Editor,
Candidate John Ley, running in the 18th legislative district, has worked tirelessly to bring common sense into the discussion on the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) and previously the CRC project of 10 years ago. My essay below is an attempt get the biggest bang for our taxpayer dollars using some common sense, to which I think Mr. Ley would agree wholeheartedly.
Here’s an idea whose time has come: Instead of trying to read 10,000 pages on the ins and outs of the IBR in 60 days (roughly 167 pages a day), why don’t we take the current $7.5 billion+ cost of the IBR and follow the original transportation plan for the Portland/Vancouver area and build the two additional bridges previously recommended to accommodate the increase in
population and the commensurate increase in traffic.
The building industry will still get their profits from building two bridges; Vancouver/Clark County residents won’t have to, yet again, vote down light rail; engineers say the interstate bridge is good for another 40 years, giving time to thoughtfully come up with a replacement plan; and we will finally get a government project that is cost effective and works best for the citizens of Clark County and Washington state.
Let’s not stop there. The Clark County Jail is in dire need of replacement. Two or three years ago the replacement estimate was $500 million. It’s probably risen since then, so why don’t we apply the saved funds derived from axing the IBR and roll two new bridges and a jail facility into a three-item project the building industry will love.
The current agenda of politicians forcing citizens out of their vehicles, under the guise of a climate emergency, only serves to further government control of our lives, and, fortunately, it will come to an end with the construction of these two new bridges.
I once believed the federal government’s use of the “purse strings” to accomplish the agendas of politicians was not a bad idea. Having lived long enough to see politicians pervert the use of purse strings to gain ever more control of citizen’s lives, it is long overdue to put that genie back in the bottle, a very difficult proposal at best, but one we must work to accomplish. Many politicians are terrified of the people taking back control of government, thus the establishment, left and right, continue working overtime to stop grassroots efforts to wrest control back from those who maintain control by hysterically announcing, ”The sky is falling. The sky is falling. …Voters must keep us in office. We know best.”
We are the frogs in the pot of water. Government has been turning up the flame ever so slowly and surreptitiously.
It’s time to ignore “the sky is falling” crowd and take back our representation in Olympia and Washington D.C. before our rights are once and for all sacrificed at the now-perverted altar of the common good.
Thomas Schenk
Amboy
