.
In presenting these stories, there has been very few (if any) that question management’s ongoing refusal to bargain in good faith as the cause of these riders’ frustration. Instead, the media’s presentation places the responsibility for the disruption of these riders’ lives in the lap of the drivers.
(As a point of clarification, management has presented essentially the same contract to the drivers at least three times over the past year and all three times it has been soundly rejected.)
In the conversations carried on while walking the picket line in support of the drivers and in the comments sections of local media outlets, I have noticed a commonality among those who oppose the strikers. In general, these folks tend to be right wingers ideologically opposed to labor unions or younger folks who seem to have never been part of a unionized workforce or have always been in management. I am not sure what conclusion can be drawn from this fact, but the question of consciousness certainly comes into play.
Full essay is below the break:
Why is there no grandfather clause in these so called contract negotiations?
If #trimet's Mcfarlane really wants an agreement with his union members here is how he does it pic.twitter.com/s3Ms7Y86x1
— AL M (@AlYourPalster) March 31, 2014Sunday, March 30, 2014
John Charles, no pal of the unions, understands Trimet has created its own crisis
Trimet board and management has breached its fiduciary responsibility and its attempt to blame everything on the union is nothing but lies. The executives should be fired and their pensions revoked.
The public forgets about Trimet gross incompetence
Co- conspirators Fred Hansen and Neil Mcfarlane allowed a known crook to rip off TRIMET and the tax payers and PAID HIM more for doing it.
There was plenty of evidence that Trimet was dealing with a crook, but Mcfarlane and Hansen allowed to contract to go forward and in the process pissed away millions of tax payer dollars.
This GROUP OF CRIMINAL EXECUTIVES, created a contingency budget under false pretenses, told the public there was a budget crisis, raised fares, and cut services, HID THEMSELVES $1 MILLION IN RAISES while doing all this!
This same bunch of people is right now attempting to destroy their very own current and retired employees for their own gain. With the cooperation of the mainstream media they have been able to pound the 'it's the union's fault' drum over and over and over thereby distracting from the gross malfeasance of their own actions!
It is my opinion that we have a very clear pattern of conspiracy, a misuse of funds and downright fraudulent behavior by the people in charge of the Portland Transit system.
And Mcfarlane has hired his cronies from the past to help him pull off this scam of his. His pal Bob Nelson was brought back as DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER at $200,000/yr AND Nelson is already receiving a large pension from Trimet (we hear nothing about what he is doing anywhere publicly, no Trimet news releases, no speeches no board appearances, no NOTHING.)
Mcfarlane also brought back David Auxier to be in charge of the TRIMET books. Mr Auxier has a son that directly benefits from TRIMET contracts as well as being the recipient of a nice hefty pension from Trimet. His pay is around $176,000.
These people are looting the Trimet treasury right under our noses!
Below the break is the WES fiasco laid out as posted in twitter
Trimet is run by criminals
Bells and whistles are more important than people with this management in charge!
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Robber Barrons in charge of Trimet
They just keep stuffing themselves
There are over 300 non-union employees. According to the budget, bonuses were awarded to just 35 people:
I. There were 9 lower level supervisors given bonuses in amounts ranging from $502 to $2,012
II. 11 engineers and senior technical employees received bonuses in amounts ranging from $1,160 to $11,564
III. 15 high-level managers were given bonuses in amounts ranging from $2,012 to $16,827
Friday, March 28, 2014
LATEST EDITION OF SEEN AND HEARD ON TRIMET
But not seen on TRIMET'S HOW WE ROLL BLOG!
TRIMET SCANNER TWEETS HERE!
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| @sarahmorrigan Follow omg i just saw a @trimet talking bus. good grief. |
TRIMET CONTINUES ITS DIRTY TRICKS CAMPAIGN
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| ATU757 President Bruce Hansen |
Attached is a letter I recently sent to Randy Stedman. This letter addresses the fact that TriMet management continues telling the media and the public that employee and retiree health insurance is to blame for TriMet's woes. We have come to believe that the dollar amount TriMet has assigned those benefits has been 1) inflated; 2) misstated; and 3) manipulated. We have said that repeatedly at the bargaining table. We will continue to state that opinion until we are given the opportunity to be educated differently by someone who has the expertise and knowledge to answer our questions.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Has OPAL finally had enough of Trimet executives and their mind games?
Trimet officials have been stringing out OPAL members for three years now. The treatment of OPAL is almost as bad as the treatment of ATU757 and its members.
Trimet executives are liars and manipulators. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.
I can see those executives now talking in private:
"those OPAL kids are so cute, we can string them out forever and they will be so impressed that we are talking to them it will be no problem for us"
It's disgraceful the way OPAL members have been treated, truly disgraceful.Trimet pensions
There are 522 people that have retired in the last 10 years getting pensions of $1500 or more.
