The Washington State Office of the Attorney General offers the following for residents:
We offer an informal complaint resolution service to Washington state residents, and to consumers with complaints about business located in Washington state.
My conclusion Sound Transit's planning for Prop 1 extensions had failed to comply with RCW 81.104.100 requiring high capacity transit system planning consider far lower cost BRT prompted a 1/20/17 complaint. The response was
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 un 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 co Board Administrator 411 Jackson S Seattle, WA 98104
That referral led to a Sound Transit Board response including the following:
Project level reviews are not subject to the requirements of 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, the statutory requirement applies to system-wide plans, not project levels reviews.
When asked whether they agreed the Attorney General's Office response included the following:
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.
Still, my concern with Sound Transit funding their realignment construction and "Tax Based Debt" beyond ST3 end date in 2041 prompted the following complaint:
My complaint is based on Sound Transit's attempt to use ST3 passage in 2016 for its 2019 budget claim "The Board has the authority to fund ongoing costs through a continuation of the local taxes authorized by the voters". The result will be the area's residents will be obligated to fund construction costs and debt payments far beyond the 2041 end date they approved. That Sound Transit has no legal basis for doing so and should be required to get voter approval of ST4 funding to do so.
However the following response was not unexpected.
Bob Ferguson ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASHINGTON Consumer Protection division - Consumer Resource Center 800 Fifth Avenue Suite 2000, Seattle, WA 98104 (206)464-6684
August 16, 2021
William James Hirt 2615 170th SE Bellevue, WA 98008
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 S Jackson St. Seattle, WA 98104 www.soundtransit.org (206) 398-5000
Clearly A.G. Ferguson continues enabling ST debacle.
No comments:
Post a Comment