Archive for September, 2008
By Frosty Wooldridge
Can you hear the clock ticking on the demise of America? Yes, Congress expects to pass a package bailout deal to save all those bankers, realtors and lenders from their dirty deals for the past 15 years. They might as well tighten a tourniquet around America’s arm while her legs fall off.
A reader said, “I admire your efforts, and I admire your passion. I hate to say it, but I think the cause is lost. I don't say it because I think the causes you push are unjust. Far from it. I say it because the globalists have done their work very well.
“Americans have been ‘enstupidated’. Having read John Taylor Gatto's seminal work, and several thousand other books on history and political subjects, it just appears to me that the main goals have been achieved. The communist party agenda has largely been enshrined in State and (especially) Federal laws. Rule of law is dead, as well as is obedience and fealty to our Constitution. Most people, especially so called elected officials and law enforcement, are ignorant as to what is actually written in our Constitution.
“One thing struck me recently as I was re-reading John Taylor Gatto's book. The goal of public schools is not education, but social control. It was to make revolution impossible by dumbing the populace down, and making them dependent upon their leaders. Previous generations of Americans (and other nations) often found their political leadership superfluous as they were more than capable and confident of seeing to their affairs without government direction.
“I don't know what the long haul holds for western civilization. Having read a number of sources and prognostications, it does NOT look good. In the end, I don't think I can participate in saving a civilization that seems committed to killing itself, and punishing those that try to save it. In the end, all I think I can do is try to wage the battle of ideas, and secure the future of my family. I no longer see that future in the USA. The tyranny is no longer creeping. It is running forward at a full gallop. People are cheering it on. People don't want to be free; they want the illusion of security. They are no longer free spirited yeomen, but peasants of the technological age. I want my kids growing up free, self-interested, moral, educated free agents whose loyalty and patriotism are not used to get them to support tyranny, but are used to allow them to explore freedom. If they can't have freedom where they are, I want them to have the intellectual and moral fortitude to seek it anywhere in this world they can. At one point, Americans all came from somewhere else. I don't consider it wrong to follow the example of my own ancestors. The only difference is that instead of coming to the USA seeking freedom, we now flee it, seeking freedom.
“To that end, we'll probably just move around the globe like gypsies, no longer calling the USA, or the UK, or Dubai, or anywhere, "home." Places we go are places to see, and make a living. To us, America resides in its ideals, which were expressed in its Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation even. Unfortunately, teaching those is almost a crime in many schools in the USA (all those "racist" Founding Fathers, and the way they dared to believe in the Christian God).
“Western civilization had a good run, and the USA was a great experiment. It has now devolved, and will soon end in abject failure. I wonder if the civilizations the Chinese and Indians build will eventually rise in freedom, or will we just enter a long, technologically advancing, but philosophical Dark Age? All I can say is that expat families like ours will do our bit to keep the philosophies of freedom alive, but I don't hold much hope that nations like the USA will remain fertile soil for those ideas. Maybe someday things will recover, but if and until the Federal Government implodes and collapses, and then only if enough people value not only their own liberty, but respect the rights of their neighbors to be left alone, will true and real freedom ever flourish. Modern Americans, by and large have no clue what being free actually is, so I don't expect that they will do anything to reconstruct it should the chance arise.”
He makes cogent points. He makes depressing points. He made me think. What about you? Will we survive depth and level of corruption manifesting within America today from the president and Congress?
We face an interesting election and outcome in 2009. I know one thing: if we refuse to participate in our country’s future, I see the continuing demise of our country.
To take action: www.numbersusa.com ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.vdare.com
www.patriotunion.org ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.cairco.org
Become a member of “Frosty’s Press Agent Corps” whereby you volunteer a few hours to send out emails to top TV and radio hosts to offer top speakers on America’s overpopulation crisis driven by unending immigration. Email frostyw@juno.com and receive two informational letters showing you exactly what to do.
Roy Beck's "IMMIGRATION BY THE NUMBERS" is the single best educational appreciation of America's future if we allow ourselves to add another 100 million people. Just click on this site for the most sobering experience of your children's future.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=roy+beck&hl=en
Roy Beck gives a graphic presentation of our fate if we continue to allow legal and illegal immigration to swamp this country. If you have children, you will be particular unnerved at their fate. I know Roy Beck personally and his integrity and knowledge stand at the top. Pass this web site 14 minute video far and wide across America to educate everyone you know. We either stop this human tsunami or the future of this country will be much like Rome's. We must, as a nation and a civilization, move to secure our country from this massive, unrelenting population overload from a line that never ends. This will be the most compelling 14 minute video of your life.
