SunRail friends, foes turn up the volume

State legislators got two very different samples of public opinion on the $1.2 billion SunRail commuter rail proposal that awaits a key Senate vote Wednesday.

First thing Monday morning, the project's leading opponent in the Capitol, Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, e-mailed her Senate colleagues a summary of critical editorials in 10 different newspapers all over the state (the pro-SunRail Orlando Sentinel did not make Dockery's cut-and-paste piece, which she headlined "Florida Newspapers Say No to SunRail deal.") See Dockery's full e-mail here.

Later in the day, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, chairman of the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission, answered with his own piece to all 160 lawmakers, listing "many statewide organizations" backing SunRail. Among them: Florida Chamber, Florida High Speed Rail Authority, Florida League of Cities, Florida Transportation Commission, Floridians for Better Transportation. But most of the groups listed are local in nature, such as the Friends of Lake Jessup and the playoff-bound Orlando Magic NBA team. Read Dyer's e-mail here.

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Comments

[Hope this deal fails]

Thank you Senator Dockery. Wish I lived in your district as my state senator sucks. Keep up the good work and keep fighting for us, the taxpayers!!

[Angry Taxpayer!]

Gosh! I'm just NOT interested in lining JD's pockets with this boondoggle!

With $$$ so tight why not lay off some of YOUR staff? And start paying for YOUR health insurance and YOUR dental insurance? How about REDUCING your pension and up your full retirement to 30 years?

Why don't you make it illegal for a member of the Legislature to also work for a state agency or state university or state community college while serving and for 5 years thereafter????

Quit pillaging this state!!!

[Hope this deal fails too]

My state senator is Andy Gardiner who is pushing this... HOW crazy is it that Republicans are the ones pushing this project that would require an $85 dollar per passenger subsidy and Dems are fighting it (Sen Dockery excluded)????

[teacher]

Education first--then, if clearly feasible, possibly...

[conserv]

If you will notice, all of Dyer's Scumrail supporters are either city governments or lobbyist groups. People, if it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, you can usually bet your behind it's a skunk.

[Follow The Money]

Dear voters and readers of the St. Pete Times,

Orlando Mayor Dyer, a "not so good" Democrat, is calling in his "not so good" Democratic Party buddies, Congresswoman Brown from Jacksonville and Congressman Meek from Miami to help with his Orlando SunRail FDOT CSX Deal. Did you ever wonder why? So they can pressure good state senators into voting for Choo Choo Charlie's corporate welfare check to CSX.

A quick check of both Representatives' political contributors turns up something very interesting; lots of recent political donations from the corporate railroad industry.

In the 2004 and 2006 election cycles Congressman Meek didn't receive any money from the railroad companies but in 2008, his biggest contributor was a railroad and not just one railroad company but several.

After Meek's re-election in November he just coincidentally became the sponsor of H.R.1806, the Freight Rail Infrastructure Capacity Expansion Act of 2009 that he introduced on March 31, 2009, a bill that gives the railroad industry a 25% corporate welfare tax break worth hundreds of millions of dollars on their annual capital spending, at whose expense, us the taxpayers.

And Congresswoman Brown, at the same time sponsored a companion bill whose cosponsor was her CSX buddy, John Mica, to provide more corporate welfare of the same kind.

So please remember that CSX and their railroad buddies have their hooks into virtually every aspect of our government institutions and even both political parties and that we can only change that by demanding the truth from those we've put in charge of our public trust.

Corporate money still speaks louder than our democracy so isn't it time for a return to truth, Truth, TRUTH and away from special interest deception, and don't just ask for it, demand it!

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00025692

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:17:./temp/~bdkm0n::

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00002713

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR01789:

[Road rage future]

Remember this - the people attacking this commuter rail deal will be the same ones griping years from now when we still have no alternative transportation in Florida and are still all driving by ourselves in our SUVs two blocks to the store and spending billions more on roads ever year

[Railroaded Again]

The gift that keeps on giving!
Over one hundred years ago the railroad in the country were gifted lands on which to build their tracks by the State of Florida. Worked out well for the railroad who tunred the land into railroad lines with enormous profits. Worked out well for the State which was able to expand tourism and industry. A prime example of good private public partnerships.
The latest version is a prime example of when Corporate MONEY overwhelms the negotiations. The State buys the gift back at well above market prices. The State assumes the largest cost of railroading (track maintenance) and in return gets a pitance in usage fees. An to make matters worse, the State through its politicans and agencies (FDOT) promote the biggest GIFT of all, assuming the railroad's liability for wrongdoing. The State protects CSX from having to pay fot the any citizens it injures from any misconduct no matter have egregioius. Why would the State embark on championing a Corporate cause to the detriment of its own citizens? Money and lots of it. No not money paid to the State coffers in taxes, but money paid for political favoritism by large funds donated to campaigns and side deals to the personal benefit of politicians. Such a selling of the citizen's best interests to the largest bidder (CSX) is a shameful breach of the public trust. Thank god for the few who have been willing to stand up for what is right rather than what is politically expedient and personally profitable. Time to reclaim our democracy before SOME politicians give it away to the powerful and unprincipled.

[gobie]

Thanks, Senator Dockery. SunRail backers would lead one to believe the voters of this state are with them. Not so as you have proved with this impressive list of editorial comments. Mayor Dyer is interested in his next bid for publice office. He was overheard last fall in Gainesville saying "I must win Commuter Rail or I don't have a chance of winning a statewide office." Go Dockery

[Thibault]

Let's look at the facts with respect to
ridership.
In 1992, the Regional Rail Study estimated 7,300 riders in the year 2010.
In 1994, the study predicted 4,350 riders.
In 2003, during a Joint Work Session between MetroPlan Orlando and LYNX, the 2025 daily ridership for the north/south commuter rail system was 3,800. Later, during that same meeting, the ridership number for the year 2025 was 11,700.
There is clearly a consistency and credibility issue.

