Sound Politics: Moronorail Pay Raise

December 16, 2004

Moronorail Pay Raise

Seattle Moronorail Project Executive Director Joel Horn is up for a $8,789 raise in his annual salary from $175,784 to $184,573.

On Horn's watch, the Moronorail has experienced a serious revenue shortfall. Only one bidder is still interested and the details of its proposal are still secret. The longstanding promise to break ground in 2004 and open a segment in 2007 has long fallen by the wayside. Is this man undercompensated at $175,784 a year? I'll let you decide.

But think for a moment about the financial consequences of giving Horn a $8,789 raise. In the grand scheme of a multibillion dollar project that doesn't make any sense to begin with, a measly nine grand is nothing. But the money still has to come from somewhere. The Moronorail is financed solely by a 1.4% motor vehicle excise tax. In order pay Horn's raise alone, Seattle would have to import an additional $628,000 worth of automobiles whose owners are willing to pay the MVET. That's the equivalent of 27 new Honda Accords.

Can I see a show of hands from any Honda owners on the Eastside who might volunteer to move to Seattle for the privilege of paying the Monorail tax so Joel Horn can get his a raise?

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 16, 2004 02:27 PM | Email This

Comments

1. unbelievable... i didn't realize he was getting paid that much. just incredible......

Posted by: scott on December 16, 2004 02:42 PM

2. Horn is a Gucci Carpet bagger -- from somewhere back east -- the idea is to come to a backwater no where like Seattle and start a public works programs, then live off of it as a paid official -- Horn's first project was the Lake Union deal and would have been a good one except the voters smelled it out; then it was on to the Pacific Place and Nordstrom "public-private partnership" using taxpayer funds and credits for low income housing -- he pulled that off....then came the Pacific Medical Center Beacon Hill location which had substantial taxpayer moneys invested in the past for upgrade and technically belonged to the TAXPAYERS -- that public resource was transferred to Amazon.com at pennies on the dollar -- with "Ron's choo-choo train" only blocks away, it was a tremendous piece of under the table work --even the Seattle Times wrote a few tepid stories about how bad the deal smelled -- (our former Mayor Paul S was also deeply involved) -- then comes the mother of all cushy government projects -- 175,000 per year (and perks) for a monorail line from and to nowhere -- and I suspect that there are some land deals to boot that Joel may have his hands around in Ballard because property there started moving before the final monorail project (by 800 votes) became another massive, unneeded public works project. Also watch for many land-grabs by the Monorail Group like the pioneer square deal, and at least one other in the hopper behind the Seattle Center...
The lesson of Joel Horn is that Seattle is a hick town and we get the screwing we deserve -- and we're gonna get it good....

Posted by: Lew on December 16, 2004 02:54 PM

3. I drive a Honda Accord, but I'm not moving to Seattle anytime soon. I like life in my little town of Duvall too much. I moved here to get away from the big city, and big corruption like this monorail project.

Posted by: Jason on December 16, 2004 02:58 PM

4. Snobomish county just came in. Not good?

Posted by: Ralph on December 16, 2004 03:06 PM

5. A couple of years ago the Sound Transit big cheese was forced out after the scope the the errors in budgeting came in.

He got a two month pay severance package... of $720,000.

Posted by: Al on December 16, 2004 05:09 PM

6. And if the Monorail is castigated for holding the bid negotiations secret, realize that they learned the tactic from Sound Transit.

Those ST bozos, including the dude whose job was sacrificed to save the unaccountable Board members, deliberately avoided the normal public works procedure of soliciting competitive bids on a clearly defined design. Instead, a cartoon design with a politically correct lowball cost estimate was floated.

The Sound Transit Board then attempted in their secret 'negotiations' (no public bid opening for those commissars) to beat down the contractor's real-world price for the overambitious cartoon. The contractor laughed, the negotiations collapsed, and Sound Transit had to admit to the public that their 'conservative' cost estimate (yes, they called it that during the election) was grossly low, and that light rail of the length they'd promised couldn't happen for the dollars they could raise.

Then they dumped their Administrator and blithely proceeded with the project. Be very afraid.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on December 16, 2004 06:09 PM