Sound Politics: Say Goodbye it's Independence Day

July 04, 2005

Say Goodbye it's Independence Day

Monorail Board Chairman Tom Weeks and Executive Director Joel Horn have resigned.

I'm reminded of that Bruce Springsteen song: "say goodbye it's Independence Day".

The winner of the contest to predict Horn's departure date is someone who simply identified themselves as "the_radish" and wrote

Joel Horn leaves "voluntarily" over the 4th of July holiday.

Good call!

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 04, 2005 04:16 PM | Email This

Comments

1. Voluntarily; as in with nice severance package vs. being unceremoniously booted out the door.

Posted by: JCM on July 4, 2005 04:35 PM

2. Does this help abort this monorail plan ? That would not only affect Seattle, but areas around Seattle that are paying for Sound Transit Light Rail via License plate tabs by a similar or greater magnitude.

Nevertheless something to celebrate with the fireworks tonight...

Posted by: KS on July 4, 2005 05:31 PM

3. Badda-bing; yes--hefty severance Oxycontin to ease the pain; thanks, taxpayers! you fools!

Now, like squeezing one end of a carnival balloon, he will pop us somewhere else to rack up MORE public retirement time on John Q. Public, who--at this time--is happily grilling things with his/her family thinking all is well and trusting his/her elected officials to discharge their duties in an efficient and honest manner.

Gotta love it. Happy 4th; Yes--quicker than I expected; good guess, Radish; try those skills now in a native kasino to test their powers!

Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on July 4, 2005 05:35 PM

4. It's NOT dead yet, this is probably their lame attempt to revive it!

Now, the board will claim that they can move on and do it right!

Posted by: sgmmac on July 4, 2005 06:22 PM

5. Now if Fraudoire, Logan and Sims will just follow suit we will all be better off.

Posted by: Gil on July 4, 2005 07:37 PM

6. Horn leaves his 2nd fiasco behind. What's his next move? Paul Allen stuff around L. Union?

Posted by: righton on July 4, 2005 10:31 PM

7. Wow -- Horn was making $187,000 per year -- a lot more than Gregoire is getting. Gregoire is more popular and actually doing a better job than he did.

Stefan -- how many folks working for the Conorail are making more than $100,000 per year? Didn't you post this on here several months ago? Are all those deadwoods going to be fired too? Or will Seattle motorists need to pay the MVET for a few more years to cover their salaries as well?

Posted by: Richard Pope on July 4, 2005 11:01 PM

8. Hmmm-What happens to his office stuff? Is it recycled? Do co-worker vultures swoop in like the private sector and pick it clean like a carcass on the Serengeti? "hey--that's MY lamp..." "Ohhh an expensive ergomonic chair..." Or do we furnish another governmental office from scratch for someone else?

Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on July 4, 2005 11:30 PM

9. Dang, I don't know why I thought he would wait until Tuesday!

These idiot council pansies are still talking about reviving this lame project. That's hard to believe.

If they want to build a monorail, they really ought to be talking to Sims and change light rail to monorail. I could get behind that. Plus, at least based on the initial estimated cost (which is always low), monorail costs half of light rail per mile of track.

Seems like a no-brainer. But, of course, we are talking about Ron Sims here - a guy that is not known for his brains. And, we are talking about Nickels here, a guy that takes the path of least resistance on everything ... (especially to the food counter, that fatso)

Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on July 5, 2005 01:11 AM

10. I know how to solve the monorail fiscal problems. Let's get a bunch of over-the-hill rockers together and have them play at concerts all of the world to raise money and attention of our mass transit plight in this city. We could then change the name of the project to the Seattle Bonorail. ;)

Posted by: fundango on July 5, 2005 07:28 AM

11. Back in '96 voters approved the RTA plan known as 'Sound Move.'

Part of the package consisted of a specified number of commuter rail trips between Tacoma and Seattle and between Everett. There was also a timeline for implementation and schedules as part of the package used to sell this scheme to voters.

Today I picked up a flyer announcing 'expanded Sounder Commuter Rail service.' Looking the flyer over I see that there are four Amtrak trains listed as being part of the 'expanded service.' one leaves Everett at 11:36 AM the other at 8:46 PM and one leaving Seattle for Everett at 7:45 AM and another at 5:30 PM.

What I fully expect is for ST to announce that they have 'listened to their customers ...bla, bla, bla... and yada, yada, yada....' Pardon me but just exactly who is 'commuting' at 11:36 AM and 8:46 PM from Everett to Seattle?