That is $1,325, 424 per month just to those people.
That figure does not include all those making under $1500/mo.
Largest monthly pensions
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| Known Double dippers highlighted |
Highest to lowest:
How much has Fast Freddie Hansen cost the tax payers since leaving Trimet?
Hansen, Frederic J,
Left Trimet on 7/1/2010
His monthly pension is $16,242.12
Total from tax payers to date:
$739,016
How much will Mcfarlanes pension be?
Here's the formula:
No Need for complex formula's,
$222,000X .687=
$152,625/year
$12,719/mo.
(add another $10k for sick time)
CRC staff closing up shop after a decade
The CRC's demise also leaves in its wake a set of unfinished financial and legal proceedings that likely won't be resolved as cleanly.
Last fall, C-Tran and TriMet inked an agreement spelling out how the two agencies would operate light rail in Vancouver as part of the CRC. The swiftly approved contract sparked outrage among CRC opponents, who said the agreement represented a bad deal for Clark County, as it advanced a bad project.
But the contract only applies if the CRC materializes. With no project, the agreement isn't active, said C-Tran community outreach manager Katy Belokonny. And while the two agencies could agree to terminate the contract, no conversations to that effect have happened, she said.
Last year, the CRC also signed mitigation deals to pay three large manufacturing companies who would be hurt financially by the project's bridge height. Officials agreed to pay a combined $86.4 million to Thompson Metal Fab, Oregon Iron Works and Greenberry Industrial, which all operate facilities at Vancouver's Columbia Business Center.
Like the light rail contract, those deals only apply if CRC construction actually happens. They can be terminated by the manufacturers after 2016, or by the states at any time. But no further work is planned on those agreements, said CRC spokeswoman Mandy Putney.
At least two lawsuits also remain in limbo. Oregon Iron Works challenged its mitigation payout after details of all three were publicly released; Portland neighborhood groups and others challenged the project's environmental review as inadequate.
"We thought that the project was going to be a disaster economically and fiscally," said Steve Cole, acting president of the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Billy Grover former Trimet employee
I am a retired TriMet employee with a modest pension that included health benefits that were bargained before my retirement in 2004.
Now, in 2014, current TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane is threatening my retirement benefits. I consider his actions cowardly, unfair and ignorant. I thought that pension benefits were protected by law, but apparently, as the saying goes, “It ain’t necessarily so.”
Woops
PORTLAND -- A man was hurt when his car collided with a TriMet bus in downtown Portland Thursday afternoon, officials said.
The car was crossing Southwest Broadway Avenue on Jefferson Street at Broadway Avenue when it was hit by the bus just after 1 p.m., according to TriMet spokeswoman Robert Altstadt.
A man in the car was injured and taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with unknown injuries.
There were no other reports of injuries.
TriMet bus, car collide in downtown Portland | kgw.com Portland
The driver of the car was not cited, said Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson.
The car was crossing Southwest Broadway Avenue on Jefferson Street at Broadway Avenue when it was hit by the bus just after 1 p.m., according to TriMet spokeswoman Robert Altstadt.
A man in the car was injured and taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with unknown injuries.
There were no other reports of injuries.
TriMet bus, car collide in downtown Portland | kgw.com Portland
The driver of the car was not cited, said Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson.
Cameron Johnson
That's right. TriMet's losing the game, so they're changing the rules. Think of it like that annoying kid who made up a new rule every time you tagged him in tag. "No, you didn't tag me! I had an unbreakable anti-tag forcefield that you can't break!" Essentially the same rule is at play here. Damn that union.
I don't get how this is being overlooked in all of this. The new rule gives TriMet more free rein to cut service, and less transparency about it. I call them out on this because they're claiming to work with us, to side with us, while openly calling us wrong and then initiating secrecy about how they are lobbying to get away with cutting service and not restoring any at all. That isn't the kind of behavior that I, as a Bus Riders Unite leader, can support. This isn't the kind of agency that I can comfortably say "I align with them, I agree with their causes." If TriMet wants to work with us, and expect us to work with them, they are going to have to go all the way with it.
No more secrecy, no more dishonesty, and no more pretentious, false 'fact-checking.'
Read the entire post:
The Kid's Take: Portland Transit Activism from the Bottom Up.
Will Women Ever Feel Completely Safe on Mass Transit?
Ridership on U.S. public transportation has reached its highest levels (in raw numbers, at least) since the mid-1950s. There's a complex set of explanations for this resurgence, but a big part of it boils down to money. When the cost of driving gets too high, or when gas prices get too unpredictable, more people take the train or the bus.
And so most American transit riders tend to be lower-income. They also tend to be women, who of course work in lower-paid jobs. American women of all ethnicities accounted for a greater share of transit trips than men in 1997 (below); far more recent commuting figures show a similar breakdown, with 114 women taking transit to work for every 100 men. In many cases, these are the women who take public transit because it's the only financially viable option.
