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Re: Ralph and Mouse are right, we must destroy SMART in order to save it!
Author: BOB2
Date: 01-17-2020 - 20:58
I agree that SMART has been poorly managed. And, as a result, of poor decisions and bad leadership, it has performed poorly. But, rejecting the sales tax extension, will not make SMART any more accountable. You, rattling the cage of your own elected officials, who serve on SMART's Board, are the ones you need to "hold accountable" for SMART's poor performance and/or poor management.
SMART is a "thing" and cannot be held "accountable" as it is an inanimate object, an "institutional" framework, and name, that represents a collection of other inanimate objects, that SMART's Board has bought, like some choo-choo cars, and choo-choo tracks. It is that Board that approved some poor decisions, it is the Board that hired Farhad, in our system it is supposed to be the folks who sit on the Board that should be held "accountable".
One of the reasons that SMART is underperforming, is that it was pretty poorly designed and funded to begin with, and many "penny foolish" mistakes have been compounded, by a lack of vision and leadership on SMART's Board (a fair number of whom, over the history of SMART have even been opponents of the project, not unwilling to sabotage the whole thing).
So how many of these folks on the SMART Board have you written, called, e-mailed, tweeted, called out at a City Council meeting, or neighborhood forum, or otherwise communicated to, to demand they become accountable for their decisions about SMART?
Since some of this "thesis" is that this takes from the poor, what is your evidence? Do you know who rides or doesn't ride SMART, and what there socio-economic make up is? Or, are these the same Reason Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, Cato Institute libertarian "talking points" I've heard parroted for the last thirty years of my career, by a bunch of folks who couldn't really give a "rat's ass" about the "poor"?
Ralph reminds me of our strategy in Viet Nam, we must destroy the village, in order to "save it".... And, that worked out just great... No better way to win hearts and minds of folks than by destroying their livelihoods and private property... Kind of like "blowing up" SMART financially, by not extending the sales tax, so it can't be fixed, to teach "SMART" (not the Board, not Farhad) a "lesson" in accountability, right?
SMART is a "thing" and cannot be held "accountable" as it is an inanimate object, an "institutional" framework, and name, that represents a collection of other inanimate objects, that SMART's Board has bought, like some choo-choo cars, and choo-choo tracks. It is that Board that approved some poor decisions, it is the Board that hired Farhad, in our system it is supposed to be the folks who sit on the Board that should be held "accountable".
One of the reasons that SMART is underperforming, is that it was pretty poorly designed and funded to begin with, and many "penny foolish" mistakes have been compounded, by a lack of vision and leadership on SMART's Board (a fair number of whom, over the history of SMART have even been opponents of the project, not unwilling to sabotage the whole thing).
So how many of these folks on the SMART Board have you written, called, e-mailed, tweeted, called out at a City Council meeting, or neighborhood forum, or otherwise communicated to, to demand they become accountable for their decisions about SMART?
Since some of this "thesis" is that this takes from the poor, what is your evidence? Do you know who rides or doesn't ride SMART, and what there socio-economic make up is? Or, are these the same Reason Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, Cato Institute libertarian "talking points" I've heard parroted for the last thirty years of my career, by a bunch of folks who couldn't really give a "rat's ass" about the "poor"?
Ralph reminds me of our strategy in Viet Nam, we must destroy the village, in order to "save it".... And, that worked out just great... No better way to win hearts and minds of folks than by destroying their livelihoods and private property... Kind of like "blowing up" SMART financially, by not extending the sales tax, so it can't be fixed, to teach "SMART" (not the Board, not Farhad) a "lesson" in accountability, right?
