Democracy for Vancouver

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1. This is why I am an advocate for Washington Public Campaigns. Their website is http://www.washclean.org.

   In Washington State, it is currently illegal to institute a voluntary system of publicly funded campaigns. Until this law is repealed, it will be impossible for the electorate to have any control over their elected officials. Big money special interests will continue to rule.

   At the footer of this website there is a graphic from followthemoney.org. If you click on this graphic and compare Washington State to Arizona you will find that the political races in Arizona are very competitve compared to the ones here in Washington. What we have in this state and many others is a system where once you are elected, the special interest money pretty much keeps you in office, especially if you play ball with them. And what is good for the people often takes second seat to what these special interests want.

   Arizona has had a successful voluntary “clean election” system of publicly funded elections since the late nineties. As a result, their elected officials are not beholden to special interests and do not have to spend inordinate amounts of time fundraising in order to get elected. Once in office, they can serve without being influenced by those who made large contributions to their campaigns.

   Please get involved in washclean.org and help improve how our electeds represent the people of Washington state.

   If Washington Public Campaigns is unsuccessful in pushing legislation through next year, a voter initiative is being planned for 2009 to provide for “clean election” legislation in this state.

   This organization needs your activism and your financial help to make this happen.

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   1. Above comment written by bushtool on June 5th, 2007 at 9:21 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

2. I was all set on jumping all over you about your plug for Jeanne Stewart, since she veers pretty far to the right of where I’m at (and the majority of DFV folks). However, I’ve had a couple of extensive conversations with her, and I don’t agree with her on much, but she’s a very civil public servant who takes her job seriously.

   My biggest problem with Jeanne is her adamant opposition to light rail, even to the point of ensuring that there was no way it be discussed in the Columbia River Crossing project. I think the city is doing a piss poor job of selling the benefits of light rail rather than letting the citizenry voice their opinion on the merits of the system while discussing the real costs involved. As one of those commuters into Portland (jobs in Vancouver? what jobs?), meaningful upgrades to the I-5 corridor are necessary to keep the regional economy flowing.

   I’m confused Charlie, isn’t the city plan to focus density in the downtown area? Doesn’t that prevent suburban sprawl? Again, I agree with you about the way decisions are made in this town, but not necessarily the decisions themselves.

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   2. Above comment written by Aneurin on June 5th, 2007 at 9:39 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

3. The City does a poor job on citizen input in every aspect. The downtown is THEIR vision, not ours. Their paybacks for money contributions trumps the citizens who elected them. I’m for a recall of all council members and the mayor. Who will initiate this? Why wait for legislation?

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   3. Above comment written by g. kortes on June 5th, 2007 at 9:48 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

4. I agree with Charlie. You who like light rail need to see through the deception. Light rail only works (and then works well) if you have very, very high density populations. Think New York, Chicago, Seoul, Tokyo. This is the actual deal: Trick the taxpayers to pay for it then we (major developers) will build the high density, high rise apartment buildings light rail will support.

   You can then search all over for the truffala trees and barbaloots and they will be gone permanently from our environs. Steve will be in Alaska, Rolls under the turf in Willamett, and the others with their friends at Black Butte or Palm Springs.

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   4. Above comment written by Pat Campbell on June 5th, 2007 at 5:04 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

5. I grew up 20 miles from NYC using all kinds of public transportation, buses, railroad, subways, tubes, taxis, etc.

   This makes me biased because I prefer to use my own vehicle. There was nothing more depressing than cramming into a noisy, hot subway car on an August afternoon during rush hour.

   I’d favor light rail if I thought it would be energy efficient and used by the masses. When I lived in Tampa there was a light rail built to take people to a shopping mall located on an island near downtown. It cost 25 cents (in the ’80’s). Not only did the light rail close, the shopping mall had to close up with it.

   Vancouver is deja vu for me because Tampa built the Convention Center and the Amphitheatre (Hockey Rink) and etc. and all of these ventures were financial boondoggles.

