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Metro Transit Doesn’t Make It Easy To Ride The Bus In Georgetown

Metro Transit does not care about their people who depend on buses to be independent and get to doctors or grocery shopping. In Georgetown metro has closed our bus stop. It is what they call the Carlton Ave Stop. I have caught the bus there for 45 years, but the other day when I went to that stop a bag was hanging over it, saying stop closed. There was no sign telling me where to go or what to do. That was a real shock. I came home and got on their website and it showed it was open. Two different people that answer the phone insisted it was open. See picture below. One girl said well just walk down to Brighton. From Corson Ave to Brighton is 2/10ths of a mile or more. I am 87 and after walking 2 ½ blocks to the bus I really cant walk 3 or 4 more blocks and still feel up to getting on the bus. The 124 from Federal Way to downtown on 4th, the 131 and 134 that go to Burien(because the South Park Bridge is closed), the 60 bus that goes to White Center all stopped there. It is the only stop that serves the residential portion of Georgetown. Brighton is the stop for the South Seattle Community College. There is no reason why that stop is closed. We are not asking for a new bus stop. There never has been a bench or shelter, so we are not asking for that, there is no business that the stop is bothering. It is a real hardship for me, for my neighbors in wheel chairs, Mothers with babies in strollers and toddlers walking along beside them are having a terrible time. We don’t have bus service anymore. The same buses go right by so we are not asking for a thing except just stop and pick us up. They can’t say its cost saving. Wouldn’t it be better to stop and pick up a few paying customers than just pass us by?  In the afternoon a lot of workers from the factories around here use that bus stop.  This is plain crazy. I used to ride to Federal Way with my children who live there and then take the bus home to save them a long drive back and forth, but now the bus goes right by Corson and takes me almost to 4th and Michigan and I have to walk back home with my shopping. Well they can’t blame Bush for that.

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University of Washington Is A Private University. It Is Not Public Anymore.

Finally a story in the paper got peoples attention about the University of Washington.  By now most everyone has heard of Brandon Stover. It is hard to believe that a local boy who graduated from high school with a 4.0 grade average was turned down at the University. He was valedictorian of his class. He needs to go to the University of Washington because he cannot afford to go unless he lives at home and keeps his job. You would think the University would be ashamed to turn him down. Hope this back fires big time. They have ran the wheels right off their bus. The House Dems’ say they have to raise tuition. NO THEY DON’T. Politicians blame the taxpayers for the severe cutbacks. The University says the UW budget cuts are because voters passed anti-tax measures. The University is not making any budget cuts and any taxpayer money to that place should end right now.

The House says a quarter of their budget (about $831.9), is dedicated to renovation projects at public agencies. The University is slated for a big remodel job. They should do it with their profits and their own cuts in salaries and expenses.

We taxpayers cannot afford to be screwed over by a bunch of greedy money grubbers. I will name a few, but for every one I name there are hundreds that have helped get them to that position and pay offs, favors, bloated salaries would break any business. UW President Mark Emmert would have been making $900,000 if he had stayed, but he has left for a better job. He was here a long time and his salary would have paid the tuition for $100 local students at $9,000 each. If taxpayers were given a choice which would they choose?  He was replaced by Phyllis M. Wise. Her salary is $535,000 plus deferred compensation. But she had to get a second job on the board of Nike to help her make it in these hard times. It gets worse. The football coach, Steve Sarkisian salary is $1.7 million. This morning in the Times 4-6-11 was the news that the UW hired a new womens basketball coach. His name is Kevin McGuff with a starting salary of $474,000.

