Sound Politics: Monorail MVET, R.I.P.

April 20, 2006

Monorail MVET, R.I.P.

Good news from tonight's meeting of the Seattle Monorail board: The motor vehicle excise tax will end on June 30th. Those who renew their vehicle registrations at a Seattle address after that date will not be billed for the tax. Also, Young and Taiki Lee will get their property back.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 20, 2006 09:50 PM | Email This

Comments

1. Stefan - can you elaborate on the Lee's case please? What did they have to pay, do you know?

Posted by: Daniel K on April 20, 2006 10:10 PM

2. Finally some good news.

But I'm sure Ron Sims will find a way to reinstate the tax and steal the Lee's property by June 30th. Afterall, they found enough votes for Gregoire.

Posted by: Jeff B. on April 20, 2006 10:34 PM

3. This is great news. It also underscores one more big mistake by the geniouses who gave us the wacky and wasteful Monorail nightmare - weren't they telling us last year that it would take two years more to pay for this fiasco? What changed? Their math again? Are they blaming others for this error as well?

Posted by: thor on April 20, 2006 10:37 PM

4. "What changed?"

The real estate market is hot and they've made a profit on most every property they've been selling. Duh.

Posted by: Daniel K on April 20, 2006 11:41 PM

5. To D"uh"aniel, come back to us. You need to return from the Twilight Zone. Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?

Oh well, seems D"uh"aniel was only informed of the real estate market yesterday; someone should have told him things have been cooking for years.

Monorail Board knew that when they made their assessments on the time to liquidate. Totally legit question by Thor, IMHO.

Posted by: swatter on April 21, 2006 07:22 AM

6. There is a fantastic article regarding transit in today's WSJ. It speaks to Chicago commuters that can not wait for the Interstate Highway work to terminate so that they can go back to driving their own vehicle even though it takes longer to get to work than by commuter rail. I read the 'paper' version, but perhaps someone who takes the 'e' version of the paper can share it with the rest of you.

Posted by: JDH on April 21, 2006 07:49 AM

SMP forced car owners to pay approx. $125,000,000 in car tab taxes during the June 03 – July 06 period. Who ended up with the money? Biggest chunk went to the lawyers: Foster Pepper, Preston Gates, and Nossaman Guthner Knox & Elliott. DOL was paid millions in fees for its strong arm collections (“Pay or your car becomes worthless, loser.”). Staff and its administrative costs got a big piece. B of A’s interest charges were several millions.

Let’s see a legit breakdown of who got all the money we were forced to pay. Let’s see the breakdown before everything goes “off to the archives in Olympia,” and the board dissolves into nothingness after hammering this city with that punitive and stupid tax scheme.

That money was taken out of the pockets of people, most of whom are just trying to get by economically.

Examine who got the money. Resolve to fight as hard as possible against similar local government "infrastructure" schemes.

Posted by: grabowski on April 21, 2006 09:09 AM

8. In case the thought of all that extra money your going to have is causing you stress, don't worry. Sims and Nipples are there to rescue you, helping you spend that money on their taxes so you don't have to make any decisions yourself. God bless 'em.

Posted by: BananaLand on April 21, 2006 11:56 AM