The Seattle Times says a hot economy and requests from cities are responsible for the $500 million hole in Sound Transit’s budget.

Nope. Not true.

RELATED: Housing market blamed for Sound Transit budget hole

Sound Transit has never been on time. They were supposed to be in the University District almost five years ago. Not at the stadium, mind you, in the U-District. They lie when they say they are on time.

Sound Transit has never been on budget. After they failed to match their original budget they simply rewrote it and, like magic, they could pretend to be on budget. They lie when they say they are on budget.

Now, they say it is a hot economy and requests from cities that have made them — as they always are — over budget. Nonsense.

Look at Sound Transit’s latest $500 million lie. Everyone who has ever glanced at real estate news knows that the Western Washington real estate market is hot. Further, everyone who has watched Sound Transit operate knows that they don’t care about cities. Just ask the citizens of the Rainier Valley; Sound Transit lied about building an elevated train. It lied about building beautiful train stations.

Also, look at Sound Transit’s laughable claim that they care about city requests or demands. Ask the cities that voted no on ST3, but will be forced to pay upwards of $40,000 per household over the next 30 years. Heck, ask an entire county; Pierce County voted no on ST3. But Sound Transit’s taxing district was literally gerrymandered through experimentation with voting maps that lets Seattle control the outcome. So people in Tacoma, Auburn, and Puyallup were told by Sound Transit to shut up and hand over their money.

It all adds up to how Sound Transit has operated:

• Sound Transit is over budget because they are 100 percent unaccountable.
• Sound Transit breaks election laws: Sideshow Bob, our part-time attorney general lets them off the hook.
• Sound Transit illegally funds public campaigns for ST3: nothing will happen to them.
• Sound Transit lied to the legislature about how much ST3 would cost. Oh well, nothing can be done.
• Sound Transit is stealing money from motorists with an illegal method of taxing their cars.

The lie about why Lynnwood is over budget; that it is simply a symptom of the problem. They are already over budget on the I-90 bridge project and they haven’t started building. They are over budget because, it seems, their engineers forgot floating bridges incur wave action.

Sound Transit is a rogue agency at best, and a criminal conspiracy at worst. Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff, King County Executive Dow Constantine, and any member of Sound Transit leadership who doesn’t immediately call for this entity to be placed under the control of voters is complicit in the greatest financial swindle ever pulled on a region.

Tax payers are on the hook for $54 billion dollars to pay for a system that may — one day — move 3 percent of commuters. But not before these liars gouge willingly blind — and hopelessly selfish — Seattle voters who are taxing the daylights out of cities and entire counties that voted no on this swindle.