Thanks again for all of your hard work gathering signatures and calling and writing Kathleen Falk, Scott McDonell, Matt Veldran, Dianne Hesselbein and others who are doing their working day and night to keep our commuter rail referendum off the November ballot. Remember that we are in Phase 2 of the petition drive and have until the September 16 county board meeting to convince them that we need a referendum on the ballot in November. Key contact info is at the end of this letter.

If you're written to Kathleen you've probably received a reply similar to the one I've copied below. More or less, it says that the RTA has to develop a "plan" for the voters to vote on and when this "plan" is ready there will be a referendum.

Yesterday I attended the RTA meeting downtown at 3:00PM. Why they held it at 3PM is a mystery to me (wink wink) but suffice it to say there were only a small handful of the public at the meeting and all but me and Bill Richardson seemed to be Trainiacs. Just 5 of the 9 RTA members  attended the meeting but this was enough to conduct business under their rules.

Kathleen says in her letter that the RTA is developing a "plan" for us to vote on. My question for Kathleen is, How can 9 individuals none of whom are engineers or economists or transportation experts of any sort possibly prepare a detailed "plan" especially if only 5 of the 9 bother to attend the meetings? It's incredible to me.

Yesterday's meeting focused on the "Principles for Transit Plan". Dick Wagner presented a list of 10 principles (I don't know who prepared these for him since he doesn't seem like a details sort of guy. I can send these to you if you'd like to see them). NONE of the principles involved explicitly the costs of building or operating a transit "system". I raised my hand and suggested that they include a statement on cost and subsidy in the principles but Mr Wagner shot that down saying it was too early to know and that cost and the like would be part of the financial analysis. I don't know who will conduct the financial analysis since none of them are financial people capable of doing such a large analysis. And they don't have the money to hire experts to prepare one more study.

What this all tells me is that the RTA plan Kathleen talks about is a bad joke being played on us. The RTA members are political hacks picked to fumble and bumble around for a while then recommend the Transport 2020 ( http://www.transport2020.net ) "plan" and try to bamboozle us with more illogical baloney about how 4 trains all operating through the isthmus will move us one more step toward Utopia.

PHOTO CONTEST

Let's have a photo contest to show just how good a job city and county governments is doing their jobs here in Madison and Dane county. As you go about your day you probably encounter dozens of examples of various government agencies not doing their jobs well. The first one that comes to mind to me is that enormous pot hole at the edge of the street by Vintage Pub on S Whitney Way. I nearly lost a wheel in that two days ago. Get out your camera, large and small, and photograph examples of government already not doing it's job. Send those to me and I will find a way to post these so that viewers can vote on their favorites. The winner will get something cool (but of no substantial value).

Thanks for all of your help. Keep working and keep in touch!

Mike

PS attached is the Phase 2 petition with the new date of September 14. Please get it to all of your family, friends and neighbors and help build our network. We have until the September 16 county board meeting to convince the county board that we need to vote on commuter rail in November.

If you want to be removed from my list please drop me a line.

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Kathleen Falk's reply to one of us:

"There is a lot of work to be done before any kind of a regional transportation system proposal will be produced by the new RTA for us to vote on:  deciding the components and how they interconnect; what state and  federal funding is available; whether to create a sales tax within the region that charges those who come to our area and utilize our transportation system to mention a few.  Several years ago it was myself and the Madison Mayor who proposed a referendum -- and I continue to pledge my support for a referendum -- to decide if a half-cent sales tax should occur to implement a transportation system.  My two appointees to the RTA have pledged their commitment to hold a referendum before any sales tax is made by the RTA; the RTA itself voted to hold a binding referendum before it decides if a sales tax should be adopted."

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