Whistleblower's steadfastness + well-timed FOIA requests + Washington Post's Lisa Rein = evidence of public safety at risk re WMATA's proposed Silver Line.

Below is yet another striking example where FOIA requests and interviews at the right time,

plus some hard, critical questions asked by someone unwilling to look the other way, Steve T. Mackey, has led to evidence of shortcuts on public safety and plain old incompetence in a national transportation plan of consequence, WMATA's proposed Silver Line. 

The eye-opening Lisa Rein article on train safety referenced below in the WashingtonPost editorial that ran on Thanksgiving, complete with diagrams and photos, is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112102323.html

Some excellent photos that pinpoint the exact area under discussion -which is two Metro stations past where I used to live, and near a very popular Applebee's in McLean that my friends and I used to frequent- are at: http://www.roadstothefuture.com/WFC_Metro_Station.html 

 And since it wasn't in the papers down here, I can tell you that they had a crash there on Sunday with millions of dollars worth of damage. 

See also: http://wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1825327 and http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Metro-trains-crash-in-West-Falls-Church-Rail-Yard-8602928.html 

 And don't overlook the obvious -this is precisely what a first-class editorial looks like. Compare and contrast with the shallow LCD silliness that passes for big-thinking editorials in South Florida's newspapers, esp. the ones dealing with immigration policy. 

Latin America politics, public corruption or anything having to do with real estate. 

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/25/AR2009112503234.html Washington Post Editorial 

Supporting evidence 

'You don't build bridges without testing.' 

Thursday, November 26, 2009

THE MANAGEMENT and contractors involved in building one of the largest public infrastructure projects in the nation -- the $5.2 billion extension of Metro to Dulles International Airport and beyond -- suddenly stand accused of slipshod procedures and casual neglect of critical safety issues.

It's a damning indictment. The senior federal official with direct responsibility for transit has charged the project manager, Washington's airports authority, with submitting an "unresponsive and inadequate" plan to test crucial support structures for a planned bridge that would carry Metro trains over Interstate 66. Other officials with intimate knowledge of the project to build Metro's Silver Line are alarmed that safety tests that should have been obvious and obligatory were neglected or resisted by the contractors, a partnership between civil engineering giants Bechtel and URS. A whistleblower who formerly oversaw construction of the bridge has quit the project. And crucial documents appear to be missing.

These and other serious matters, raised in a report Sunday by The Post's Lisa Rein, have cast a shadow over the 23-mile Silver Line project. They will continue to darken perceptions of it unless they are addressed thoroughly, quickly and with an unstinting focus on safety. To its credit, the airports authority now appears to be doing just that, although it has not laid out its plans in detail.

The root of these concerns is the strength and integrity of a number of existing support structures -- concrete-encased steel pilings driven deep into the ground and each designed to withstand 70 tons -- that are to be used as foundations for the bridge. These foundations, built in 1977 in anticipation of Metro's eventual extension, were all but forgotten until workers came across them two years ago. Project engineers then decided to save money and time by using 11 of them as footings atop which pillars would be built to support the bridge.

It seems plain that the money saved by not having to build these foundations from scratch should be used to test the load-bearing capacity of all the underground pilings -- especially given their age and the apparent disappearance of original construction records. That sort of testing is exactly what Steve T. Mackey, the project's former chief bridge manager, insisted on. Incredibly, Mr. Mackey was overruled by a supervisor, and his attempts to alert the Federal Transit Administration about his concerns were ignored (outrageously) for more than six months; he resigned last year. "I'm old enough to know you don't build bridges without testing," he said.

There are some troubling questions here. One is whether the airports authority, which owns the project and the problem -- and is therefore responsible for a solution -- has the expertise, experience and muscle to manage this project. The authority did little to inspire confidence when, pressed to submit a testing plan by the feds, it merely wrote a cover letter for one submitted by the contractor, known as Dulles Transit Partners. Now the authority says all 11 structures will be tested.

Another question is why Dulles Transit Partners resisted testing every one of the foundations, as appears to have been the case. Was it because of cost, or the risk of disruption to service on the Orange Line or I-66, or because some forms of testing can actually harm the structures?

We make no presumption about the condition of the 11 existing foundations; as far as we know, and based on the limited tests that have been performed, there is no evidence to suggest they are unsafe. We understand that testing all the foundations could temporarily disrupt Orange Line service or require briefly closing part of I-66. It's also possible that tests could trigger cost overruns. What's critical is that the airports authority, as the project manager and owner, comes up with an informed, independent and transparent plan based on the most exacting safety and engineering standards. Nothing short of that will restore the public's confidence in Metro's most ambitious expansion plan to date.

Reader comments at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112102323_Comments.html

There are a lot of well-educated professionals in Northern Virginia who believe a tunnel would be better and cheaper (and faster) for the Tyson's Corner/Route 7 area than an elevated line, including many of my friends who have offices near there. 

Their slogan is 'It's not over until it's under." See http://www.tysonstunnel.org/index2.htm

Tomorrow's News Today: Substitute "at The Biltmore Hotel" for "Beverly Hills"

So very predictable, tomorrow's Obama news today.
Just substitute "at The Biltmore Hotel" for "Beverly Hills."
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Los Angeles Times
Barack Obama raises millions in Beverly Hills
Video: http://www.latimes.com/video/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=2922248
TV crews are kept from two Beverly Hills fundraisers as John McCain mocks the Democrat's connection to celebrities.
By Dan Morain and Michael Finnegan,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 17, 2008

It was clear why Barack Obama's campaign barred television crews from a Beverly Hills mansion at twilight Tuesday as the Democratic presidential nominee mingled with movie stars on a giant terrace overlooking Los Angeles.