As cities try to figure out how to boost transit ridership, and unpredictable gas prices force people to reconsider their commute, the threat of harassment and assault has been granted surprisingly little airtime
THE STEDMANS ARE A FAMILY OF UNION BUSTERS
The Bonnie and Clyde of Portland!
Port of Portland Bobbi Chinn-Stedman and Tri Mets Randy Stedman
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Crime is down on Trimet
The facts are you have a very small chance of getting mugged on the transit system, that much I know for sure.
TriMet and Transit Police make strides to deter crime: reported crime down more than 25 percent | TriMet News and Media Releases
TRIMET CLASSIC CHARACTER LARRY BOLTJES AKA "BIG BIRD" RETIRES!
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| Larry was truly one of the most entertaining characters in Trimet history |
Stoval and Esmonde defend Trimet and attack OPAL
Light rail hoax
Sarah
West, an economics professor at Macalester College, and Needham Hurst, a
graduate student at Harvard, found that the Blue Line, which began
carrying passengers between the Mall of America and downtown Minneapolis in 2004, caused almost no increase in the likelihood of new development up to 2010. Their new paper is coming out in Regional Science and Urban Economics.
The Best of the Trimet board testimonies
Including some great articulate testimonies from OPAL members, RA Fontes, and John Ludlow.
Best of the Trimet board testimonies from al m on Vimeo.
Lane Jensen banned from Trimet headquarters
Unfreaking believable!
TRIMET bans comments on its live board meeting site
Of course they would do this. Why would they allow the public to see public comments? That could be dangerous and result in some anti Trimet publicity.
I do like the camera work however
Lies and more lies
Fed to the sheep and the sheep eat it without even understanding what they are eating:
THE LIE:
""It should be no secret to even the most uninformed, low information
type that unfunded pension liabilities are threatening to destroy our
Country.""
The TRUTH is that the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX is destroying this
country. This threat to the country was even detailed by a past president DWIGHT EISENHOWER.
All the so called 'unfunded obligations', which were
intentionally left unfunded, could be wiped out if the military
industrial complex and American's empire building was ended.
It's also interesting that the Oligarchs claim that the 'unfunded obligations' are threatening to destroy this country when every single one of those obligations is owed to Americans themselves.
In other words, in order to save the country it is necessary to destroy American citizens.
Don't buy the lies
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
WAR ON TRANSIT WORKERS
According
to a release from the union, the outstanding issues are modest wage
demands and “company demands for concessions in the form of extensive
changes to the employees’ sick plan benefits and the introduction of a
two-tiered system for retiree benefits.”
TRIMET NOT SAVING BOARD BRIEFINGS TO ITS TRANSPARENCY SITE
Those of us that follow Trimet closely already know that the word "transparency" holds no real meaning. The word is bandied about frequently but it has no real substance.
Trimet broadcasted the briefing live but for some reason chose not to add it to its on line library.
Why would they do that? They had to go out of the usual YouTube routine to take it off the YouTube channel.
I bring this up as yet another example of phony 'transparency' claims by Trimet executive staff.
Trimet broadcasted the briefing live but for some reason chose not to add it to its on line library.
Why would they do that? They had to go out of the usual YouTube routine to take it off the YouTube channel.
I bring this up as yet another example of phony 'transparency' claims by Trimet executive staff.
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| The latest uploads is missing the last board briefing, who know why they are not saving them to be viewed later |
TRIMET makes Alex Jones's infowars!
The Portland public just isn't tracking on the seriousness of the constitutional issues that Trimet violates. If you ride Trimet you have to given up your civil rights, it's absolutely the truth.
As Oregon state law preempts any regulation that restricts the possession or transfer of firearms under ORS 166.170, TriMet also goes on to state that a person in possession of a weapon, that cannot be legally banned, may not display or carry the weapon in a manner which is likely to result in fear or alarm by other persons or District employees.
Regardless, Nolin’s arrest clearly illustrates the establishment’s over-the-top reaction to anything Second Amendment related. In countless examples across the country, people, mostly children, have been punished for completely legal activity.
» Man Arrested For Talking About Guns On Oregon Bus Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
Woodlawn activists know who has the power at Trimet
We need to contact the people we know who have influence over higher-ups in TriMet, to inform them of the opportunity being missed to get more riders by connecting the 8 to more lines and locations. Who do you know who is influential, and would you be willing to lobby them? I can provide you with the proposed line extension illustrations and talking points.
Go Woodlawn! » Update on TriMet Line 8 Layover
Monday, March 24, 2014
Rumors
It appears the vengeful Trimet managers have sliced up union advocate Shirley Block
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| Reliable source |
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| Reliable source |