Pieces started to fall in place when Governor Gregoire made a trace trip to China during the time she was slashing, cutting, losing sleep over the budget crisis. She took 80 people with her. It had to cost a bundle. She said it was for trade and higher education. I could not understand what that meat. It means she is recruiting foreign students willing to pay three times the amount to go to the UW. That is not the way to fix the budget. Her budget is trying to get all she can from the taxpayers. Someone has to rattle the cage and get the monkeys jumping around. If she was interested in getting the State of Washington back on track she would cap the salaries. Look at the fired Superintendent of school (Maria Goodloe Johnson), look at the Port of Seattle (Tay Yoshitani) Salary. These things are actually theft or embezzling from the students tuition and taxpayers. We were suckered into building two sports palaces for billionaires not we are making millionaires out of almost all the people running schools, city light, port etc. It has to stop.

We sure do not need a levy that doubles our property tax to give to these thief’s. Its pure and simple. Almost like in the third world countries where the dictator sits in a palace and takes money from the poor while they live in shacks and in the slums. We workers are sick of it. Its bad enough to take our money and hand it over to these people who do not want to work and prefer to stay drugged up or drunk, but this is worse to raise our taxes to give to the University of Washington who divides it around the top bracket of crooks. We should cut all ties with the University of Washington, let it run itself, and pay us back for the buildings we have paid for while they were  laughing all the way to the bank. It is sad that the University of Washington got so greedy.

Jesse Jackson & The Death Of MLK

Even Though MLK day was back in January, their was a recent news story about Jesse Jackson that just made my jaw drop in disbelief.  The short of the story is this.  As you know, Martin Luther King was assassinated on his balcony in Tennessee.  A shot rang out (what is believed to be a sniper) hit Mr. King leaving him in a pool of his own blood.  The bullet entered the tip of his chin and tore half of his neck off. 

Right before the shot rang out, Jesse Jackson, Ben Branch, and few others we celebrating a little after winning a recent court case (giving them more opportunities to march) in the parking lot.  MLK actually just went upstairs to get ready for a dinner they were all going to that night.  The shot rang out and MLK was assassinated.  It was a mess for a few seconds with the police running in the wrong direction trying to find the suspect and with MLK’s friends running up to take care of Martin Luther King in his last moments. 

Here is the part that I just couldn’t believe.  Jesse Jackson went upstairs and placed his hands in the pool of blood and smeared it on his shirt.  He went out to the public and stated “he died in my arms”.  Because Jesse Jackson was in the parking lot and not on the balcony (as Jesse claimed) with Mr. King his statement was investigated.  There were many photos taken during the final hours where Jesse Jackson was seen with the smeared shirt on.  The next morning he was on the NBC “Today” show saying MLK “died in my arms”.  It was later investigated and it turns out that statement was completely false.  Jesse Jackson later apologies for the false statement.

It’s an interesting story to say the least.  Did Jesse Jackson really have the “entrepreneurial instinct” to take advantage of a tragic moment.  Remember at this time Jesse Jackson really had no opportunities.  Was this lie (or cover-up) by Jesse Jackson really a move for him to take over the leadership role of the civil rights movement?

DicksHeating.com Sumner & Puyallup RIPOFF REPORT!

It’s sad businesses continue to rip people off.  Do they really think in this digital age that nobody is going to report on their bad behavior?  They and many businesses think that they can just rip people off and walk away with a fatter wallet and there will be no consequences.  We recently had a very bad experience with DicksHeating.com that involved a “diagnosis fee” which in reality was just a smooth way of saying a travel fee.  They come out and try to switch a few things.  Tell you they think they know what the problem is, however, it doesn’t work.  Of course you pay for the equipment to try out their suggestion.  So we call them back out again and they try to fix the problem but can’t make it repeat.  They decide to call that a diagnosis fee.  Never did they mention this travelers fee before coming out.  The issue was discussed with management and they flat out denied a refund or partial refund or anything.  This company that serves many areas including Puyallup is trouble and not for the customer.  They are all about collecting fees and in my case not correcting the issue.  All I asked for was for them to come and fix the issue I called them about but they failed and failed miserably. Read more about bait and switch it at dicksheating.com.