Once you see it, go to my web site for action items www.frostywooldridge.com and join www.numbersusa.com to become a weekly faxer of pre written letters and join the phone calling teams.
Bob Woodruff of ABC asked input from all citizens concerning the future of our planet. Go to www.earth2100.tv for a sobering reality check as to what we face and to what I have been writing about for the past 20 years. Our ‘window’ to change to a balanced population and non-polluting energy diminishes every day we listen to irresponsible media and thus ignore the blatant symptoms manifesting all over America and the planet.
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com
From: Frosty Wooldridge
This three minute interview with Adam Schrager on “Your Show” May 4, 2008, NBC Channel 9 News, addresses the ramifications of adding 120 million people to USA in 35 years and six million people to Colorado as to water shortages, air pollution, loss of farmland, energy costs and degradation of quality of life. In the interview, Frosty Wooldridge explains the ramifications of adding 120 million people to the USA in 35 years. He advances new concepts such as a “Colorado Carrying Capacity Policy”; “Colorado Environmental Impact Policy”; “Colorado Water Usage Policy”; “Colorado Sustainable Population Policy”. Nationally, the USA needs a "National Sustainable Population Policy" to determine the carrying capacity of this nation for the short and long term. Wooldridge is available for interviews on radio and TV having interviewed on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX.
Click the link to view the 3 minute interview with NBC's Adam Schrager:
http://www.9news.com/video/player.aspx?aid=52364
Frosty Wooldridge
www.frostywooldridge.com
Stop this Human Katrina rushing into America--take action: www.numbersusa.com ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.cairco.org ; www.frostywooldridge.com ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.patriotunion.org
September 30th, 2008
Last July 30, Chef Dava announced on Aspen Post the opening of her 1908 Paonia farm house as a Bed & Breakfast, so last month I decided to surprise my wife with a visit to Dava’s Bead & Breakfast for our 14th wedding anniversary. Frankly, I could not be more pleased with this decision, and neither could my wife.
After a morning of soccer games and kid shuttles, we dropped the children off at the grandparent’s house and began a weekend of uninterrupted, adult conversation. By the time we turned south on scenic Highway 133 at Carbondale, the burden of routine and responsibility began to lift. The cottonwoods along the Crystal River were just beginning to turn bright yellow, and we could see some orange hues in the oak brush. Even though most of the Aspens were still clinging to summer green, fall colors were everywhere. We stopped in Redstone, where we bought our first house fifteen years ago, and had lunch at the Crystal Club Café. After a drive through our old neighborhood, we turned south toward McClure Pass. Even at this leisurely pace, we were in Paonia in just two hours...
Continue Reading September 28th, 2008
This afternoon I attended a Memorial Service for long-time Aspen resident, Judge, and City Councilman J.E. DeVilbiss.
Jim Moran moderated the service at Paepcke Auditorium, and speakers included Peggy DeVilbiss, former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, Ed Mulhall, Helen Klanderud, Jack Johnson, Judge Jim Boyd, Judge Katie Sullivan, Dr. Jack Crandall, Mayor Mick Ireland, Meeker lawyer Frank Cooley, and others.
One speaker noted, "We are not here to Canonize J.E.," a statement of purpose that seemed to resonate with a crowd of friends and family who knew J.E. was no saint. DeVilbiss was described as a "big sack of pluses and minuses," "cranky and caring," and "a loving SOB." This recurring theme was punctuated by Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland who described J.E. as a person who struggled against the forces of life and turned out a truly good person.
It was an afternoon of stories, anecdotes, emotions and laughter. Afterwards at the Elks Club, I ran into J.E.'s daughter Julie, who I hadn't seen since she was in high school.
"Your father was a good friend to me," I said.
"He was to me, too," she replied.
If there is any higher form of praise, I'm at a loss as to what that might be.
September 27th, 2008
Prior to the stock market crash of 1929, banks let anybody “play” the stock market, from the guy who washed dishes at the local diner to the truck driver who transported chicken feed to the widow in Waukegan raising Rhode Island Reds in her backyard, everybody could play—often with just pennies. Back then, banks would take those pennies, nickels and dimes and combine them all into larger amounts and invest in the stock market. Margins—the amount cash the bank required to invest—were very small, typically less than 10%. If a stock moved in the wrong way a little, investors were asked to put up 10% of the total value of their holding in that stock. No big deal. Confidence was high, stocks were moving steadily upward, and everybody was making money.
