But we need to raise taxes.
what I want to ask is why the Democrats take tribe money yet the reservation gambling resorts treat their LABOR unfairly. Seems to me a good Democrat believes in organized labor and forcing biz to pay high wages.
Maybe the high wages are only for the Govn't employees.
www.lbloom.net

accesswa.gov
office of financial management OFM
reports
salaries
by agency
AGO
GOV

and tell me do we need to raise taxes?

Malarkey Daniel Finance Director
150,000

Are these people working under assumed names so that their neighbors won't shun them? Witness protection program?

Are people aware that once you build it, you can't move it? That the salvage value for an obsolete line is negative?

Brian has only disclosed part of the iceberg.
Can't wait to see the whole enchillada!

Actually, the average car value (not PRICE) used for MVET calculations is 8,825, not 10,000. That makes it even WORSE-- the hypothetical "garage" is higher, and the percentage of cars on the street is larger. I updated the entry to reflect that with links to the Monorail's numbers.

I am saying it is a scam, I never said it was new.

This is the very reason why $30. tabs became so popular. Reasonable people are not so much opposed to the car tax idea; it was the state's over-assesment of value that ticked everybody off.

This is exactly what is happening with the monorail scam. Glad I don't live in Seattle anymore...how many people do you figure are just finding a way around it, becoming the latest artisans of tax dodging?

The one that really gets me is the "Environmental Manager." Only in Seattle would you have a BS position like that. What sort of environmental concerns is Kornbutt managing? It's supposed to be an urban train running along streets. Are we watching out for squirrel habitat now?

But, wait, we shouldn't make fun of the brilliant professionals. They came up with the idea to run a tourist train, so visitors of Seattle can take scenic tours of West Seattle and Ballard. Those surely are busy tourist traps and these tourists rent so many dang cars, drive around, and clutter up the streets.

I hear they have other plans too. They will have a wedding car, a church car, and shopping mall car.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/WALONsquirrelbridge.html

Ftr, this is my hometown. I know some of these people. To the best of my knowledge, they are not involuntary guests of the state. Amos, alas, was not always a nice person. RIP.

I wonder if the PDC has this information?

A more interesting question would be how many of those folks have ever held private sector jobs? How many of them have had to work in an environment where you couldn't simply go squeeze the public for more money when you were too inefficient to succeed?

Inflated assessments were precisely why I-695 passed, and the evidence from Henry Aronson shows that those manufacturer's "suggested" retail prices still excite greed among the tax-wallahs and anti-auto opportunists.

Our Democracy has perished. Gorton/Cantewll 2000.
Monorail 2003,Rossi/Fraudware 2004 all were delivered by the machine to the dems and who knows what else?

I am sick about this and have no confidence in our system.

They go out and measure every sq ft and inch and only pay on what is completed, which is fine, BUT, if you forget to turn in even 1 affirmative action form, it holds up payment....it's a different story altogether when the city project manager misplaces your pay estimate or forgets to send it to the next level, among 4 levels of useless depts.

After 30 days the GC calls the city to asks "where is our payment" all you get voice mail.

Then there was the great Kingdome - it should never have been built where it was -- back in the early 60's there were several bond issues to pay for consultant studies to determine and evaluate several sites for a new stadium -- Kent valley and the east side - and Issaquah -- etc etc -- they went through several consultant studies over several years - all of which recommended a Kent valley or east side site -- the downtown site came in at the bottom of the list over and over -- finally a consultant report came in which recommended the downtown site and - WHAM!!! -- the bonds were voted in and the gorgeous God's orange juice squeezer was added to the skyline of regressive Seattle.

