Class Action Complaint

The previous post detailed why legal action is needed to challenge Sound Transit's claim ST3 passage enabled them to implement "voter approved extensions" whose costs exceeded the funds available from approved ST3 taxes.  The result being the Sound Transit Board is currently considering a "Realignment" extending light rail construction costs and debt service payments well beyond the 2041 cutoff date for ST3 taxes.

This would normally be an issue worth "digging into" for the Seattle Times Traffic Lab.  Instead they've ignored it.  Another option should have been the state's Attorney's General. Yet AG Ferguson has spent a decade ignoring Sound Transit "misdeeds".  He allowed Sound Transit to confiscate the I-90 Bridge center roadway despite documentation the addition of the 4th lanes to outer roadways would not make up for the loss of the center roadway.

He also allowed Sound Transit to ignore RCW81.104.100.  It required high capacity transportation system planning include an "evaluation of a range of low cost, high capacity transportation system options".  There's no evidence Sound Transit ever considered implementing far less costly BRT on limited access lanes on either I-5 or I-90.  

The "likely" lack of normal legal action prompted the following "Complaint" to ClassAction.org regarding CEO Rogoff and Sound Transit Board "Realignment".  

In 2016 voters in the Sound Transit service area approved an initiative requiring residents to pay property, sales, and motor vehicle excise taxes from 2017 through 2041 to fund Sound Transit's expansion of public transit including extending their current light rail system.

Sound Transit has used the approval in their "Long-Range Financial Plan Analysis" in Sound Transit's "2021 Financial Plan and Adopted Budget" to claim the Board has the following ability to direct transportation system expansion.

Scope increase:  The LRFP assumes that future system expansion projects will retain the size and scope originally approved by voters under Sound Move, ST2, and ST3.  But as the system is built out the Board may determine that future projects' scope may need to be altered and potentially increased to meet voter approved goals, public concerns, or other reasons.  Such future expansion decisions cannot be known or captured in the current LRFP, and could potentially increase the Agency's financial risk.

The result of Sound Transit's "Scope Increase" is the costs of light rail construction and the need for debt service payments have extended well beyond the 2041 date voters approved for taxes.  A class action suit to enjoin CEO Rogoff and the Board from implementing the results of the "Scope Increase" would benefit millions of residents.

I'm awaiting their response.