Continue Reading September 27th, 2008
By Frosty Wooldridge
By watching America’s financial meltdown, the lunatics took possession of the asylum in the past week. What amazes taxpayers stems from the fact that the people who brought us this “1929 Crash” crisis in 2008, think they can solve it by taking even more money that doesn’t exist! Whether Treasury Secretary Paulson begs for a $700 billion bailout or Mr. Bernanke cajoles Congress—American taxpayers foot the bill. Taxpayers foot the bill like friends buying a bottle of Jack Daniels for a 16 year old alcoholic while giving him the keys to their cars.
Americans enable more corruption, financial anarchy and the cartel of Congress.
I spoke with Colorado economist and humorist Michael Folkerth, author of “The Biggest Lie Ever Believed” with his website www.kingofsimple.com.
“We are living in historic times, ugly history, but history all the same,” Folkerth said. “One of my readers asked me to simplify what is happening with our monetary and banking systems to Mikeronomics.
“In the words of the King of Simple, Wall Street (including banks) had legal gambling debts that were considered too large to cover. Our leadership said, “No problem, we’ll tax the public to pay your debts and you can get back to what you do best; gambling with other people’s money.”
“I have written for years that Wall Street is nothing more than Las Vegas on steroids. They drain the life blood out of American companies to a point of sending them into bankruptcy or moving off shore.
“Once all the damage was done here in the U.S., they have moved their money and investments to such places are Communist China, Korea, Brazil and India, stating that we must compete in a global world. Hogwash! (that is an economic term)
“Our economic woes didn’t materialize overnight; they began around 1970, when our insistence on exponential growth in GDP collided with physics. The monetary system and matter-energy systems no longer balanced.
“The matter-energy system (all that is real and tangible) must balance with the monetary system (the man-made creation of money). This was the case prior to 1970 as can be seen here http://mikefolkerth.com/2008/09/04/growth-debt-and-demise/
“While it is absolutely imperative that these two systems balance, the growth of the matter-energy system is constrained by a finite-physical barrier. The monetary system, being man-made, is not. To complicate matters even further, the monetary system grows exponentially or geometrically, due to the power of compounding interest. These facts make the two most important underpinnings of our economic system incompatible. A condition that cannot long exist; and it didn’t.
“This balance of our two most important aspects of our economic system is a well known requirement. A requirement that has been acknowledged nearly since time began. To keep the man made monetary system from running amuck, it was kept in check by requiring a physical element be provided prior to the printing of currency, that of silver and gold. In this way, a semblance of balance was thus possible. Gold from the finite system was required to match that of the creation of paper currency which is infinite. Good plan!
“Around 1970, that balance was no longer possible. The necessity of creating an exponential growing supply of money to match that of compounding interest coupled with the desire to grow population and GDP, was no longer achievable when constrained by the waning supply (and cost) of the physical check and balance of gold….unless that is, the rules could be changed. Bad plan coming up!
“In 1971, America went off the gold standard forever. Now that the pesky constraint of a physical check and balance for the dollar was removed, money could be printed in ever increasing quantities and resource depletion and population growth were non-issues; temporarily. The wisdom of centuries was thrown out the door in lieu of greed, power, false wealth and trying to fool Mother Nature. We would soon learn that Mother Nature is one mean Mother.
“The massive amounts of paper money that could be produced by simply “monetizing debt” opened the door for some of the most elaborate forms of gambling ever perpetrated on the American people (it was your money in the game). Clever inventions such as “fractionalized banking, credit default swaps, derivative trading, short selling and a hundred other legalized scams brought forth the gamblers, fraudsters and profiteers to shear the willing flock on a daily basis.
“But these gamblers and fraudsters are not the shell game hustlers of the dingy city street corner; these shysters are America’s most elite and shall not be chastised as they have the full backing of the best government that money can buy. Don’t believe me? Look at who is paying the gambling debts.
“However, physics trump human rule makers every time and in the most severe manner. The new system of debt accumulation (rather than balance), lasted a mere 38 years.
“During those 38 years of our ill conceived imbalance with nature, the following has occurred:
1. Our funded National Debt has increased from 371 Billion to the current need for a ceiling of $11.3 Trillion, an increase of 3045% over 38 years, or an average of 80.14% per year. As a benchmark, the National Debt increase for the 20 previous years was 69% or 3.45% per year.
