Samples of Letters We've Sent

Sound Transit has been exposed to light

Published by Seattle PI at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/163504_ltrs8.html

March 8, 2004

Thanks a billion!

You finally tell us in year 2004 that back in 1996 "the voters weren't technically asked to approve 21 miles of light rail built over 10 years" ("Court's message is voters beware," March 5). That wasn't what you wrote in the General Election Guide of Oct. 29, 1996.

Worse, I've examined the Seattle Public Library's online database of full-text news articles and editorials from the 1996 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I read everything you printed on Sound Transit -- called RTA then -- between Aug. 23, 1996, the day when Resolution 75 was adopted by the RTA Board of Directors, and the Nov. 5 1996 election when voters approved RTA "Sound Move" Proposition 1.

Guess what? I can find no mention in any of your news articles or editorials that in 1996 "technically what voters were asked was to approve the taxes to build a system and to grant Sound Transit's governing board broad authority to decide how to best use the money."

That's what you tell us now. Where were you when we needed you?

A modest suggestion for the P-I: Sound Transit has now been exposed by Sane Transit and the state Supreme Court as having the discretion to consume money and calendar time without limit. So how about starting to print information that will help citizens and the Legislature decide how many more billions and how many more years this public agency should be allowed for constructing 24 miles of railroad track?

John Niles
Technical Director,
Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives
Seattle