Posts Tagged ‘light rail’

VIRGINIA BEACH (August 10, 2010) – - Just pondering:   Who’s yo daddy?  Did Obama’s daddy (a part time sex toy for his white mama for a short while) really serve in World War II as the president claimed?  Is oral sex cheaper than a haircut?  Can a Christian-educated at religious entertainer Pat Robertson’s Regent University be the largest booze seller in the state? Can government really run a railroad?

Those are just some questions people ask.  They come from the Internet, the barber and the news media.  Some of them stick around for a few hours each day, some longer, but not all for real long.

President Obama, in talking about veteran services and need to support them, told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on June 28, 2008 that his father served in World War II and when he came home he got the veteran services he needed, including treatment for PSTD.  (See YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv4jnlkxOaw).

His father born in 1936 would have only been 5 years old when WW II started and less than 10 years old when it ended.  Obama lied?  Or simply ‘mis-spoke?’

Most of us believe he probably lied.  Snopes, an Obama apologist organization, chalks it up to he mis-spoke.  You can listen to the his speech on YouTube and make up your own mind.

Oral sex cheaper than a haircut?  My barber said it was!

I went the cheap route and decided to try a ‘regular’ barber shop instead of a fancy-smancy stylist I usually went to, a couple months back.  Hadn’t been in such a place since I was a child when it was 2-bits for a shave and a haircut (and I was too young for the shave).

There was foreign female barber, possibly Filipino, open and I was her next victim. Being noted for big mouth and no forethought, I flippantly quipped, “Hair cut $5?”

Without missing a beat, she said, “Oral Sex, $5.  Haircut $15.”  “Lets proceed with the haircut,” I replied.

Big Mac, our GOP governor, who once had a problem of trying to determine if  he had ever experienced oral sex, came out of Regent University – a devout Christian lawyer.

Like down in the Bible belt where the Southern Baptists were in a conspiracy with bootleggers and ’shine runners’ that kept us good ole hillbillies ‘dry,’ it’s hard to believe that Big Mac has to tour the state to dump its liquor industry.

Cretins fear it is going to cause liquor stores to be ’seeded’ on every  corner of every city, county, and town.  Who cares?  If they can’t make money, they’ll shut down on their own.  For the rest us, it’ll offer competitive prices.

And no!  No government in the U.S. can run a railroad.

In Norfolk, the executive black director who was trying to build a ‘light rail’ monument to himself was so incompetent that he allowed the project to go over budget $108 MILLION in 1-year and get a year behind completion schedule because he was ‘black’ and everybody was afraid to challenge him.

They finally gave him a wealthy ‘black’ parachute to go away.  It was cheaper than a prolonged discrimination court fight they were sure he’d launch against Hampton Roads Transit if they’d didn’t buy him off.

So now, new management is swamped with trying to correct everything from engineering mistakes to personnel matters.

And Washington’s Metro which has had numerous problems, has asked the National Transportation Board to tell it how it can prevent fatal accidents.  I have an idea:  Turn it over to private industry or park the trains.

Ain’t it fun to ponder stuff?

Townes

Michael Townes was protected in the operation of corrupt Hampton Roads Transit Authority by his black ‘posse’ of supporters who knew of his incompetence.  Knew he was incapable of running HRT and the light rail project.

The posse knew months before the HRT board found out that Townes had overspent his budget by $108 MILLION.  They knew it was behind schedule

They said nothing in circling the light rail project to protect the man because ‘he was a black brother,” inside sources have said.

“…the makeup of the board was heavily in favor of Michael despite the evidence.  I will leave it to you to guess why… facts unimportant to them and they had enough votes to keep him on,” VNS learned.

As we have always said about Townes, he rallies the posse at the least hint of a threat to him or of any criticism of his mis-management style.  The black posse’s role was to support his yelps of ‘racism’ as the excuse to cover his problems and inadequate ability to handle the job.

It wasn’t until after the $108 MILLION overrun was made public and officials began to take heat through the media that they were able to override the black posse who stood with Townes to the end.

Sources told VNS that Norfolk Mayor Fraim, Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms and the city manager of Norfolk threatened to pull the plug on the entire project that the HRT board was able to force Townes out.

Why did he get his ‘black’ parachute of about $180,000 for a year?   Because he had a tightly written clause in his contract.

The HRT board was afraid to fire him because it felt that he would go public with his racism charge and take them to court.

He’d keep ‘good blackmail book’ on what he considered racist slights and the board felt it would cost more to fight him in court for the rights of citizens than it would to pay him off for a year.

Other officials said he should have been fired for malfeasance, misfeasance or investigated for criminal activity.  Under this scenario, the contract and ‘black’ parachute clause would have been null and void.

One official said, for the above reasons, “We were very fortunate to strike the deal we did.”

It was said, “Unfortunately, he had a severance clause that was air tight.  Although it may sink in the throat, sometimes just paying the severance is cheaper than a court case. He will never again have credibility, I fear.”

