"The Government Accountability Office has shown, for example, that buses can provide service as fast and frequently as light rail at a lower operating cost and for about two percent of the capital cost." Randall O'Toole
The more people read and heard about the train, the more they disliked it. A string of Field and Los Angeles Times polls this year have shown that voters would block the train by a two-to-one margin if it were put up for a referendum. In 2008, 55% of voters approved the rail bond.
According to Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation, Dulles Rail, when measured in results achieved, is “...one of the most expensive new transit projects ever conceived.
The cost to Loudoun being discussed are sketchy and written in pencil, and we know that rail project projections have a long and distinguished history of under-estimated costs and over-estimated revenues. The figures are not believable and the tax districts are worthless unless they are guaranteed to cover all the Loudoun County costs arising from Phase 2.
The centerpiece of the payment talk is a little wonder concocted by Supervisor Williams. It began as the 2-mile Tax District and included sizable residential communities and commercial and industrial properties.
The Tax District Fairy is on Staff at Loudoun County
In just a short time the 2-mile District shrunk in size, shedding the residential areas, while it’s supposed revenue potential grew. There are serious questions about whether it can be formed without notice to and approval by landowners, and in general it proposes imposing huge burdens which may well scatter current and potential new businesses and discourage others from choosing Loudoun as a home.
We have named this district “The Purple Amoeba.” This creature and its power presently seems to be the best our Supervisors can come up with to pay for the project which will most certainly make traffic worse, decrease mobility, and re-direct vast resources away from families, businesses, and worthwhile improvements. Only in the public sector do ideas this bad stay alive.
If Loudoun Opts In, we the taxpayers are the back stop because there is noassurance that taxpayers would not be landed with meeting the residual charges in the event that the special tax districts fail to deliver "enough revenue to cover the costs".
To summarize, the “The Purple Amoeba” is an idea that at best could pay some of the cost of rail; if it does not happen your property and business taxes will pay for Metro, forever. It is just that simple. The Purple Amoeba is ashifty, shaky, iffy, suspicious, maybe even phony proposition being used as an excuse to advance this bailout.
It is just a metter of time.
The Purple Amoeba will be voted on this Friday. It is a mirage. Another threat to the stability of this project is a toll-dependent financing method which may be revoked by court action and leave Loudoun with vast debt. This risk is barely acknowledged by most Supervisors. Instead, they are fixated on and fascinated by the Purple Amoeba.
There is a rainbow in all this, a $600 million winning Lottery ticket owned by LoCo payable for opting out, we pay $0, zero risk. It is clear as day if you just run a column of numbers from RCLCO. Buses can satisfy the current and future transit needs of Loudoun, but first we must toss out the idea that it is OK to trust our future to the dreaded Purple Amoeba.
Please read this letter from an Ashburn woman who has been alerted to what is going on. It is a glimpse of the harm that will be inflicted on hard working people, families, the little people if this goes through. The willingness on the part of some elected representatives to deliberately prey on uninformed but trusting constituents literally makes me sick. Please spread the word, the tax man commeth.
From a mom in Ashburn:
"I live outside the 1 mile proposed special tax rate area but within the 2 mile radius. Let me put it into prospective for you:I am a working mom. My spouse also works. We both commute which means tolls. We pay a lot in tolls for two cars each way 5 days a week. One of the proposed way to pay for metro will be to increase those tolls. So I am already going to be paying a lot for my two car family. We don;t have the luxury of commuting together.Add to that a proposed increase in my property tax. Yes it's great that my home is worth more, but I still have to pay for that in taxes. Add on top of that a special tax for living within a two mile radius. I am not having to budget way more money then ever between the tolls, property tax, and now a special tax. My family simply cannot afford that. When I moved out to Ashburn we had to budget very carefully what we would pay in tolls (which have since on the Greenway gotten out of control and will only get worse).
You are basically going to price out of our home.In speaking with my neighbors it is very clear to me many of them do not understand how metro is being paid for which leads to false results of who is really "pro metro". Many are pro metro - but once you explain the cost you get - NO!!! So believe me when I say MOST of your voting public do not want metro at this cost. Please vote No. Many, many, many families live in your district. Many of them are two parent working families and you are going to put a HUGE financial burden on them. These are not the people that will be using the metro most of all. Please review the facts and costs. Please understand your district and the people and their situations that make up that district."
“One of the most pernicious ways Republicans tend to … [expand the role of government] when in power is to conflate being pro-business with being pro-free market….Being ‘pro-business’ could mean passing legislation that grants big businesses with highly paid lobbyists tax credits, subsidies, or regulatory advantages. Being truly free market means stepping out of the way and allowing businesses to compete against each other and bear responsibility for any risks they take.” - – Philip Klein
If the Loudoun County supervisors bind their jurisdiction to paying the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority(MWAA) for Dulles Rail over coming decades, they will speed homeowners and commuters — those who do not flee elsewhere — into a whirlpool (like that above) of mounting taxes and tolls against which citizens may be powerless.
Chairman Scott York Slams Door on Loudoun Opt Out Group
Hamilton, VA—May 23, 2012
An Informed Public is Dulles Rails Worst Enemy
Last night, near the end of the May 22nd Loudoun Board of Supervisors Dulles Rail finance meeting, Chairman Scott York announced a unique prohibition on distribution of printed material within 40 feet of the meeting entrances of upcoming Dulles Rail Public information sessions and inside the meeting rooms.
