About this blog

My name is Bill Hirt and I'm a candidate to be a Representative from the 48th district in the Washington State legislature. My candidacy stems from concern the legislature is not properly overseeing the WSDOT and Sound Transit East Link light rail program. I believe East Link will be a disaster for the entire eastside. ST will spend 5-6 billion on a transportation project that will increase, not decrease cross-lake congestion, violates federal environmental laws, devastates a beautiful part of residential Bellevue, creates havoc in Bellevue's central business district, and does absolutely nothing to alleviate congestion on 1-90 and 405. The only winners with East Link are the Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington and their labor unions.

This blog is an attempt to get more public awareness of these concerns. Many of the articles are from 3 years of failed efforts to persuade the Bellevue City Council, King County Council, east side legislators, media, and other organizations to stop this debacle. I have no illusions about being elected. My hope is voters from throughout the east side will read of my candidacy and visit this Web site. If they don't find them persuasive I know at least I tried.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Muni League Not Qualified Rating No Surprise


My recent email from the Municipal League of King County informing me of my “Not Qualified” was no surprise.   The email comments “Candidate Evaluation Committee members felt that you had a low level of involvement in civic affairs. It might also reflect a lack of knowledge of the workings of city or county government. If you have previously held office, the Committee may be concerned that you did not produce effective results” are perfectly valid.   I did not fit the “template” they used to determine qualifications.

What they didn’t recognize was my primary goal for running is to inform the entire eastside about the monumental fraud Sound Transit and the WSDOT have been and will continue to perpetrate with the East Link light rail program.  The committee thought I was some sort of Don Quixote type charging at windmills.   They couldn’t believe some retired Boeing Engineer’s claim that Sound Transit and WSDOT had lied for years about East Link and that the legislators and the media had willingly gone along with them. 

The candidate evaluation committee couldn’t believe ST lied when their Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) claimed light rail was like adding 10 lanes of freeway across Lake Washington or claimed adding a 4th lane to the outer roadways would provide enough capacity to accommodate all cross-lake vehicles.  Sound Transit used that outer roadway capacity lie to convince the Kittitas judge to let them install light rail on center roadway.

The committee couldn’t accept the fact Sound Transit has spent the last 15 years wasting hundreds of millions promoting cross-lake light rail along with studies of nearly every conceivable route through the eastside.  Especially when ST undoubted knew bus rapid transit, or BRT, could have reduced congestion not only on the bridge, but throughout eastside using only a tiny fraction of that time and money.   

Again, my chances of winning are minimal at best.  I chose to challenge a many term incumbent because his response to my emails on East Link was  “Get over it, Sound Transit is going to install light rail across the bridge come hell or high water”.  My campaign is to prove him wrong, and if I happen to replace him so much the better.


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