Updates added at 5 and 8pm Friday.
Tavares, FL - May 20, 2011 - The Lake County School Board has been asked by the local MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) to discuss issuing a resolution at their Monday evening meeting (May 23) supporting the Sunrail railroad corporate welfare program (my opinion) and sending it to Governor Scott. Lat night, the City of Eustis killed a similar resolution brought to them.
Here are the details and what you can do about it, if you have concerns about Sunrail.
The Lake County School board posts the agenda for their next meeting on their website in the “Board Docs” section. That agenda can be found by clicking the May 23 date HERE:
http://www.boarddocs.com/fla/lake/board.nsf/Public
Some members of the Tea Party, who do not support Sunrail, noticed that agenda item 4.04 was for a resolution related to supporting Sunrail, which is not favored by many locals. If you use Board Docs, and click on agenda entry 4.04, you will see some background, plus a cover memo and a draft resolution are attached. READ them first to understand what the Board is being asked to approve.
Update 8:30 pm: If you want more background on why Gov. Scott is "considering" Sunrail, read THIS article from SunshineStateNews.com . It gives a clear, historical perspective how some Florida GOP officials have boxed him in, and why Scott may not really be the bad guy if he is forced to approve Sunrail by the situations setup by officials. Below is a quote from Sunrail opponent FL Senator Paula Dockery, who also provided a list in the article of ways that Scott could still reject Sunrail.
"State Sen. Paula Dockery says SunRail's price tag is already ballooning, and points to an FDOT document that pegs the 30-year costs at $2.66 billion -- double the advertised figure. She said such expenses, as well as an estimated $130 million in SunRail-related line-item allocations embedded in the current budget, should have the governor reaching for his veto pen."
I contacted Lake County School Distric Board Chair Debbie Stivender, who had prepared the School Board cover memo for the Sunrail resolution, to get more details about whose idea it was to add the Sunrail support resolution, and why the School Board would be considering such an issue.
Her response (at the bottom of this document) indicates, as I thought, that she was asked to add it to the agenda by the local MPO head (I assume it was TJ Fish), and the MPO favors just about any railroad project. It was NOT added to the agenda because it is a pet project of someone on the Board.
MPO’s website is here ( http://www.lakesumtermpo.com/ ), and TJ Fish makes many presentations to local Lake County Boards and groups to get support and funding for various regional transportation planning and funding programs. He is the one who pushed through the approvals for the $18-million Lake County railroad rehab project. Some observers, after reading and watching MPO activities, will notice their objectives are similar to the UN’s Agenda 21 philosophy, including regionalism, central population centers and extended use of mass transport, central planning vs property rights, “sustainability” and “smart growth”, which all involve expanded government programs, regulations and funding. There are numerous regional MPO’s throughout Florida and other states. I attended several of the Lake County MPO planning meetings for the public in 2006/07 and the sales pitch was towards all the benefits of centralized population centers, use of mass transit, and requirements to limit development of areas between the planned high density, high rise population centers. Basically, they don’t want free land development, and their way is actually how Singapore was developed, which centralized everything in order to grow their economy cheaply. For instance, Singapore had huge taxes on cars, forcing most people to take mass transit and live within walking distance of train stations. The tradeoff is central control vs liberty. HERE is an excerpt from the minutes of one of the MPO committees from last month. If you search on "Sunrail" on the MPO website, you will find at least two committee minutes with this paragraph:
Resolution of Support for SunRail
Due to Gov. Scott’s recent action to delay contract review on three SunRail contracts until
July, partners throughout Central Florida are adopting resolutions of support for SunRail.
The MPO has previously adopted a resolution of support for SunRail and for other rail
projects. Staff will discuss the issue with committees and will forward a recommendation
to the Governing Board should recommendation be provided.
It is my opinion that the School Board Chair was asked by MPO to discuss the resolution, and this is the only way the Board can publicly discuss whether they even want to support the MPO provided resolution and send it to Governor Scott, and nothing more. Chairperson Stivender says the prospective resolution actually was in the wrong agenda location and will be moved to the discussion section, and the public can provide input.
Update May 20, 7pm - I was told that a similar resolution for Sunrail was voted DOWN by the Eustis, FL City Council last night.
My Opinion
I personally believe most railroad taxpayer subsidy projects are corporate welfare that expand government control, and they never break even, thus governments (and the taxpayers) end up paying overbudget expenses, maintenance, bond interest etc for 30 or more years. Generally, it would be cheaper for the taxpayers to give each prospective rider a new electric car than create a commuter railroad system. That is what I saw with many railroad projects in California when I lived there before 2005. Sunrail is predicted to create many jobs, but why should taxpayers pay for a project or go into debt just to create jobs for big construction companies, unions others? And, remember, the Sunrail approval will result in taxpayers making HUGE payments of $432-million to CSX railroad to use (maybe buy?) the existing rail lines. If increased commuter rail was fiscally feasible, why isn't CSX allowing the project to use the rail lines for free or for mileage and maintenance fees only???
But, in case you want the other side of the story, read the agenda resolution mentioned above and HERE is the official Sunrail website: http://www.sunrail.com/
So, if you have an opinion on whether the Sunrail resolution should be passed by the Lake County School Board for submission to Governor Scott, read the agenda attachments, and then either contact your School Board members HERE, or attend the Monday evening meeting in the County round Admin building at 6pm to provide public input. (There is no daytime workshop on Monday). Keep the feedback sane, because I have no information which way any Board members will feel about this. I am betting they will determine that it isn’t an area of their responsibility, and not take any action. However, since any rail program will siphon taxpayer funds away from possible education uses, they could decide to formally oppose it also, or someone could pose some reason to actually support it.
Also, watch and see whether the Board allows TJ Fish more than 3-minutes to talk. His job as head of MPO (which receives funds from many local agencies) is to sell plans and objectives of MPO. If he does talk more than three minutes, you might ask for a comparable time for public input. It is my opinion that many Boards and Committees tend to allow Mr. Fish long periods to present MPO viewpoints, but no time for alternative viewpoints. He is a REALLY good, smart salesperson for centralized mass transit & transportation issues and is REALLY good at interjecting MPO advocacy viewpoints in many meetings. He is probably smarter than many elected officials.
Additionally, the North Lake Tea Party has encouraged the public to contact Florida Governor Rick Scott to voice objections to his approving Sunrail. His feedback website is HERE.
If I hear of any changes, I will post them as an “UPDATE” at the top of this blog posting before the Monday evening meeting. I will also add an update after the meeting on the results.
Lake County School District Chair Debbie Stivender’s response is below:
Vance,
I put it (the proposed Sunrail resolution) on the agenda for discussion purposes since this is the only time our board can discuss the issue as a group. The MPO forwarded the request to me as chair and I placed it on the agenda to get the board's feedback.
It appears the confusion may be that the item should have been placed under Discussion Items and not under Representations. At the meeting, I will explain this to the board and citizens and we will have public comments before the board makes a decision for or against the proposed resolution.
Vance, I hope this clarifies the issue. If not, please let me know.
Thanks,
Debbie
Vance Jochim
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