   The fact is that if people don’t want to go downtown, they will not, even if you give them all kinds of reasons to do so. And if they do not want to use light rail, they won’t. Until you can walk faster than you can drive to Portland, I have trouble believing light rail will be accepted by the majority of people in this area. We are too spread out and too used to the amenities of our private transportation.

   And the last thing we need are the cost of empty rail cars competing with the gridlock.

   I say again that a possible solution would be to approach the casino people and work out a deal to run light rail from Delta Park to La Center with the gamblers picking up the tab. This would be a great way for Portlanders to easily get out of town and have some fun.

   Vancouver, Clark County and Portland pays for say half the tab and the Casino pays the other half.

   Everybody wins! (except the gamblers)

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   5. Above comment written by bushtool on June 5th, 2007 at 5:37 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

6. All this is nice commentary from people who don’t appear to have to commute to Portland. But again, until Clark County sees some meaningful job creation, over 65,000 Clark County residents will be stuck in their cars, commuting to Oregon.

   Has anyone other than me in this comment thread commuted in I-5 Northbound in the evening? We’re averaging maybe 12 miles per hour, tops. I’m tired of spending $45 on a tank of gas which used to cost $25. I’m tired of waiting for up to two hours to get home in the evening. I’m tired of the bridge lift, something has to shake on the I-5 corridor. Planning now for multi-modal ways of moving people and goods will save us in the long run when gas is $6 per gallon.

   The political reality is this — too many Oregonians have moved across the river for the usual old guard opposition to win out on this argument. A public vote is in due order, and my prediction is that light rail wins, since ex-Oregonians are used to a level of public service beyond going to the county fair.

   All of this Reaganesque failure to fund public infrastructure is catching up with us. There is no free lunch, and the bills are coming due.

   Density is going to happen anyway as the next wave of growth occurs. Would you rather keep expanding the urban growth boundary and create more sprawl, or densify the Vancouver urban core? Right now, Morris and Boldt want to add another 4,574 acres into the urban growth boundary. At what cost? Plow under more farms? No thanks.

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   6. Above comment written by Aneurin on June 5th, 2007 at 8:18 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

7. Dear Democracy for Vancouver:
   >
   > I’d lke to note that the definition of good government emailed today is
   > indeed a definition of government that is “good.” Of course people want
   > “good” government in this sense; but, to the reader, this is far removed
   > from what one would define as the basics of good government, which the
   > aforementioned email seemed to be seeking. To define “good” government as
   > one in which those who govern serve the people and not their financial
   > sponsors is simply a moral definition of government. If one is defining the
   > basics of good government, one begins with a mission statement and then
   > proceeds to define the functions that implement that mission. The mission
   > statement reflects the fundamental need for which people are willing to
   > submit to being governed and paying to be governed. Obviously when you pay
   > someone to do something for you, you do so for basic reasons, foremost being
   > to maximize your own leisure time in a secure environment. Maximizing
   > leisure time is a vast subject: schoo ls, libraries, recreational
   > facilities, roads, and other infrastructure, to name a few examples, both
   > specific and general. A secure environment is a similarly vast subject:
   > healthcare, crime prevention, environmental quality, water purity, for
   > example. In general, good government is that which maximizes one’s freedom
   > at minimal cost. Now we can really get to the basics. If we define what is
   > “freedom” and what is “cost”, we get to the fundamentals of what is good
   > government in both its functional and moral sense. Fortunately, this has
   > already been done. Skimming the notables, read the pre-Socratic
   > philosophers, then Plato, Aristotle, Aurelius, Plutarch, Tacitus, Augustine,
   > Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbs, Montaigne, Bacon, Spinoza, Milton, Pascal,
   > Rousseau, Smith (Adam), the Federalists, Toqueville, Mill, Marx, Thoreau,
   > Paine, Emerson, Freud, Whitehead, Russell, Dewey, Heidegger, Husserl,
   > Derrida and the other Continental Philosophers. Still, the final definition
   > is to come. As Derrida indicated in Rogues, it will be something like “the democracy to
   > come.”
   >
   > Regards,
   >
   > Bob Hougland

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   7. Above comment written by Bob Hougland on June 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).