Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Will the media ask the hard questions at the Streetcar groundbreaking Friday?

  • Mayor Mallory, your budget numbers don't add up.  Duke Energy says they won't move their lines at ratepayer expense.  That's a $13 million gap in your budget numbers.  
  • Mayor Mallory, MSD says they won't pass the cost of moving sewer lines on to ratepayers.  That's another $5-8 million funding gap.
  • Mayor Mallory, if you don't move those utility lines, and rather build on top of them, that's a design, operational and safety nightmare.
  •  Mayor Mallory, what exactly is the plan to address these massive gaps in your plan to build the trolley?  How do you plan to finish the project on time and in budget?
  •  You say you have no plan?  You say you are still in negotiations?  You say you will address this later?  Isn't that a recipe for fiscal or operational disaster?  Aren't you condemning the taxpayers to pick up the gaps in funding as they arise, especially stating the project knowing of $18 million in unfunded costs?
  • Are you serious, Mayor Mallory?
Will the media rain on the parade with Ray LaHood and demand that our City fathers either tell us their plan, or admit that they have no plan, and that they plan on sticking it to us when the pieces fall apart about nine months from now?

Cincinnati media, face it.  You blew it on the stadium fiasco that blew up after it was too late.  Please ask the questions now, at the front end of the project, before we bankrupt the City as Bedinghaus and Neyer bankrupted the County.

7 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gordon, over the past few months there have been dozens of efforts to hijack all of our posts towards a rant session about one COAST member who supported the stadium tax. As a result I'm quick to delete such off topic posts.

    The rest of your response was fine. If I was on my home computer I would have cut and paste that portion of your remark and reposted it for you, but I'm limited on what I can do on my cell. Feel free to repost most of what you said before, without shifting the focus to yet another so-and-so supported the stadium vote.

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  3. Sorry, didn't mean to run it off topic, just felt it was interesting to point out.

    My original post:

    COAST, allow me to address some of your questions and ask a few of my own!

    For the Duke situation, as has been pointed out, they want an 8 foot clearance from the streetcar tracks. Despite the fact that this safety standard was only 3ft on a similar project by their headquarters in Charlotte, isn't anywhere near that much clearance on any other project in the country and they don't require such a clearance for automobiles. Duke is the one trying to screw rate-payers. It'll be interesting to hear if this situation has been resolved on Friday.

    As for MSD. That's your buddy Chris Monzel's fault. The city is building the streetcar. You guys tried to prevent it, but you lost at the polls twice. The city offered a deal to the county: The streets will be torn up for this project, this creates an opportune time for the COUNTY to update the sewers THEY OWN that will soon be OBSOLETE. Instead of seizing the opportunity, Monzel wants to play politics and claim he's not helping to fund the streetcar (and he wouldn't be, he'd be funding the maintenance of sewers that need fixing anyways). So the county sewers will stay and the county will pay more later on when they have to get around the streetcar. County's fault, not the streetcars.

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  4. The Business Courier just published an investigation showing that Duke's claim about needing an 8 ft. clearance is false. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/print-edition/2012/02/17/duke-energys-cincinnati-streetcar.html

    Duke's claims will not hold up in court, and the city will not be forced to pay for relocating utilities 8 ft. from the tracks.

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  5. I wonder if that article will make COAST rescind their prior "award" to the Biz Courier.

    ReplyDelete

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