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Dave Smith[_1_]

On 2019-07-01 11:20 a.m., wrote:
> On Monday, July 1, 2019 at 8:56:04 AM UTC-5, jmcquown wrote:

>> When I lived in West TN, the city of Memphis put in a trolly
>> downtown. Nearest I can figure it just went up and down the
>> Mississippi riverfront but didn't actually go anywhere useful. I
>> always made a point of living just outside the city limits so I
>> didn't wind up paying taxes for follies like the trolly.
>>
>> Jill
>>
> Two or three years ago our disgraced mayor moonbeam tried push
> through a bus system that would run down the middle of the streets.
> There was a grant of $80 million available to push this
> pie-in-the-sky fiasco through. But the city council made a study of
> other cities where this transportation system failed and axed her
> idea. And as we all know, these pet projects always run triple or
> quadruple over the price that was settled on leaving the tax payer to
> foot the bill for the next thousand years.

Our disgraced town council were all voted out in the municipal election
last year. One of their projects was a bus that runs around the town. It
has been running for about three years now and I see it frequently but I
have never seen any one getting on or off or waiting at the few stops
there are.

Town council was also on the hot seat for community centre that included
a double ice rink. It's nice, but a town of 15,000 does not need twin
rinks. When the centre opened they kept repeating their mantra about how
it was completed on time and under budget. I don't know how they
figured it was under budget. They had started off with an estimate of
$17 million and it ended up costing $36 million . Under budget???

Then there was the fiasco with the gala opening. Information was leaked
that they were spending close to $80,000 for the event. The crap hit the
fan and the information was removed from the town's web site and then
they tried to say that some of the sponsors had paid for the event. I
somehow managed to get an invitation to the Friday night VIP reception.
We got to hear the speeches and were told they would be repeated for the
public opening that was happening right after the champagne reception.
We moved out to one of the arenas where they had set up a huge stage,
heard all the speeches again and then were treated to an incredible
show. They had musicians, dancers, skaters, more music, ten acts
altogether. The only thing missing was the audience. They had not
budgeted money to advertise the event. There had been noticed about an
open house the next day, but no one other than the VIPs had been advised
about the gala show.

I think that was the last nail in the coffin for that council. The mayor
and wall the councilors were voted out.