Dori’s responds to Danny Westneat column: My words on Sound Transit all true

I made it into The Seattle Times on Monday. Specifically, I made it into a Danny Westneat column on the $30 car tab measure and its impact on Sound Transit.

Danny Westneat doesn’t mention me by name, but he links to one of our MyNorthwest stories on Sound Transit, as well as to a story by KIRO Radio’s Todd Herman.

What is it with the right’s obsession with rail and Sound Transit? Even with the service finally up and running, carrying 80,000 riders per day, conservative radio talkers increasingly have gone off the rails about it. To them it’s no longer a challenged, but functioning, transit agency. It’s a ‘criminal conspiracy‘ or a ‘criminal enterprise‘ — despite that it has never been accused, let alone convicted, of any crime.

I know that this is the trick of the extreme left, diminishing my facts. But Danny, tell me one thing that I have ever said about Sound Transit that is incorrect. Tell me one thing. I have covered this agency for 24 years and I will put my track record of everything I’ve said about them up against their track record of what they’ve said about the public.

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I know you want to diminish this as the right being against Sound Transit. But I’m not a fighter for the right. I’m a fighter for taxpayers. I’m a fighter for hardworking people who get taken advantage of by government.

Why do I have an obsession with Sound Transit? Let’s take a look at their history.

Sound Transit’s first light rail project was sold on lies way back in 1996, when Sound Move was approved by voters. That project had cost and time overruns, so Sound Transit did a “reset” in 2007. In admitting they needed to do that reset, they may as well have admitted that they were built on lies.

In 2008, when they were trying to pass Sound Transit 2, the second phase of light rail, I had the original Sound Transit Board chairman, former King County Executive Ron Sims, in the studio with me. I had access to the Sound Transit books from a source; I knew that they were way over budget and way behind schedule. Ron Sims looked me in the eye and lied to my listeners and me when I confronted him with the facts. He told me that they would get to the U District by 2006. Guess what? They are 13 years behind schedule, and they are billions over budget. He lied to secure that vote. He has refused to talk to me since.

To secure Sound Transit 3, the agency lied to the Legislature and to the voters about how much it was going to tax us with car tabs. The legality of this is being debated before the Washington State Supreme Court right now. Hardworking people who know what their car is actually worth get a statement from Sound Transit that they have to pay taxes on a value that is 50 percent higher than reality. You may not consider that a criminal enterprise, but I certainly do.

And that is why I am so against Sound Transit. So, Danny Westneat, you are welcome to come on and refute anything that I have said. I would look forward to having a conversation with you.

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