Ah Mon ami,
COG’s #1 Top Priority is, and has been since I started going to their meetings in 1999, Emperor Transit First, and rewarding fraud, waste and abuse by the vested interests that control it. Same for VTA, TAMC, SCCRTC, FAX, and all the other County Transit Agencies. If motorists’ safety was #1 Top Priority, then decades of diverting gas taxes to public sector boondoggles would not have happened. Why do we have a double standard in transport funding: (1) Motorists pay 102% of the cost of our transport; and (2) transit systems’ riders pay only about 1% of the fully amortized costs of their rides. Why are 99% of bus seats transported empty in SBC? What is COG’s County Transit’s operating ratio? Why does COG cover-up the truth about their insolvency by using off-book accounting, non-GAAP accounting, the same accounting method used by Enron, and by Bernie Madoff, omitting their capital and fixed costs. Former SBCBOS and COG Chairman Anthony Botelho called it “generally accepted government accounting.” Both IRS and FTB regs require everyone to use GAAP to make their financial reports. We have met the enemy—and he is us. We are a House Divided, as a transportation attorney once said to his countrymen, citing higher authority. We are about half free enterprise transport, and about half slave to public sector transport—not in usage, but rather, in spending our tax dollars. Nobody at COG has ever been able to give me a good reason for this double standard, and they never will. They are Turf Protectors. Motorists can go straight to Hades. Or as the California Legislature says to taxpayers, “Let them eat cake.” Jefferson said that we have a solution to the intolerable governance abuses. Caveat viator. Joe Thompson, 408-848-5506; Charter Member, SBCCOG Citizens Rail Advisory Committee; SBCCOG Citizens Transit Task Force; Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn.; E-Mail: [email protected]
COG’s #1 Top Priority is, and has been since I started going to their meetings in 1999, Emperor Transit First, and rewarding fraud, waste and abuse by the vested interests that control it. Same for VTA, TAMC, SCCRTC, FAX, and all the other County Transit Agencies. If motorists’ safety was #1 Top Priority, then decades of diverting gas taxes to public sector boondoggles would not have happened. Why do we have a double standard in transport funding: (1) Motorists pay 102% of the cost of our transport; and (2) transit systems’ riders pay only about 1% of the fully amortized costs of their rides. Why are 99% of bus seats transported empty in SBC? What is COG’s County Transit’s operating ratio? Why does COG cover-up the truth about their insolvency by using off-book accounting, non-GAAP accounting, the same accounting method used by Enron, and by Bernie Madoff, omitting their capital and fixed costs. Former SBCBOS and COG Chairman Anthony Botelho called it “generally accepted government accounting.” Both IRS and FTB regs require everyone to use GAAP to make their financial reports. We have met the enemy—and he is us. We are a House Divided, as a transportation attorney once said to his countrymen, citing higher authority. We are about half free enterprise transport, and about half slave to public sector transport—not in usage, but rather, in spending our tax dollars. Nobody at COG has ever been able to give me a good reason for this double standard, and they never will. They are Turf Protectors. Motorists can go straight to Hades. Or as the California Legislature says to taxpayers, “Let them eat cake.” Jefferson said that we have a solution to the intolerable governance abuses. Caveat viator. Joe Thompson, 408-848-5506; Charter Member, SBCCOG Citizens Rail Advisory Committee; SBCCOG Citizens Transit Task Force; Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn.; E-Mail: [email protected]
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