If you live in the Puyallup, Sumner, or the South End areas please remember to use caution.  This is a real review and completely honest about their service.  I would never call Dicks Heating in Puyallup for anything and you should take this review as a caution when working with them.

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Did You Know Houses in Georgetown are Assessed at $1,000? Zillow Didn’t.

I want to invite you to take a nice walk thru Georgetown. Look at the houses on Corson and Carlton. I am not sure about Flora and Ellis. Notice all the houses are different. There are some beauties. Some are small and plain. Everyone is assessed at $1,000 ( one thousand dollars). Zillow prices varies but are between $200,000 and $350,000), Fire insurance appraisers set the price close to the Zillow price.
The assessor that did this was Scott Noble. After he got himself into some serious trouble and arrested, we had four assessors in 5 months. Appeals were nightmares and totally useless. The Department of Assessments actually wiped out single family homes. They call all of our homes tear downs. They want us to build 8 unit condos. I appealed but the only defense you can present is evidence the assessor has erred in doing the appraisal. My argument was you would have to be drunk or crazy to say every house along at these two streets are only worth a thousand dollars. They said I had to bring proof of sales around me. No house beside me, behind me, in front of me had been sold. Every house in this entire neighborhood had been declared identical and worthless. I lost my appeal.  The reason was “It is the assessors job to tax on the highest and best use”.  Single family dwellings are not the best use. The best use is tear our house down and put up an 8 unit condo. The state of course owns vacant land, pays no tax and doesn’t build condo’s on theirs. I also argued that you cant buy a Tuff Shed for $1,000. Just a total time waster to appeal. The value of the land went from $60,000 to $320,000. In other words we are being taxed right out of our $1,000 home.

This presents another boondoggle. Fire Insurance appraisers actually come and go thru the houses. They talk you into taking replacement value. This means if my house burns down they will replace it, not give me money or replace the house on a lot I can afford to pay taxes on. I would never build a new little house on a $320,000 lot here in Georgetown. So Fire Insurance is actually worthless. I am not sure the city would issue a permit to build a single family dwelling. If you go down to try to talk to them you are more or less shown the way back out of the building and told to file certain forms. From then on you are lost in Electronic Dead Ends. Something is very wrong here but none of us residents can find a way to fix it. It appears the appraiser took on the role of a Land Use Change without having to hold a hearing.

Today in the mail I get a letter from King County Sound Insulation Program. They want to come and insulate my house free to block out the noise of airplanes. If the state is broke, why would they spend thousands to insulate my THOUSAND DOLLAR HOUSE that I have lived in for 65 years and the appraiser wants me to tear down? Not real urgent. Wait until the state is not in debt.

I also got a notice from WSDOT that they will be repaving my street soon. My goodness if the state is broke why would you repave a street that doesn’t even need it. Please do not send the men in little white coats. This stupid stuff is true. State is not broke, they just cant figure out how to spend all the money.

Who does City Attorney Pete Holmes Work For? Who is his Client?

The City Attorney just sued to block the Referendum against the Highway 99 Tunnel. Does he have the legal right to do that? He is an independently elected official. My view is he cannot strike out on his own and sue to stop a referendum to stop the tunnel that has enough signatures to be on the fall ballot. I think he has to be defending some branch of the city. The mayor didn’t ask him to sue. The Mayor is totally in favor of the referendum being on the ballot and the tunnel stopped. The city council is for the tunnel but had no meetings to take a vote about what to do with the referendum, so he isn’t working on their behalf. I would think it should be illegal for the city attorney to take it upon himself to sue for anything that he has not been instructed to do. He says he will save the city millions of dollars if he blocks the referendum. Well why doesn’t he block the school levy, it would save billions and billions? We the people have no choice about putting the school levy on the ballot, but we the people did have a choice about putting the tunnel referendum on. We have more than enough signatures showing we want to vote on it. The King County Council has not instructed him to stop it. He did it on his own almost the minute it was shown to have enough signatures.

