I think the Bond issue should have been voted down because of all the pet projects and you can see now, that they can justify just about any expense (see comments in yesterday’s “Rolle” column). The same holds true for that 1/2 penny sales tax we voted in favor of a few years ago for transportation (Citizens Independent Transportation Trust oversees the fund, and the members are appointed by the County Commissioners).As you can see by the letter above (hit on it to enlarge) even though the tax was about transportation, municipalities were only required to spend 20% of their cut on eligible transit projects. And, as asserted in this letter from the CITT, an audit found the city of Surfside couldn’t even do that!
If you remember, to get the cities to buy into the sales tax, the County offered each city a cut with little strings attached to make sure they spent it on transportation. For instance they could use it for curbs and I guess shrubs on roads as well. That is why I didn't vote for the tax. I wanted it to go for mass transportation ONLY.
Boondoggle? I think so and this letter says so.
3 comments:
I attended many of the cheerleading meetings by the county to convince people to vote for the 1/2 cent tax. They, of course, avoided discussing the give away to the municipalities but made it clear that the county portion would be used for mass transit projects. Recently I attended an update on how well the county was doing. When they were asked why money was going for other than mass transit, like road widening and new roads (the anthitisis of mass transit) the response was, "we need lots of new and wider roads to accommodate new bus routes"). So why would anyone take snail transit when they have "lots of new and wider roads"? The county keeps shooting themselves in the foot and getting caught in their lies.
I also voted against the bonds because I don't trust promises made by the county. I know that most people rejected this proposal. How did it pass is a mistery -abasentee ballots, maybe?
What a shame that even sucessful transit projects like the Coral Gables Trolly are now under attack because cities want to use the money for something else. Terrible!!!
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