In between the above highlights - there was the great - "no more trackless trolleys (electric buses) were being made anywhere" scam and the aging fleet had to be replaced by diesel buses -- RIGHT -- 25-30 yr old electrics zipping up Admiral Way at 35 mph replaced by 10 mph crawling, stinking diesel buses -- the complaints re the stench were so great that the clowns put perfume in the diesel fuel -- Seattle became a laughing stock of the world --
meanwhile -- when the change was announced - an Engineer's organization tried to get out the word that it was the wrong move and they were shut out -- the copper trolly lines cables in West Seattle and in many other parts of Seattle were taken down so fast heads were spinning -- probably something to do with the price of scrap copper since the Demo's were getting Viet Nam under way. -- OH YEH - before I forget -- at the same time as the diesels were getting stuffed up our butts - you could go up to Vancouver BC and see brand spanking new trackless trolleys - HUH? -- DUH? -- DOOOOH!!! -- a few years later (1970) I saw brand new trackless trolleys in San Francisco -- and -- Seattle has had electric buses for many years now -- uh - hold it -- yes but - only on a small portion (and bus tunnel) of the original electric lines that ran all over town.

Then there were the 1960's "SAVE THE FARMLAND" ballot measures and bond issues that were to save the Kent valley and of course anyone with half a brain can see what that BS resulted in -- as soon as they were passed.

Then there was the low level Spokane St bridge which replaced several lanes with a two lane designer's ego bridge that takes longer to close the last couple of feet than the antique older bascule bridge took to go from completely up to completely down .

The never ending condemnation and confiscation of waterfront and riverfront land to turn everything into a park or landing place for ChiCom containers -

More recently of course is all the stadium BS -- recent enuff -- no details to add from me --

Then there are the never ending school levies -- and never improving pupil abilities --

Keep your ears to the ground folks but don't let them step on your head

Good post overall but a couple errors. When calculating vehicles needed to pay Executive Director Horn's pork- er, salary- you went from number to pay one day to annual, then applied that annual number of vehicles to "any given day." Even my meager salary starts to look flamboyant if you incorrectly state my annual salary as being paid to me any given day. Also you started with Downtown Seattle parking and concluded with "in Seattle" which covers quite a bit more territory.

Minor stuff maybe and nobody seems to have noticed. But we all know the opposition loves to inflate the least little thing and use it to distract or discredit. As the rest of your post shows, the story of the monorail is such an egregious tale of mismanagement, porkbarrell politics and outright fraud there really is no need to exaggerate a single thing.

Let's put the complete list of uppa management leeches and their salary and benefits and perks up for all to see and vote on -- FAT Chance - bottom line is that the vast majority of crap going on around here is just that - crappy scams to benefit the few at the expense of the many under the guise of providing something everyone needs and will benefit from -- how the hell are commuters from downtown who absolutely don't give a G-D re a baseball game being benefitted by the nightly commuter hour traffic jams whenever there is a home game - adding 15-30 minutes to the commute standing up on a bus - duh -
Oh hold it - that just reminds me - who benefits the most from the monorail -- people outside of Seattle who do not have to pay the usurious tax on their autos and who will drive into West Seattle and Ballard and ride the monorail to the games -- hopelessly clogging streets around the outer laying stations and -- guess what peanut gallery?? -- depriving the parking lot rip off and tax revenue to the city -- have a nice day - put on your smiley face

Damn I'm glad to be living in the sticks with the hicks! It makes my hour one-way commute seem worthwhile!

We're not even paying attention to GMA...

We need a balanced system, but that will not happen when proponents of each mode say all or nothing.

To control the fraud the government made public auto actions a federal tax free zone. Thanks to the blue book, people paid too much for their vehicles at these places. Great source of income for me. Buy car at dealer auction, sell at public auction, despite seller fee's still made double than what the car sold for retail in the open market!

As for rail-based transit, I have been reading about the revival of Light Rail Transit in Northern New Jersey. The Hudson Bergen LRT line for NJT is being built in three segments, with two already operating, one in 2000, the other last year, using DBOM contracts. Perhaps that is the way Sound Transit should go with future LRT Contracts.

Anyway, I have been reading the proposal by Bombardier, and they say their new plan could be built without the revisions that the SMP has decided are necesary to save money.

This is a Seattle transportation system, paid for by Seattleites to serve Seattleites. If it fails, then we're the ones on the hook for it. If it succeeds, then we're the ones who will be riding around while everyone else sits in traffic on I-5 and the Viaduct.

Also, more people voted against I-776 in Seattle than voted for the Monorail, interesting.

Also, we have those who keep pushing their ideas to fix traffic, and say they are a cure-all. All of them are just alternatives, but together, they could do the job.