December 14, 2005
Pet Projects
Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that "County Council slips in millions for pet projects". The exact amount is $15,853,709 and I find no evidence of actual pet projects (as in cats and horses), just a long list of appropriations for various projects and agencies of indeterminate effectiveness. The most intriguing is this one:
$75,000 to study the "regional benefits of the motor sports industry in rural King County," how the county can assist it, and how to expand it -- "including the future expansion planned for Pacific International Raceways" near Auburn.
That sounds vaguely familiar.
Oh, wait.
The complete text of the budget ordinance is here. For more detail, visit Legisearch and search for 2005-0493.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 14, 2005
10:20 AM | Email This
1. And they said they had no money for roads... or pensions.. or lots of other stuff...
2. So, who is getting the 75 grand?
3. What is sad is that this is not an isolated example of corruption.
For a few thousand campaign dollars you can get hundreds of thousands of special favors. My reference is a larger town north of Seattle.
4. They used to call it the Lollipop Fund. $1.3 million divided up between 13 members to buy local support for reelection. No questions asked while it was slipped into the budget and approved. Imagine it, $400,000 for each member over a 4 year election cycle to spend within their districts to soften up the principal interest groups and get them hooked on the handouts.
Now it seems enough time has past since the Lollipop Fund was an issue that they've just revamped it and grown it 10-fold. With most reformers frustrated out of existance, why not just crank up the handouts to completely bury any chance that an incumbent can be defeated.
A cool $4 million of spending for each council member over a 4-year election cycle would make defeating an incumbent nearly impossible. But if this government has learned one thing, it's that they can do just about anything and voters of this county will still see to it that they get elected.
5. I emailed the Evergreen Freedom foundation this mornining when I read the article. I want to sue, the government should not be able to take money from on private citizen and give it to a private organization as pork or to advance thier political agenda.
I'm so mad I could spit, and I would if I thought it would land on the KC council from here.
6. Once upon time road racing (i.e. non-roundee round racing) was a big deal. Indeed in the late 60's and early 70's a VERY big deal. If you were lucky, like me, and saw the big Trans Am races of 1967 to 1972 you saw the greatest road racing series in the history of the US at Pacific Raceways. The problem is, road racing has flat died in this country. I would say this, between spending $75k in Kent or spending $100+ mil on a NASCAR track, spend the $75K. If you are going to flush money down a toilet, better stick to the small bills.....
7. You have to wonder how many of these wasteful expenditures our "tried and true" (gag) republican candidate Irons voted to accept.
He certainly has been strangely quiet lately.
8. I guess I found the answer to my own question. How can any republican have any confidence in this guy?
(from the PI)
"Councilman David Irons Jr., R-Sammamish, in whose district the raceway is situated, admitted that he didn't even know the motor-sports study was in the amended ordinance until he was told about it Tuesday -- even though he voted for it twice, in the council's budget committee Nov. 30 and again Dec. 5.
Irons said budget Chairman Larry Gossett, D-Seattle, "put together (the amended ordinance) and presented it to us, and we voted on it. It was not something we went through in any detail.""
9. I will quote this dirrectly from today's WSJ: It turns out that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the agency asking congress for the avian flue spending, is also in the final stages of completing a $60 million taxpayer-funded Visitors Center. This type of this is insanity folks. I mean WTF, a $60 million Visitors Center at the CDC, give me a break.
10. Probably threw Irons a curve to set him up. Since Budgets of this type have thousands of line items and are usually balanced at the Fund level. A Chairman's mark-up could easily have slipped this by without much notice. And what do you know, the D's have somehing to point at to offset the former (D) County Council members Cynthia Sullivan - Julia Patterson pay-offs with life time jobs at $100,000 a year.
11. Hay wait one darn minute,if we can build two staduims why not a race car track. what the heck it's only a few $100.000 more. Sorry just kidding, but I think you see my point.
Clift
Sorry but you wrong on the Trans Am racing. Most of the tracks were sold because of land issues. Plus Chevy is no longer making that car.
I've been to many NASCAR races for more years than I can remember. It turns out 80.00 to 100.000 fans time after time and getting bigger the last couple of years. Let's see the SeaHawks do that.
BUT I still don't want a single dime of tax payer money going to it.
12. Yeah, the founders messed this one up a bit. They should have also added separation of Economy and State. Government should not be in the business of dolling out money. If you took out all of the back scratching, there would be a more objectivity in voting.
I mean who's kidding anyone on which candidates the public employee unions are endorsing.
13. I heard that the Village Theater in Issaquah got half a million. That's dollars. Outrageous.
If people want to suppor their local theater, fine. But don't tax me to do so.
But the dems own this county, and it won't change. I'm not even sure that the repubs would do any better. The power to spend is too addictive.
14. Can anyone file a lawsuit against this kind of action ? Seriously, rather than throwing one's arms in the air and proclaiming "outrageous" - how about taking action, if indeed this action could prove effective ? Has this recourse been explored ?
There are likely some pro-bono defenders who would take on this issue as a lawsuit against King County - if this would discourage these pet projects from being part of that big sucking noise (as Ross Perot used to say).