The laws of the state,counties and cities forbid the use of tax payer money, time, or resources for personal gain. Two ad in tv one by a policeman Greg Lineberry and one by firefighter Christine Ohlsen, show them in full gear presenting personal opinion using our taxpayers money ( we the people pay for the unforms and cars and their time). Any comments?

When we passed I49 for transit, the sales tax went up 8 cents to pay for the improvements, the state now said that I695 will nullified the I49. If so, my question is are we getting a refund of our money? will sales tax rolled back to pre I49 levels?

Vote yes on I695, my little contribuition so far is to have educated 7 people who now will vote yes. Next step Un-Locke Washington!!!!

-- sam delaney (2designs@usa.net), October 27, 1999

Answers

I saw one of those ads last night and the firewoman and policeman are wearing uniforms without any badges or insignia. I think that is okay under the law prohibeting public employees to campaign for an issue - after all, they probably got the outfits at a Halloween costume supply store! (hey its the season!) Its only if a precint insignia is used that ist illegal. The gear appears to be unmarked too I was looking really close because I know that it would violate campaign laws if they were waering real, government issued gear. I voted yes on R-49 and was so happy when it passed. The fact that I-695 rolls it back angers me, and is one reason why I will probably vote no on I-695 - because it wrecks a voter approved solution to our crappy transportation in this state.

-- Diana (washingtonian@hotmail.com), October 27, 1999.

It won't matter how much (or little) money is spent on transportation in this state, it will ALWAYS be a problem. Go ask any other state that spends the same or more per capita and you'll get the same answer. The questions we should be asking regarding transportation are (1) HOW are the billions of dollars being spent, (2) are there any cost containment procedures in place, and (3)how will those expenditures improve traffic?

How many times have you seen large projects come in AHEAD of schedule and UNDER budget? The answer is NEVER!! The reason for this is greed on the part of the contractors, lack of controls on the part of the transportation department and an "at any cost" attitude of the politicians approving the expenditures.

As far as improving traffic, a prime example of the futility of this is the new I-90 bridge from Mercer Island to Seattle. Within a few weeks of both I-90 bridges being opened, they were operating at capacity. "If you build it, they will come"

No amount of roads, diamond lanes, interchanges or light rail systems will improve traffic for more than a year or so. So the question then becomes... "How much money are we willing to spend on our roads and for what purpose?"

My reply would be: spend enough to keep them maintained and driveable, keep the bridges and overpasses safe (earthquake retrofits), keep them properly lit and painted and then let everything else go. There's no room for more freeways, no room for add'l lanes and certainly the light rail system will be grossly obsolete before a single shovel of dirt is dug.

-- just a guy (torijosh@yahoo.com), October 27, 1999.

Diana, Yes our transportation in this state is "crappy". But I really don't think R49 will solve the problem. I don't believe it will even make a dent. I think it is a sham on the part of our pols.

Thirty years ago I traveled on a congested, constant road-worked, TWO LANE road named I-405. Now, thirty years later, the legacy I hand down to my daughter is a congested, constant road-worked, STILL TWO LANE road named I-405.

-- Doug (dgoar14@hotmail.com), October 27, 1999.

"How many times have you seen large projects come in AHEAD of schedule and UNDER budget? The answer is NEVER!! The reason for this is greed on the part of the contractors, lack of controls on the part of the transportation department and an "at any cost" attitude of the politicians approving the expenditures. " One intersection did for a development near Olympia. That's because they let a private company build it rather than going through the usual WSDOT B.S. But you have to understand, we get VERY LITTLE value for our dollar, because most of it goes into payoffs to keep various groups who make a living off the taxpayer happy. We pay off the Unions with prevailing wage (rather than what the market will bear) jobs:

http://www.lni.wa.gov/prevailingwage/

We pay off the contractors that provide money and lobbyists by allowing high costs, and high cost over-runs. We pay off public employee unions, by passing laws that all but preclude privatization. We spend too damn much on PROCESS and get way too little value. And that's just the way those involved in the cottage industry of government want it. They derive their prosperity from the PROCESS, not the results.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), October 27, 1999.

"How many times have you seen large projects come in AHEAD of schedule and UNDER budget?"

Well there was the interchange in DuPont at I-5 that did both. I remember there was a bridge painting job on the Hood Canal Bridge a few years back that went well over schedule, but the result was that the state fined the contractor so much for being late that the project came in WELL under budget. The Seahawk staduim is already so much underbudget that they asked the state to LOWER the taxes on parking. I'm well aware that there are examples in the other direction, but the answer to the rhetorical question that guy asked was incorrect.

The reason why they don't plan 20-30 years in advance for capacity is because the taxpayers never go for planning so far in advance. You'd probably be complaining about how much was spent on the bridge for extra lanes that nobody needs if they actually planned that far out.

But hey, let's go for that only maintenance idea though. As long as we deport everyone who didn't live here before 1980, don't let anyone else move here, and institute a zero population growth policy, we should be fine with that plan.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), October 27, 1999.

I appreciated the comments to my questionS, for Diana, I think your theory about the "halloween props" used in the tv ad does not hold water, the fire truck and the police cars did not come from our friendly community store, but straigh from our pockets. Whether these people are wearing a badge or not it's still illegal to use taxpayer property for personal use!! I will like to see if the "no campaign" will reimburse us!!with the 1 million dollars they got from their friendly construction contractors!

As far as I49 my point is that the No campaign is using scare tactics and are flat out lying. I49 or not we have no roads, we have no transportation, we have no bycicles lanes, Seattle is a dirty messy city,unincorporated King county is drowning in water and polluting everything with the septic tanks and these politians thinks that we elected them to fill their own agendas, their frieds, and their pockets.

We need I695, for accountability, and to remind the leeches, that we the people are employing them to do a job and that we the people are paying dearly for it. YES..YES AND YES TO I695!!!!

-- Sam (samantha) (2designs@usa.net), October 27, 1999.

Politicians are bad people. They will buy us things for free if we give them less money.

-- Chad Codewell (chadco@well.net), October 28, 1999.

Prompted by this thread, I took another look at the commercial last night during Friends, Frasier, ER, etc. and will stick to my assertion that no identifying badges or precinct numbers are in the ad. I really think that the NO campaign found some lookalike costumes and unmarked vehicles for that ad. I really think it is more important for the YES campaign to worry about their campaign, and not little details like this. I encourage Sam to take a closer look at the ads (as I did last night) and realize that the least of your worries is whether or not Halloween props are used. But I really think they are not real equipments.

-- Diana (washingtonian@hotmail.com), October 29, 1999.