Mark my words they will try to 'spin' this as fulfilling their commitment to provide the commuter rail service that voter’s approved. IT IS NOT AND TO PORTRAY IT AS SUCH IS UNSCRUPULOUS AND DISINGENUOUS BUT THAT WILL NOT STOP THEM.

Any chance that the msm calls them on this? I won’t be holding my breath, but it would be nice.

Posted by: JDH on July 5, 2005 07:34 AM

12. Horn's farewell letter still trys to paint the failure of the Monorail to live up to its projected costs (up 20%) and income (down 30%) as some sort of innocent problems with its 'financing plan'. For $187,000 annually, one would hope that the Board would hire someone who actually understood the economics of compound interest, and could understand the present worth of a losing proposition. Not being sufficiently nuanced, us grumpy old engineers may not spout paragraphs about 'financing plans' while demonizing cars, gridlock, oil dependence and pollution - but we do understand (and can even pronounce) the word UNFEASIBLE.

That unelected Monorail Board better hadn't spring some cutesy wootsy reduced Monorail on us without presenting new and better information about the extent and projected costs (and income) of the shortened system - and insuring that we get an up-or-down vote on it. No more Sound Transit debacles.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 5, 2005 07:35 AM

13. To Stole Horn full responsibility means either paying back the $100M in Fraud you committed or going to jail like other executives have been that have commited financial fraud like this. At least come out and say bury the thing but no he is probably already planning on joining one of the consultants and looking at his budget figuring out how to go from $187k/year to $140k/year.

Posted by: Col. Hogan on July 5, 2005 07:50 AM

14. I agree with Col. Hogan whole heartedly. He and every other player in this FRAUD should be held responsible for repaying the entire $100,000,000.

Posted by: JDH on July 5, 2005 07:55 AM

15. While It's encouaging to hear the clowns who ran this have resigned I don't hold out a lot of hope that they will be held accountble for poor $ management!!

Posted by: Laurie on July 5, 2005 09:07 AM

16. Jail them for voter fraud! After the governor fiasco, I have no doubt that the long and drawn out counting of the votes in the monorail election was fixed as much as Gregoire's coup-d'etat.

Posted by: oswald booth czolgosz on July 5, 2005 10:46 AM

17. Remember how Joni Earl moved into Sound Transit's director seat when financial shenanigans were finally exposed? And then she let the 'real' problem of "engineering incompetence" ABSOLUTELY RUIN the South Segment of Link in the BOGUS BYPASS of South Center.

Without South Center, the Link LRT is nothing more than a commute system that will be jammed during rush hours 'only' in the inbound direction, empty the other way and at all other hours of operation - all because the one significant destination along the route, South Center District, was ignored. Thanks Joni, NOT!

Expect a new SMP director to receive effusive praise and buttery exhaltation for changing things for the better, (like Joni Earl didn't), and in reality leave the engineering of the monorail untouched or worsened.

Posted by: Artie on July 5, 2005 11:52 AM

18. "Does this help abort this monorail plan?"
Interesting choice of words since Tom Weeks is married to Seattle abortionist Deb Oyer. Making money off the taxpayers (55% of all abortions in Wa State are paid for by Olympia) and taking advantage of people in desperate circumstances seems to run in the family.

Posted by: JP on July 5, 2005 12:23 PM

19. The prospect of the Monorail installing another Joni Earl to play cheerleader is a real concern.

Joni's function is that of propagandist - to keep up an inexhaustible flow of happy talk about Sound Transit. She feeds the MSM to divert attention from the chicanery pulled by ST on the voters, and to ward off the well-deserved tar and feathers.

The concern is that the Monorail Politburo will follow in Sound Transit's footsteps, and attempt to paper over a real financial failure with more happy talk, and to wedge open the chances of yet more taxes to cover the losses. With sufficient attention focused on said Politburo by this blog and other commonsense players, we may be able to prevent a rerun of ST's bait-and-switch.

Eternal vigilance is the price...

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 5, 2005 01:10 PM

20. Ran across this bit of clarvoyance from former Mayor Royer in 2002:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/91391_monorail16.shtml

All the reasons he opposed are coming true - with interest.

How stupid is it to rely on revenue from car tabs when the project has goals of getting people out of their cars or of even getting rid of their cars?

Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 5, 2005 01:36 PM