2. The U.S. went from the world’s largest creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor.
3. Oil production in the U.S. decreased by 40% and consumption increased by 40%.
4. The total amount of dollars in circulation has risen from approximately $500 Billion to more than $10 Trillion or a 2000% increase. And backed by what? Taxes!
“To this point, I have been speaking about the funded National Debt. I have not included the unfunded debt or the private debt. America’s unfunded debt (promises made for government retirements, Social Security, Medicare etc.), run the number up to $75.1 Trillion.
“And then there is the private debt of some $42 Trillion which rounds up America’s total debt to $117.1 Trillion. This is equal to $386,091.00 for every child in the U.S. After all, that is who we expect to pay for our exploits against balance is it not?
“The U.S. has reached what I refer to as the “maximum debt level.” The monetary system of debt has become greater than all matter-energy collateral on earth from a balanced perspective. The imbalance has become so great, that just one week ago; our entire monetary system nearly collapsed…and should have. And will!”
Mike Folkerth offers a short-course in economics. Our president remains clueless and the corrupt ‘Cartel in Congress’ bows to the corrupt Federal Reserve while we pay the bills.
One of my sources said realtors, mortgage lenders and the like provided no-down-payment to some five million illegal aliens and minority poor without any investigation as to their identities or ability to pay their monthly mortgages. With nothing invested, they lived in those homes long enough to skip out when the bankers chased them down for not paying their mortgages.
Who holds the bag and ultimately pays for all that corruption? You do! As more millions from Mexico moves into the USA, the more we imitate Mexico. Corruption becomes the norm! Yippee ki yea!
##
To take action: www.numbersusa.com ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.Capsweb.org ; www.vdare.org ; www.proenglish.org ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.patriotunion.org ; www.illegalimmigration.com
Become a member of “Frosty’s Press Agent Corps” whereby you volunteer a few hours to send out emails to top TV and radio hosts to offer top speakers on America’s overpopulation crisis driven by unending immigration. Email frostyw@juno.com and receive two informational letters showing you exactly what to do.
Bob Woodruff of ABC asked input from all citizens concerning the future of our planet. Go to www.earth2100.tv for a sobering reality check as to what we face and to what I have been writing about for the past 20 years. Our ‘window’ to change to a balanced population and non-polluting energy diminishes every day we listen to irresponsible media and thus ignore the blatant symptoms manifesting all over America and the planet.
Subject: FW: What America faces with adding 100 million people
Roy Beck's "IMMIGRATION BY THE NUMBERS" is the single best educational appreciation of America's future if we allow ourselves to add another 100 million people. Just click on this site for the most sobering experience of your children's future.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=roy+beck&hl=en
Roy Beck gives a graphic presentation of our fate if we continue to allow legal and illegal immigration to swamp this country. If you have children, you will be particular unnerved at their fate. I know Roy Beck personally and his integrity and knowledge stand at the top. Pass this web site 14 minute video far and wide across America to educate everyone you know. We either stop this human tsunami or the future of this country will be much like Rome's. We must, as a nation and a civilization, move to secure our country from this massive, unrelenting population overload from a line that never ends. This will be the most compelling 14 minute video of your life.
Once you see it, go to my web site for action items www.frostywooldridge.com and join www.numbersusa.com to become a weekly faxer of pre written letters and join the phone calling teams.
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com
From: Frosty Wooldridge
This three minute interview with Adam Schrager on “Your Show” May 4, 2008, NBC Channel 9 News, addresses the ramifications of adding 120 million people to USA in 35 years and six million people to Colorado as to water shortages, air pollution, loss of farmland, energy costs and degradation of quality of life. In the interview, Frosty Wooldridge explains the ramifications of adding 120 million people to the USA in 35 years. He advances new concepts such as a “Colorado Carrying Capacity Policy”; “Colorado Environmental Impact Policy”; “Colorado Water Usage Policy”; “Colorado Sustainable Population Policy”. Nationally, the USA needs a "National Sustainable Population Policy" to determine the carrying capacity of this nation for the short and long term. Wooldridge is available for interviews on radio and TV having interviewed on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX.