While no one disputes his value in turning HRT into a professionally managed agency, X-VDOT chief Phil Shucet took Townes’ job at $336,000 a year, adding to the already costly venture.

Here we are paying an incompetent $180,000 to get out, Shucet $336,000 to come in, and the project is sitting on a $108 MILLION cost overrun.  If this is good government policy, we’d hate to see what bad government would cost and bring us!

The original documents whereby HRT applied for and got grants of $25 and $50 MILLION, respectively from the state and federal government – leaves Norfolk responsible for all cost overruns:  One reason why it is trying to suck Virginia Beach into to project – to help minimize its loss exposure due to the mismanagement of the corrupt agency.

The original documents whereby HRT applied for and got grants of $25 and $50 MILLION, respectively, from the state and federal government – leaves Norfolk responsible for all cost overruns:  One reason why it is trying to suck Virginia Beach into to project – to help minimize its loss exposure due to the mismanagement of the corrupt agency.

Crying ‘racist’ is a familiar tactic.

Townes yelled like a harpooned sea lion in Nov. 2002, after VNS reported he’d spent $50,000 in tax funds to provide free bus rides to the polls for a transportation referendum.  (See:  http://www.veritas-solus.com/VNS/Archive/axtax_hrt.htm )

He plastered the buses with illegal campaign signs promoting the referendum which would have resulted in a 22% tax hike.

Most of HRT’s ridership is black, but Townes joined Norfolk councilman Randy (I should have had an abortion instead of giving birth to Light Rail) Wright.

VNS reported that normally politicians, primarily Democrats, give blacks a half pint of whiskey and a $5 bill to sell their votes.

Townes didn’t confront VNS personally (in fact no HRT employee would speak for the record), but he called a now-deceased, but at the time rabid black legislator to attack VNS as being racist.

But after it was pointed out that the VNS editor had worked for a congressman and knew of what he spoke, the vocal squealers shut up.  Didn’t want to expose many of the political control tactics they used to control lesser educated black voters.

VIRGINIA BEACH (May 30, 2009) -- - Light rail:  Traffic congestion panacea or another government boondoggle wasting taxpayer dollars to pay off special interest political campaign debts?

A project that promoters admit will serve no more than 12,000 commuters a day -- a drop in the bucket if you look at the number of cards on our roads today.

WATCH THE VIDEO PRESENTATION:  JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM!

This is Part 2 of a presentation by Reid Greenmum, chairman of the Virginia Beach Taxpayer Alliance Transportation Committee.  Greenmun is undisputedly  one of the most knowledgeable experts on transportation in Tidewater.

Greenmun noted that the federal government was told the project in Norfolk would cost $232 MILLION, but like everything done by bureaucrats and politicians in a little over a year, it is already $56 MILLION OVER budget and it hasn’t left the station yet.

Did HRT deliberately lie to the feds by underestimating the costs and overestimating ridership and benefits just to get federal, state monies with the strategy being:  Get it started and SOMEBODY will have to finance keeping it going.

Read the rest of this entry »

EDITOR’S NOTE:This is the first in a series of videos taken from the VBTA Transportation Chariman’s presentation on May 23. You must have a strong heart or a weak mind to view it!

VIRGINIA BEACH (May 2009) -- - In a tell-it-like-it-is video presentation, Reid Greenmun, chairman of the

Virginia Beach Taxpayer Alliance, held a full house spellbound recounting the goals, plans, cost, benefits and negative aspect of the proposal to take Norfolk’s Trolley Folly Lite Rail to the oceanfront.

Greenmun probably is the foremost expert on transportation in Tidewater.  He knows more and tells more,  more accurately than any bureaucrats who are padding their career futures at taxpayers expense in promoting lite rail.

Among the points Greenmun made in the 45 minute presentation, were the fact that:

• The project has nothing to do with reducing traffic congestion. (In fact the words ‘traffic congestion’ aren’t mentioned as a goal of the plan)
• It is strictly designed to serve developers and foster more and higher density development.
• Studies show the people who use it are not people who drive and are not people who are here now -- meaning they will be new people and they will add to, not reduce the traffic congestion.
• The people who use light rail will not be the people who pay for it.
• Riders (users) will probably pay 25- 30% of the operating costs through fares that could run more than $5.50 a day;  (Bus riders pay 25%, but figures aren’t yet available to indicate more precisely how much of the cost Trolley Folly fares will amount to).
• Nonusers -- the rest of the taxpayers -- will pay all other operating and maintenance costs and ALL of the construction costs.
• This is a wealth redistribution plan from the suburban to the urban areas.
• The people who will benefit from this are not the people paying for it.

Part of the light rail plan involves ‘Transit Oriented Development’ (TOD) -- which in theory calls for the taxpayers to pay for building the rail line and then developers will come along the route, build it up and the additional taxes (in theory only, however) will recoup the original costs.

See the video for yourself.  You must have a strong heart of weak mind to view the video.