I emailed Tim Eyman the following
in response to the Seattle Times 4/1/17 front page article announcing Attorney
General Ferguson’s intent to sue for alleged misuse of campaign funds. I decided to post it since he may
have other ways of responding.
Eyman Response to Attorney General
Ferguson
Tim Eyman should respond to
Attorney General Ferguson by filing a class-action suit against him because of the failure of his office to require Sound Transit comply with
the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) regarding its planning for both the Prop 1
and ST3 “beyond Prop 1” light rail extensions. That as a result, the area’s residents will be forced to pay
billions for light extensions that the Seattle Times in a Nov 4th front-page
article concluded "would not reduce congestion".
I attempted
to attract the Attorney General’s attention to these concerns by emailing the
following letter as a General Consumer Complaint. (Doing so avoided the
5000-character limit imposed on “Contacts”)
Dear Attorney General
Ferguson,
The Revised Code of Washington RCW 81.104.100 details the
code requirement for high capacity transit system planning. RCW 81.104.00
(2) and section (b) are shown below:
(2) High capacity transportation system planning is the detailed
evaluation of a range of high capacity transportation system options,
including: Do nothing, low capital, and ranges of higher capital facilities.
High capacity transportation system planning shall proceed as follows:
(b) Development of options. Options to be studied shall be
developed to ensure an appropriate range of technologies and service policies
can be evaluated. A do-nothing option and a low capital option that maximizes
the current system shall be developed.
Sound Transit’s 2008 Draft
Environment Impact Statement DEIS included a “no build” option for their East
Link light rail proposal, presumably their response for a “Do nothing, low
capital option”. It included adding 4th lanes to the I-90 Bridge outer roadways and maintaining current
procedure, reversing the two center roadways for morning and afternoon
commutes. They apparently never considered initiating permanent inbound
and outbound bus rapid transit (BRT) only lanes on the center roadway.
Doing so would have provided “low capital” cross-lake capacity far exceeding
light rail.
There is also no
indication Sound Transit ever considered BRT use of limited access HOV lanes along
the I-5 corridor. An option that should have been considered as a response
to the RCW. Especially in view of the Seattle Downtown Transit Tunnel
limitations on light rail capacity.
Surely your office has a
responsibility to require Sound Transit comply with the RCW.
Sincerely,
William J Hirt
I received
the following response:
Dear William
James Hirt:
Thank you
for contacting the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s
Office. Your complaint has been reviewed and it was determined that the issues
presented are under the regulatory authority of another agency. Your complaint
has been closed accordingly.
We referred
your complaint to the following agency. Please contact the identified agency
directly with questions about the status of your complaint.
Sound
Transit Board of Directors
c/o Board
Administrator
401 Jackson
S
Seattle, WA
98104
(206)
398-5000
Sound Transit responded
with the following: (The italics are mine)
Dear Mr. Hirt,
Sound Transit is in
receipt of a complaint you filed with the Attorney General’s office asserting
that Sound Transit failed to comply with RCW 81.104.100 in the development of
options for the 1-90 Project.
As you noted in your
complaint, Chapter 81.104 RCW requires development of a high capacity
transportation system plan, and RCW 81.104.100 specifically sets forth the
requirements that must be included in that system-wide plan. Sound Transit
developed draft and final system plans that complied with these requirements
and included extensive public outreach from 2005 to 2008. Draft and final
supplemental environmental impact statements (EIS) on the updated
system-wide plan were prepared in 2004 and 2005 respectively. The decision to
implement East Link light rail was made as part of Sound Transit 2 (ST2), the
system plan that was adopted by the Sound Transit Board and authorized by
voters in Sound Transit’s taxing district in 2008.
Project level reviews are
not subject to the requirements in RCW 81.104.100. As noted in your complaint,
the project level review of the East Link project did include a no-build
option. Your presumption that this was due to the requirement in RCW
81.104.100(2)(b) is not correct. As indicated above, this statutory requirement
applies to system-wide plans, not project level reviews.
HOV lanes on 1-90 were
evaluated as part of the 1-90 Two-Way Transit and HOV project (also known as
R8A]. This project is not a part of the East Link project. Draft and final EISs
were prepared for the project in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Your assertion
that Sound Transit’s failure to consider bus rapid transit (BRT) use of the
center roadway failed to meet the statutory requirement outlined in
81.104.100(2](b) is misplaced. As noted above, the cited statute does not apply
to project level reviews. In addition, the project did evaluate conversion
of the center roadway to two-way bus and operation, among other alternatives.
The project to build chosen by the Sound Transit Board for the project includes
lanes on the outer roadways of and the work to add those lanes will be
completed this year.
Sincerely,
Amy Joe Pearsall
Senior
Legal Counsel
When I asked the Attorney
General’s Office if they concurred with the Sound Transit position on RCW
compliance I received the following:
Dear Mr.
Hirt:
Thank you
for your recent e-mail to the office of the Attorney General regarding Sound
Transit RCW compliance.
As stated in
my prior correspondence to you on March 5, 2009, March 17, 2009, September 26,
2011 and December 26 2014, regarding Sound Transit, our office does not advise
or represent regional transit authorities, nor does our office have the role of
supervising or correcting the activities of such authorities.
Furthermore, I previously pointed out that we are not in a position to provide
legal advice or representation to private citizens. The authority of our
office may be found in RCW 43.10.030 and RCW 43.10.040.
Sincerely,
BRYCE E.
Brown
Senior
Assistant Attorney General
The earlier
letters were Attorney Brown’s response to my concerns Sound Transit had
“deceived” voters with claims in their 2008 DEIS that East Link was the
“equivalent of up to 10 lanes of freeway” across I-90 Bridge. That WSDOT
lawyers had “misled” a federal judge, citing a 2004 FHWA ROD as justifying the
claim the R-8A configuration allowed center roadway be used for light rail
despite the fact the ROD required maintaining center roadway lanes for
vehicles.
That Sound
Transit had made a mockery of environmental laws when they told the FTA and
FHWA that light rail noise would have no impact on Mercer Slough park while
committing to spend millions shielding properties hundreds of feet away and
across a major roadway.
Regarding
the recent inquiry, I never asked for any legal advice or representation. Brown’s response raises the question as
to who is responsible for “supervising or correcting the activities of such
authorities” when it comes to complying with the Revised Code of Washington.
Sound
Transit’s failure to comply with the RCW requirement to consider low cost
options in their planning for the “Prop 1 and beyond” light rail extensions has
already resulted in billions spent on light rail extensions “that will not
reduce congestion”. Money
that could have been spent adding parking with access to BRT routes along
limited access lanes to where commuters wished to go could have attracted thousands
of additional transit riders, reducing the area’s congestion.
Those funds
pale in comparison to the $54 billion Sound Transit will spend over the next 25
years on a fatally flawed light rail system. The fact that Attorney General Ferguson’s office is suing
Tim Eyman for allegedly misusing campaign funds while ignoring the billions Sound
Transit RCW violations allow them to spend needs more “publicity”. An Eyman counter-suit could do just
that.
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