Click the link to view the 3 minute interview with NBC's Adam Schrager:
http://www.9news.com/video/player.aspx?aid=52364
Frosty Wooldridge
www.frostywooldridge.com
September 25th, 2008
Tonight I attended the Commission meeting and listened as Garfield County Staff recommended against rezoning privately owned land at Sunlight Mountain Resort’s base area. Currently, there are two zoning classifications on these lands: Low Density Residential (LDR), and Recreation. Choosing not to rezone LDR parcels as Recreation effectively kills Sunlight’s base area development plans and permanently limits what base area development can be. In my opinion, you need to approve Sunlight’s rezoning request for several reasons...
Continue Reading September 24th, 2008
Brain teaser:
Who am I?
I'm under 45 years old,
I love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer, having taken on the Republican Party establishment,
I have many children,
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor's office.
Who am I?
Teddy Roosevelt in 1900. (sic)
Hi All,
Someone I don't know all that well, actually took the time to forward this little "brain-teaser" to me while Conniff and I were having lunch at Doc's the other day in mid-town Manhattan. Yeah, The Con Man's in town with his ultra cool other half; so we decided to lunch and catch up -- when you've known each other since 6th grade, "catching up" is a relative term.
The email above shocks and frightens me for several reasons: there's no effort in it; it's intellectual sloth is only exceeded by its author's evident self-satisfaction as evidenced by the volume of recipients he "batched" it to. It took my breath away, and just plain pissed me off. I spared the original author my response, but not its forwarder. Herewith my brain in its "teased" state that AM. I suppose the point was that TR has "nothin" on SP.
TR's "thin" resume included among other things: Asst. secretary of the Navy, Police Commissioner of NYC, Governor of NY, Vice-President under McKinley, historian, naturalist, explorer and author of no less than 35 books. When William McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, TR was vacationing (camping) with his large brood in the in the Adirondacks (a park I believe he designated).
He was a decorated soldier, and led the 1st Cavalry regiment in our war with Spain; he negotiated the contract and won the rights to build the Panama Canal; he negotiated the end of the Russian-Japanese War for which he received the Nobel Prize; his visage appears on MT. Rushmore alongside that of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. He is considered by many historians to be one of greatest American presidents.
Oh, I forgot to mention that TR was the first president to call for a National Health Insurance for all Americans and as a "trust buster" his "Fair Deal" extended to the breakup of 40+ monopolies and the regulation of rail-road pricing. He was, as he said, not against capitalism, just corruption and illegality and greed -- any of this sounding relevant?
Read Edmund Morris' (Pulitzer '79) The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, one of the best biography's I've ever read. There was so much to tell about the young TR in this 500+ page bio that Morris concludes volume 1 having only reached McKinley's assassination. He ends the book with an out of breath runner. Yes, a runner, who had to get up to the vacationing VP's Adirondack camp in a hurry and breathlessly deliver the somber news to Mr. Roosevelt that he is (at present) the president of the United states. No Ms. "heartbeat away" has nothing on TR, and plenty of it.
September 24th, 2008
Over time, the debate has spread between two poles,” Mann said. “On one side, according to the late Garrett Hardin, an ecologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, are the Cassandras, who believe that continued population growth at the current rate will inevitably lead to catastrophe. On the other are the Pollyannas, who believe that humanity faces problems but has a good shot at coming out okay in the end. Cassandras, who tend to be biologists, look at each new birth as the arrival on the planet of another hungry mouth. Pollyannas, who tend to be economists, point out that along with each new mouth comes a pair of hands.”
Continue Reading September 24th, 2008
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan for the Highway 82 corridor has a large number of parts and pieces, but we need to look at the big picture before moving on to the fine detail.
RFTA wants to embark on a major transit expansion plan over the seventeen year period from 2009 to 2025. Total capital costs of the plan are in the range of $180 to $190 million, and annual operating expenses are projected to more than double, from a current $20 million or so to about $40 million.
During various presentations to the public and elected officials, the feedback was that the plan was too large to absorb all at once, both conceptually and financially, and that a phased approach would be more appropriate. The term “BRT Lite” was first proposed, but RFTA board members wanted to stress that the full BRT plan hadn’t changed, just the size of the first bite. So, “BRT Phase 1” is the moniker for the initial plan which the federal government and local voters will be asked to endorse and fund.
RFTA has not received much encouragement regarding federal financial participation, so they have also developed a plan for how to use the revenue if local voters approve a sales tax increase which is not augmented by any federal grants. The sales-tax-approval-with-no-federal-money scenario is really another layer of phasing; let’s call it “BRT Phase 1 Lite”.
