In case you haven't been paying much attention to the goings on over at my favorite government agency, Trimet, you probably have missed all the latest.
Trimet imposed additional payroll taxes on employers not that long ago.
This was accomplished via the sock puppets (unelected) in the form of a simple resolution. Remember the old saying "taxation without representation", that is what citizens get with their transportation district.
This means Trimet will see funding increases of $43,000,000 a year when fully implemented. This money goes almost 100% to the capital projects monster also known at the PORTLAND LIGHT RAIL MAFIA.
On top of that this new tax grab called the "transportation tax" (voters were left out of this decision making process completely, obviously our 'leaders" knew that Oregon voters have wised up to the scam) yields another $40-$70 million per year depending on who you believe. Personally I believe the state's figures not Trimet's.
Trimet has a long history of lying about budgets.
We have all the various bond issues that encumber citizens, once again its taxation without representation since nobody has a say on this but the puppet board of directors.
$110,000,000 here and there was another issue recently for $60,000,000 that I am aware of. Unfortunately there is no easy way to find a list of the Trimet bond issues, but its in the 100's of millions.
We have Trimet establishing its own court system because they want to "help" all those poor people that ended up getting citations that amount to 70 times the cost of the fare.
No discussion about lowering the fine, of course not.
Trimet created this monster with Mcfarlanes zero tolerance agenda after a decade of leniency. Now they are pretending they "care" about fare evaders.
It's all bullshit as far as I am concerned because if the evaders don't pay up to Trimet it still ends up in court.
If they aren't paying the court what makes anyone think they will pay Trimet directly?
Its an expansion of Trimet power.
Trimet instituted FOREVER EXCLUSIONS for "undesirables".
I find this action similar to banning citizens from walking down the street.
Public transportation is funded 100% by the public therefore the Trimet should not have the right to decide who rides and who doesn't.
Trimet is even building its very own jail .
This is an abomination to many people, myself included, but as we all know, what "we the people" think is irrelevant to the elites that make all the decisions about Portland public transportation.
Trimet is on the move, getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Eating up greater and greater tax revenues.
None of this would be all that bad I suppose if Trimet were a "success" but unfortunately Trimet is not a success.
Trimet keeps hemorrhaging ridership.
Trimet does surveys which conclude that the public thinks they are doing a wonderful job.
The surveys don't correlate with the ridership drop.
More and more money goes into Trimet coffers for less and less service to the public.
It's a damn shame they can get away with this so cleanly.
No comments:
Post a Comment