David LaRock, speaking on behalf of the Loudoun Opt Out group, calls this “outrageous” and said it is obviously targeted at Opt Opt's efforts to inform the public. “York has chosen to leave the public in the dark for most of his 20 years of involvement with the Dulles Rail project. Now, weeks before a final and permanent decision by Supervisors, it is apparent York wants to stifle release of any information contrary to the County’s benefit-focused views.”
LaRock said he objected immediately, “I asked County Attorney Jack Roberts and County Administrator Tim Hemstreet what the legal basis for restricting citizens from interacting with the public was. The response they gave referenced election laws, school policies, and Loudoun policy.” According to LaRock, Hemstreet backed down and quietly rescinded York’s prohibition.
If public access to the Loudoun Board of Supervisors 'Public Outreach Sessions' is selectively restricted based on viewpoint and Loudoun citizens are denied access this is a clear 1st Amendment violation. If anyone from Loudoun Opt Out, or any citizen, is denied access, we will seek remedies to protect our 1st Amendment rights.
According to LaRock, “There is a pattern of limiting Opt Out’s access to meetings.
Pro-Metro Zone- Others Keep Out
This is similar to an incident that took place at a recent Loudoun Chamber meeting on Dulles Rail where Opt Out representatives were barred from a meeting that was booked as being open-to-the-public."
Loudoun Opt Out has led the effort to inform the people of Loudoun on details of this complicated and expensive decision before the approaching July 4th deadline.
Why does Dr. Stephen Fuller talk so much about benefits to Loudoun he attributes to Dulles Rail?
After being pressed for weeks by Loudoun Opt Out, Fuller decided it was time fess up to the public. I spoke with Fuller as he left the Loudoun Chamber members' and politicians' only event where Fuller presented 14 pages of Dulles Rail predictions. He said he was first approached to produce the summary by Maggie Parker who works for Comstock Development, one of the rail station developers. Fuller was also forthcoming with the amount of the check, $15,000., and that it was written by the Claude Moore Foundation, another rail station landowner. Thank you, Dr. Fuller. I hope you can sleep better now.
Even Loudoun's Low-ball Estimates Reveal $713 Million Loss on Rail Note: Based on Loudoun County-released information. Actual costs may double these estimates
Are you listening? Your Taxes WILL go up and stay up to pay for the Metro
Based on the county’s own low-ball guesstimates Metro will cost Loudoun taxpayers $1.2 Billion over the next 28 years.
It will probably be many times more than that amount.
Please urge Chairman York and Supervisors Clarke, Higgins, Letourneau, Volpe, and Williams to go on-the-record for OPTing OUT. Elected officials can’t commit Loudoun to $1.2 billion in Metro taxes and claim to be ‘fiscal conservatives.’ Ask them why fiscal conservatives favor this kind of BAILOUT.
Don’t just call them once; they need to hear from you once a week until they publicly commit to BAIL on RAIL and avoid this financial disaster!
President & CEO Tony Howard (L), Tim Kaine (C) Chairman of the Board , Kurt Krause (R)
Tim Kaine gave away our paid-for Dulles Toll Road to MWAA (The Metropolitain Washington Airports Authority) for the grand total of NOTHING just as it was about to become a free road. Now, MWAA is planning to milk the users for every dime it can to build the Metro line to Dulles.
Tim Kaine and the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce are working together.
Taxpayers of Loudoun, look out!
If Loudoun plays into their scheme by opting into Rail to Loudoun, the shackles will be clamped onto Loudoun forever and we will join Dulles Toll Road commuters on Kaine’s list of biggest losers.
The Loudoun County Chamber is promoting the Rail to Loudoun project to Loudoun’s public and business community while ignoring the obvious fact that it will cost Loudoun vastly more than it will ever recoup. Why? Follow the money to the few Chamber members whose businesses stand to reap windfall profits.
The US Chamber of Commerce is warning us about Tim Kaine.
In contrast, the local Chamber isn't giving us very good advice by asking us to play along with Tim's Rail scheme.
Tim Kaine’s bad ideas have cost Virginia billions of dollars and many, many jobs. Now,Tim Kaine and the Loudoun Chamber are teaming up to promote more bad ideas like Rail to Loudoun.
So far Kaine has gotten away with his Toll Road Giveaway Katastrophe. Let’s not hand Kaine and the Loudoun Chamber their next big win by opting in to Rail.
Before the special interests got to Tony Howard, he was outspoken in his stand against Rail to Loudoun being driven by union-favoring terms. Is Tony a special interests pawn or guided by principle? You decide. Maybe its time for Tony, Kurt and the Crony Club to move on? Read what Tony Howard, President & CEO Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce said in July. In his July 5 Letter to the Editor: flip flop that makes the Chamber look pretty silly.
"Given that 90 percent of Phase 2 of the Dulles Rail Project is funded by Virginia's taxpayers, commuters and businesses, I can not fathom why a Loudoun Supervisor would support this type of discriminatory treatment against Virginia's contractors and construction workers.
Consistently voted the top state in the nation to do business, Virginia enjoys this reputation in part because of our "Right to Work" laws that prohibit forcing an individual to join a labor union just to keep their job.
A mandated PLA on Phase 2 is completely contrary to these and other policies that have given Loudoun County an unemployment rate that is now below 4 percent, compared with double-digit unemployment that reigns in much of the country. There should be no confusion about that."
How Insider Politics Saved California's Train to Nowhere