Does RFTA need additional tax revenues to maintain current operations, regardless of whether federal funding sets off an expansion plan that will eventually result in a full BRT system? Consultants prepared graphs for public presentation, one of which illustrates a “Baseline” financial forecast indicating that RFTA is solvent through 2019, reaching a spending level that year of about $40 million.
However, a “Likely Trends” graph line, apparently intended to predict what RFTA will need to spend to keep pace with increasing ridership demand in the absence of a BRT system, shows a deficit beginning next year, growing to $6 million per year by 2025.
The latest Likely Trends scenario, a version developed in May, assumes a fleet expansion of 10 vehicles - scaled down from an estimate of 22 a month earlier! This sudden downward adjustment is difficult to understand, and the ability to do so doesn’t lend much credibility to ridership projections. Despite this, there has yet to be any official questioning of ridership assumptions, or the need for additional rolling stock.
Contributing to the sense that the definition of Likely Trends is highly flexible are those items on the latest budget that went up in price, even after the number of buses went down. The line item “ITS/Transit Priority”, a key technology feature of the BRT system, is on the Likely Trends budget for $12.3 million, as is a maintenance facility expansion at $10.25 million – only $0.5 million less than would be required to accommodate BRT Phase 1.
RFTA’s Likely Trends scenario has become indistinguishable from “BRT Phase 1 Lite”, a significant evolution from its original function as a number representing the response to projected ridership growth. The conclusion can only be that BRT is a fait accompli - even if the proposed sales tax increase is needed just to maintain the current system. The real “likely trend” is that RFTA will continue to grow beyond its revenue base, evidenced by the fact that if they do successfully secure approval of both higher sales taxes and the requested federal contribution of $21.3 million, they will need another round of tax hikes as early as 2013.
The likelihood that additional tax revenues may be needed to simply keep running in place, with no new service expansion, is illustrated by actual trends:
Between 1997 and 2007, RFTA operating expenses increased by 130%.
Population in the RFTA service area grew by 38%.
RFTA Ridership grew by 21%
The most peculiar wrinkle in the financial reporting has to do with the aforementioned $10 million maintenance facility expansion. In a presentation to Aspen and Pitkin County officials last April, RFTA indicated that current maintenance facilities are already operating beyond design capacity by about 19 vehicles.
How then did RFTA develop a Baseline financial forecast that doesn’t indicate a budget shortfall for maintenance expansion and the operating and maintenance expenses associated with the additional buses and vans? This is one of the serious perception problems that need to be addressed by RFTA, and another has to do with federal financing rules.
As explained by Dan Blankenship and Kristin Kenyon to the RFTA board: “FTA doesn’t want the VSS/SS program to be used by transit agencies for supplementing funding for existing services…” Don’t worry about the acronyms, the message is clear. If you want federal assistance you need to be creating a new service, not just shoring up an existing system.
The appearance that the perpetual expansion of service may be related to a persistent underreporting of financial reality is disturbing. Neither local taxpayers nor federal regulators should be subjected to a scheme to finesse current financial needs in the guise of an entirely new service proposal. If RFTA cannot maintain current service at current tax levels, they need to address that situation head on, and completely separate from any new service proposals. Consolidation should precede further expansion.
Assuming local taxpayers are willing to be taxed again to keep RFTA solvent at current service levels, it appears they will be unable to accomplish that goal without simultaneously launching a chain of events intended to increase transportation spending by additional hundreds of millions of dollars.
It may be more appropriate to offer voters a chance to choose between the two.
Next: Part VI
To BRT or not to BRT?
September 24th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—Because it kept important details from the public, the City of Aspen’s attempts at transparency in the Burlingame Ranch affordable housing brochure brouhaha exacerbated a bad situation and made it worse in the realm of public perception.
No one disputes the Burlingame brochure misled voters in 2005 when it appeared before the election with an inaccurate “total” cost figure of $74 million for all three phases, a number approved by voters but one that left out infrastructure costs in a snafu uncovered in April 2008 by the Citizens Budget Task Force appointed by Aspen City Council. But in its aggressive and even admirable efforts at transparency after the problem became public, Aspen City Staff failed to disclose basic details describing who was responsible for how the brochure discrepancy had come about. The gap in the City’s official explanation gave critics ammunition as they assumed the worst—a problem that persists to this day.
Continue Reading September 23rd, 2008
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