Friday, August 11, 2017

August Trimet board (sock puppets) meeting

Here is the summary of the last board meeting


1-The QUARTERLY PERFORMANCE REPORT 
I'm always suspicious of Trimet generated reports. The summary: Complaints are down, there are 20 light rail crashes for every 100,000 miles, there were 150 bus collisions in the second quarter, they are re-certifying the operators, ridership is dropping, passenger revenue is flat, operator attendance is under 90%, MAX on time performance is 86% (suspicious), bus on time performance is 84% (ya right), and you can read the rest of it yourself if you want by clicking the link.

2-BUILDING THE REGIONAL TRANSIT STRATEGY 
Glossy Technocratic presentation about the future, which of course is going to be beyond wonderful.
You'll have to look at that  yourself, I glanced through it, basically a bunch of Trimet advertising

3-MILLIMAN wanted an extra $80,000 on top of the $225,000 existing contract. We already know that these increases are routine when it comes to government including Trimet. Always more money available for corporate welfare but don't you dare skip paying your $2.50. This is for "actuarial services". People at Trimet don't actually do anything, they just hand out money.

4-LORRENTZ BRUUN INC 
Trimet is renovating a warehouse at 3520 SE 20th ave where 'facilities maintenance' will be moving.
$1,563,863 is authorized. They will be back for more later, cause corporate welfare is the name of the game.

5- PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT
This is the student free pass program in Portland which costs $1,933,333 of which Trimet contributes $966,666 by not collecting any fares from the students. I support this program, its one of the few instances of actual citizens getting something from 'our' government. Its chump change compared to all the capital projects.

6-NEW FLYER OF AMERICA
The FED's gave Trimet $3,405,750 and Trimet budgeted local funds in the amount of $3,859,250.
This is for the purchase of  five electric buses and charging stations. The contract is for $5,664,517.
The total amount of money available for this is $7,265.000 but the contract is $5,664,517. That leaves $1,600,429 unaccounted for. Hmmmm? Trimet got a ton of propaganda value out of this with the mainstream media lap dogs all doing stories about Trimet 'going electric'. I've seen these exact stories in various locations around the country. All these transit districts coordinate their programs and propaganda with each other.

7-SOUTHWEST TRANSIT PARTNERS LLC
Hmmmm? Turns out this company was formed in May 22nd 2017 and there are no company contacts listed. According to the resolution there was only one bidder for this contract which is in the amount of $6,500,000 (Don't you love how these are nice round numbers) for "design work" for the light rail in that corridor. I imagine this is coming out of Trimet general funds. This is our capital projects monster at work devouring cash. There is no funding even secured for this project but there go millions into 'the design'. Remember the CRC? That bullshit ate up $250,000,000 before being cancelled. Nobody blinked an eye.  This is the corporate welfare I am always speaking of. This is the sort of thing that eats up most of our taxes. Will this thing even go forward? It will if the elites get their way. For now the capital projects monster stays alive.

8-LONG TERM EXCLUSIONS
The mainstream media reported that Trimet was "galled" by the Trimet barber and as a result wanted to implement this long term exclusion into the Trimet code. We all know that it is virtually impossible to keep anybody off the transit system but it sounds good in the media right? I guess if they actually find someone who is excluded forever they will follow the same procedure they have in place now for short term exclusions. A trip to jail, booking, and release.

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