I would vote no.

[SweetTwyla]

I agree w/angry taxpayer JD pockets have been lined enough-this reeks of an ethics issue-Phoenix Industries, CSX-another way for JD to have his way-now, what is he the chairman of??????????

[John W. Evans Jr.]

The Sun rail project is a boonbogle that will never even pay it's opperating and maintenance expence, It will be a burden on the tax payers forever if aproved. This thing should killed now and forever.

[Thibault]

Fact Concerning the Capital Cost:

Currently, FDOT claims the total cost of this project is $641 million dollars.
As a point of comparison, the Light Rail Transit System in the I-4 corridor had a cost of $600 million and was voted DOWN by Orange County voters. It a ridership in excess of 24,000 per day.

Give the voters a choice between light rail (I-4 corridor) with 24,000 trips a day and commuter rail (on CSX tracks) with 3500 trips a day.

Given the facts, it makes one wonder how we ever arrived at this point.

[Rillek]

Does anyone outside of Orlando wants this thing? But if Orlando gets it, we are looking at Orlando becoming a great city to do business.

[Seaboard]

Please note that Orlando's Mayor Dyer was quick today to point out to all State Senators (that will vote on the FDOT - CSX - SunRail Deal) that "many statewide organizations" are backing the so-called commuter rail deal. If you read the Dyer letter mentioned in this Times article you should notice that of the 75 organizations mentioned, many or most are local Chambers of Commerce, led by their big daddy, the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

If you also read all the comments associated with this Times piece you will find some links to CSX political contributions to big supporters of the FDOT - SunRail - Winter Haven ILC Deal. Then if you've also read some of the other related articles in the Tribune and other statewide newspapers concerning the CSX Deal you may run across another unusual connection to our money.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled "CSX Official Punished for Overstated Credentials" tells about an ethics problem CSX has right now with one of their key executive vice president's who forgot for 35 years to tell his employer, their other executives, and more importantly, their stockholders that he really didn't graduate from the University of Georgia even though his degree was part of his profile at the railroad company and many other organizations he was involved with like this one: "The Florida Chamber of Commerce, for example, where Mr. Gooden serves as a director, says "Clarence is a graduate of the University of Georgia with an A.B. in Political Science." However, the University says; Mr. Gooden attended the school from the fall of 1970 to the fall of 1973, but there is no record of the university granting him a degree, said Rosemary Segreti of the University of Georgia's registrar's office."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123903469165193367.html

So, think about all this; Mr. Gooden is the EVP and Chief Marketing Officer for CSX, a good old boy from Waycross, Georgia, the right hand to CEO Mike Ward and he's also a member of the Board of Directors of the Florida Chamber of Commerce according to the Wall Street Journal's investigation. One of the same "statewide organizations" who Dyer says (just coincidentally) supports the CSX FDOT Deal. If you go back and look at some of the original articles on selling the CSX A Line to FDOT, improving the CSX S Line with scarce public funds, and building a CSX Winter Haven ILC on taxpayer land sold for a dime on the dollar, you'll see Clarence Gooden quoted often about just how good all this is for the taxpayers of Florida; like in this news item; "This is an ideal location to serve the rapidly growing Florida market," said Clarence Gooden, CSX chief commercial officer, in a released statement".

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/freightnews/article.asp?id=7267

So, was all this really "good" for the public or just some of the key big business members of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, or the Chamber in Winter Haven who pushed the Deal from day one, or even Lakeland's Chamber that claimed to be fighting more CSX freight trains through downtown Lakeland but ended up actually supporting the Deal, anyway. Why? Strategically delivered messages through those very organizations that Dyer claims tell the truth and support the deal, just like Gooden told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to his stockholders and shippers everywhere, about his great education and DEGREE from UGA. The Gator Nation should love all this.

[Follow the money]

TBARTA is one more example of power shifting and power abusing by chamber wags. Rather than coordinate all local MPOs in a regional board, the wags set up their own new bureaucracy to push their rail agenda. Not one rail proponent has been able to identify a reliable use related funding source for the operation, maintenance and replacement of any rail related mass transit system once capital construction monies have been identified.CSX was smart to capitalize on the opportunity. Paula Dockery was smarter for seeing it exactly as it is-a windfall for CSX.

Safely transporting people and goods is still an issue. We could address that by using smaller cars on the interstate if we could protect those smaller vehicles by moving the larger ones, including the huge 18 wheelers, to a separate lane and banning the double trailers all together.

[frederickus]

I hope gas goes up to $6.00 per gallon or more. It seems that this is the only way to make people here realize just how far behind we are in building public transport infrastructure.

[ChooChoo Charlie!]

SunRail = boondoggle with 27 people riding.

This train (pi) left the station over two decades ago. Politicians, as directed by the developers that own them, screwed the pooch on this by allowing out-of-control sprawl without any consideration of impact or future planning.

Now we have to take three steps backwards before even thinking about a functional and usable rail system. A Mass Transit Bussing System that will act as a supporting feeder system must be put in place – and functional – before a dime is spent on rail.

[Buzzard]

Rail is a fantastic idea. I'd love to see some type of loop from st. pete to tampa to brandon to spring hill to clearwater and back. But earlier poster is probably correct. Any rail in Florida, whether to orlando or elsewhere will end up being a boondoggle that will benefit primarily a corrupt few, aided and abetted by a corrupt government.