For sure the city signed contracts before and during the time “we the people paying for it” were working to get a vote. It was a slimy, (not clever at all) way to muddle up the mess.

For City Attorney Peter Holmes to say he did it to save the taxpayers money and hold a straight face takes some fine acting. None of the politicians give one hoot in hell about saving taxpayers money. That is the one thing they do not even consider. They have proved that time and time again. The tunnel is the most expensive. How did that save me money?

Washington State, King County, and City of Seattle has Hijacked the Gravy Train

Let’s call the load of taxpayer’s money the Gravy Train.  It’s a little train that COULD. There is billions on the train. More than enough to pay good wages to fireman, policemen, teachers, nurses, and countless other essential help that a state, county or city needs.  Remember when the train loads of gold went along thru the country and Highwaymen, Robbers, all sorts of crooks would rob the train unless they were stopped by The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Hoppy and Lucky and maybe the Riflemen. We don’t have those guys anymore. It should be the governor, executives, elected representatives, mayors, helping to protect our gravy train but THEY DO NOTHING. At every stop the robbers/embezzlers/liar’s take bundles of tax payer rmoney for pet projects we never hear of. They take many trips here and there, the administrators; get paid obscene, astronomical, unwarranted salaries. Then they come back and want more taxes and the people who are elected to carry out our wishes dream up another tax and we have to load the train again.

The first to get laid off are teachers, policeman and help for the poorest of the poor. They want our sympathy. Those days are gone. Look at the waste.  They are just a few examples. They just have to have more money for roads. The Washington State Department of Transportation screwed away 377 million without one thing to show for it, studying the 520 bridge. The Seattle City Council had 700 meetings, 76 options, about the tunnel. They spent big bucks buying up land and trying to tie it up so it will have to get built, no matter what.  The Seattle Port Chief Tay Yoshitani is paid $366,825. The new Superintendent of Schools (Susan Enfield) is paid $225,000. Those are just at the top. Think how many layers and layers of administrative costs we pay for and get absolutely nothing. The Governor is paid $167,891 and should be the highest paid person in the state. The gravy train is powered by our taxes. If every property owner, (I mean everyone) refused to pay their property tax until they fired all this deadweight at the top and made  salaries comparable to teachers, police, firemen etc the train would stop. There would be so much money left over they could hire a tutor for any child that was having trouble. They could hire more police to stop crime but they for some reason hand out our money to these administrators. When someone is caught robbing/embezzling they get a golden handshake. No one has to pay a dime back to us.

They want to double the school levy. Double the property tax we pay. Our tax is based on someone who is living on Fantasy Island. I have a little 90 year old house that I paid $10,500 for years ago and the property tax on it is $3,850 a year. Because the dreamer in the Assessor’s office says an 8 unit condo should be there. So I pay tax on his dream, as well as his wages. He says they have to tax on the highest and best use.  In my neighborhood, however, the state owns 14 acres of land. They rent the back portion to a college for $3 or $4 a year. The rest is lawn. Its best and highest use according to the assessor must be for dogs and geese to poop in. It would hold a lot of condo’s.  The officials are untouchable. You cannot get a suggestion to them. They have lied to us so much they think what they say is true. They have hired so many “thugs” a/k/a staff to insulate themselves from us. If we try to contact them an aide sends us a form letter with cuts and pastes from their website. They end it by saying “if you have any questions please let them know.” Well hell – they never heard or answered the first one.

Lets shut off the fuel to this gravy train as soon as possible. King 5 investigators are doing a great job, an bloggers like the Emerald City Journal is trying to get word out on the Web. We have to stop the wasted fuel (tax money) and get rid of all of the officials (at the ballot box that are hijacking and robbing the train.  You never solve money problems by throwing more money at it. Every year they want more and more money and go deeper in debt.