The cocktail reception was part of Obama's biggest night of Hollywood fundraising so far, an evening capped with a live performance by Barbra Streisand at the Regent Beverly Wilshire

The money paragraph is this one: Lest anyone be diverted by the Hollywood spectacle Tuesday evening, Obama's campaign denied TV crews access to the mansion and hotel events -- perhaps mindful of the political damage wrought by TV images of celebrities at Democratic nominee John F. Kerry's fundraisers in 2004.

See the rest of the column at: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/campaign08/newsletter/la-na-obamafund17-2008sep17,0,211476,full.story
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Speaking of Obama, ethically-conflicted public officials and the power of lobbying money, in case you missed it 13 months ago, in the glamorous world of Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter and husband Russ Klenet of Russ Klenet & Associates.

On Aug. 25, Russ Klenet and his wife, Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter, will host a $500-per-person breakfast at Cafe Bella Sera in Parkland. Klenet is a registered lobbyist in Tallahassee with a stable of clients that has included everyone from South Florida municipalities to Election Systems & Software, whose much criticized touch screen voting machines have drawn the ire of Democratic activists nationwide...

Klenet and Ritter are named on the invitation as event chairmen, but Klenet insisted his wife is the real draw. "We decided we'd be happy to welcome him to Broward County and that's it," he said. "I'm not making phone calls. I'm not raising money."

Klenet, a former legislative aide to now-state Sen. Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach, is a longtime lobbyist with a client list that includes numerous cities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, as well as the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers, Match.com and Tampa Electric Co

above from The St. Petersburg Times Politics, Obama follows fine line to stay clear of lobbyists
Co-host of a Broward event has state clients, by Alex Leary, Times Staff Writer August 16, 2007
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/16/Worldandnation/Obama_follows_fine_li.shtml
With a big assist to their Politifact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/32/

And be sure to read the comments below the article about what Oakland-area Obama supporter Zenophon Abraham -or someone purporting to be him- thinks of Floridian's concern about the corrupting influence of the intersection of politics and lobbying in Florida.

Speaking of a local official who gets too much attention, largely because of her money, connections, poor judgment and prenatural tendency to insert foot into mouth, see Bob Norman's recent Daily Pulp blog post at the about Ritter's recent appearance on CNN. titled Stacy Ritter Gets Her Mouth On. Norman also has the YouTube video of her appearance at: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2008/09/stacy_ritter_gets_her_mouth_on.php

See Norman's strong posts from last July and August on their antics and roles in our collective lives, 1.) Marital Law, Does Stacy Ritter's lobbyist husband swing her vote? at http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-07-26/news/marital-law/ ,

2.) The Stacy 'n' Russ Show Ritter & Klenet sounds like a lobbying firm at http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-08-02/news/the-stacy-n-russ-show/

3.) Reporter Accused of Stealing Notebook, at http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2007/07/reporter_accused_of_stealing_n.php

Another post of his about Klenet was this one from 2004, called Lobbyist- Lovin' Lori, How cash-fueled politics and a grudge could cause another election fiasco http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2004-07-01/news/lobbyist-lovin-lori/

And since we're still in hurricane season, might as well go back 13 months ago to the Herald's Glenn Garvin commenting on her big mouth: South Florida politics: Profiles in Hypocrisy, part 9,027 http://miamiherald.typepad.com/changing_channels/2007/08/south-florida-p.html

That came a month before yet another Herald story on Sept. 1st about their complicated intersecting personal and professional relationship and the voting machines the county would be purchasing. http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/222413.html
Miami Herald, Ritter's vote still raising eyebrows, By Dan Christensen

Just so there's no misunderstanding my point here, when Florida voters say they support, in theory, the concepts behind proposals like Lesley Blackner and Ross Burnaman's Hometown Democracy project -see http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2008/04/good-news-re-signature-petitions.html and http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&resnum=0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=%22Florida+Hometown+Democracy%22&scoring=n - Comm. Ritter's husband is one of the persons who gets paid very handsomely to frustrate those citizens on behalf of very rich and self-interested groups like big government, Broward style.

Simply put, they don't want voters having an effective veto power over local officials' bad decisions involving planning and zoning over multi-million dollar projects thru an actual vote.

See his list of clients at http://olcrpublic.leg.state.fl.us/by_report.cfm?rpt_id=4387&CFID=3252&CFTOKEN=61690

As it says clearly on that website, he and his firm are the lead lobbyists in Tallahassee for the Broward League of Cities, which represents the interests of elected municipal officials, NOT the interests of the citizens whom those officials are supposed to represent.

When those interests conflict, guess who wins?

The evidence is all around you -elected officials, not citizens.

For instance, see these minutes of the January 18, 2001 meeting of the Broward County Charter Review Committeee: http://www.broward.org/charter/pdf/pii01174.pdf.

Mr. Weiss [ CRC member Richard Jay Weiss, Esq.] suggested that a member of the LOC attend every future CRC meeting and plan to inform the CRC of the League’s concerns regarding any agenda items. It was determined that all agendas and minutes of the CRC will be forwarded to Ms. Eileen Cudney, Executive Director of the LOC.

That's the same warped thinking that gives the (elected) hacks at the Broward League of Cities two prospective votes on the Ethics Board in the future if the measure is approved by Broward voters in November, even though their president at the time, HB mayor Joy Cooper, publicly questioned the need for the Ethics Board at the Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting held one week before the final public meeting of the most recent CRC in April.

(Like the CRC could really care what HB's City Commission thought, given that they were against so many of the very important ballot issues that the CRC members had been poring over for months! I guess I don't need to remind you that HB didn't have a single rep on the CRC.)

I know that because I was present for the entire length of both meetings and still have my contemporaneous notes. To quote something from my own blog:

"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?" -Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission has yet to live up to its responsibility.

That's why!

http://www.stacyritter.com/