      
 
 

Seattle Interim School Chief Won’t Make Big Changes

Susan Enfield who took over immediately upon the firing of Maria Goodloe-Johnson says she has no big changes planned. What the heck did they appoint her for? They were paying Goodloe-Johnson $294,000 a year and will have to pay her for a whole year plus $9,800 in benefits for doing a rotten job. They also fired Don Kennedy, Goodloe’s handpicked chief financial officer. He will get half his salary, which will be $85,000 plus $4,900 in benefits. Susan Enfield will be paid a BASE salary of $225,000. When they say base they mean she can put about as many add on expenses she happens to feel like it. So lets see what we have gained in this shuffle. The Superintendant job for this year will cost taxpayers $618,700 (all the above added together). Two crooks get a year off with pay and benefits and we end up with a superintendant that will continue with the plan that Goodloe-Johnson created. The money squandered does not have to be paid back.

You would think the change should have been for someone to step in and stop the bloated, asinine, over inflated wages the management portion of the school is being paid. Why should they be paid such a salary? What is Susan Enfield doing to justify $225,000? Teachers start at about $54,000. Firefighters start at $62,856, Sheriff/Police vary between $85,564 and $106,883. It’s no surprise. She wants to keep her $225,000(more than our governor is paid) and has to keep peace with the peons in her administrative office.

Somebody has to step in and start completely over, first by setting a top salary that is realistic for what they are doing. If you fired every administrator making over $50,000 a year, I bet it would work a lot better. These managers are not royalty, they are totally self absorbed, they don’t deserve pay like that. They have proved they cannot manage school money, they divide it among themselves then ask for another levy. We can’t complain to the Governor, Representatives in Olympia, or the Seattle City Council. They do not read your complaints and you MIGHT get a form letter from their flunky directing you to their website, telling you to be sure to get in touch if you have any questions. They pretend to make a change, but things stay the same or get worse, but always cost more.

Drive A Mile…Get Taxed A Mile – The New Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Tax

If you drive a motor vehicle you could soon be taxed for the miles you drive.  Uncle Sam with the help of Democrats are circulating new ideas for increasing revenue and one of those ideas is the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Tax.  Supporters believe its a fair way to charge people for using the highways.  They believe it would naturally limit highway use thus create less spending for the highways (like repairs etc) and obviously create revenue.

It’s not enough any more that you pay your normal taxes, gas taxes, bridge tolls, HOV fees, car tabs, traffic/parking violations, auto ownership transfer fees, and 520 tolls anymore.  You need to be taxedfor the mileage you drive also.  Where do we draw the line in the sand and say that is enough taxes/fees for the roads.  If the roads can’t be fixed with all the taxes and fees above then we have to realize this is more than just revenue – it’s management of the current transportation revenue. 

It starts with getting people out of office who don’t make tough spending decisions and are constantly just thinking up “ideas to create revenue”.  These decisions mean certain people need to be fired (management/staff whatever) and/or over inflated programs need to be cut.  Our officials in office need to have the testicular fortitude to put their neck and reputation on the line (plus other things) to make these tough decisions.  Sure tough decisions mean everyone isn’t going to be happy but that is part of the job.  We don’t need anymore thinkers – we need action.  We have setup a government system that supports ideas and not action.  Officials want to get re-elected and to make this happen they don’t want to make the hard line cutting decisions.  They don’t want to make anyone mad or even have anyone dislike them.  It simply is not in their own professional interests.  That is why most officials don’t make tough cuts or even discuss it – they just sit around and think up some new revenue idea that will tax more people.

These ideas do pass.  Look at the light cameras we have or the HOV lane fees.  The extreme rental car taxes.  Some states have speeding cameras mounted on the road.  We have even tried placing empty white vans on the highways ticketing people (with just a computer inside). 

It’s the same story we hear it all the time.  After a year or two when the government has used that great ideas revenue, they’ll claim we are broke again.  Some Official will think up another revenue idea (tax) and the vicious cycle continues over again.

Richard Conlin Seattle City Councilman Won’t Answer Taxpayer Questions

Richard Conlin Seattle City Councilman Won’t Answer Taxpayer Questions.

I recently wrote each member of the city council. Only two bothered responding. I want to just print what I wrote them, and what they answered back and think it pretty well shows they are not the slightest interested in what we have to say, or what we ask them.  You be the judge.  Try asking them something.  Anything.

 This is what I wrote to Councilman Richard Conlin after the Japan tsunami. They had their mind made up from day one they wanted a tunnel(must have got some big donations for their elections and have some big favors to pay).  Us guys paying the bills are just not important to them at all.  They have bought up land and have been wheeling and dealing in such a way they can get the tunnel whether it is on the fall ballot again or not.  Or if it proves the voters does not want it.  They can say the referendum does not apply to administrative actions, only to legislative actions.  See my letter to him and his answer below.

Good Morning Mr. Conlin:

Please re think your position on building the deep bore tunnel to replace the viaduct since the Japan earthquake.I was always against the tunnel as were 70% of the voters. Where do you get the idea you can ignore our vote?
Forget how you hate the Mayor, and want to make a liar out of him but thankfully you are giving him a lot of publicity and maybe he can be our next governor. He got elected because he promised us to stop the tunnel. His loyalty is to the voters and citizens not to a handful of council members. Just think about this.
How can digging right thru an earthquake fault, below sea level to build a tunnel be a good idea?  It would be a death trap far greater than the viaduct the minute you built it.  You cannot outguess Mother Nature and she will win.  If/when we have the big one with a tsunami there would be no warning to even get what cars were in it out the other end. It would be a big culvert. Also, it is the most expensive plan, we have no money.  It will take the longest to build so the viaduct would be up longer.  It will not help the traffic problem and will handle less cars than the viaduct. It has no exits. It wont get you downtown. What on earth are you guys thinking?  You are listening to some builders and union promises somewhere and not thinking about the tunnel at all.  For shame.
Lilly

HERE IS HIS ANSWER   (jibber jabber from his website, cut and pasted)

Thanks for your message.  I do not agree with your assertions, and have commented on them below.

Then in the same message he copy and pasted the exact text on Seattle City Councilman website here (the whole thing!):

http://conlin.seattle.gov/2011/03/03/council-overrides-mayoral-veto-on-tunnel-agreements/

The email concluded with him providing information links in the email:

For more details on the project, please go to the following:

http://conlin.seattle.gov/2010/05/18/time-to-tell-the-truth-about-costs-about-costs-and-the-viaduct-tunnel-project/

http://conlin.seattle.gov/2010/08/20/tunnel-agreements-endorsed-by-council/

http://conlin.seattle.gov/2010/12/21/tunnel-bid-on-target-for-budget/

Council President Richard Conlin

Seattle City Hall

He never answered or commented on a thing I wrote but its very interesting for him to admit they had 700 meetings, 76 replacement options, 15,000 public comments, 20 public meetings. Maybe he should update it to 15,001, since he got MY comment.

I felt the need to reply. To let him know that I know I got a snow job. See my reply below.

Thank you for answering.  You missed the whole point.  Even if everyone was for the tunnel before the Japan quake and tsunami they sure SHOULD BE AGAINST IT NOW.  No I never liked the tunnel(70% of the voters said the same thing) and you’re right I don’t trust WSDOT(think $377 million gone to studies and plans) without a thing being done.  This is no worse than Potter screwing away those millions on studying how to run minority businesses.  Maybe some heads will roll over that mess.  But for now wanted to get you Council Members to think how dangerous a tunnel would be.  If the tooth fairy or Santa offered to build it free, I would still think it was a bad idea.  Thank you again for at least sending a form letter.
Lilly

Seattle Councilman Richard Conlin
Seattle Councilman Richard Conlin

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