Dow Constantine

Seattle Pothole Repair – The Solution

Published on September 26, 2012

Seattle potholes are all over. With the recent proposal from King County Executive Dow Constantine charging cities of 250,000 or more $20 per car each year, I figured I would present another solution. The reality is that this job isn’t to complicated and we are paying people $30 per hour running all over town repairing potholes. We need it out of the cities hands (labor wise). How much talent does it take to get a shovel and fill a pot hole? You shove the hot mess into the hole smooth it out and pat it down tight. It’s so simple a monkey could do it. We need to stop wasting the money and talent on pot hole repair.

Obviously from the budget review report by Dow Constantine stating we’re spending 73% of our budget on court cases and criminals we need to start putting them to work. We have an army of community service workers every day. They are out cleaning up the roads (garbage, tires, paper etc), cutting back bushes and sticker bushes, feeding the homeless, so lets give them a shovel and put them to work. Seriously. Add a crew, put one guy in charge like they do now and take road trips filling up all these pot holes. Most of their actual “work time” would be driving to different cities anyway so labor wise it wouldn’t be to difficult. I know I would rather be driving around town and filling holes then having to do real community service work like cleaning the east side of I5 all day long.

It’s a solution and one to consider. We would save so much money considering what we are paying people to do it now and the management involved.

Dow Constantine New $20 Car License Fee

Published on September 25, 2012

Here we go again. King County Executive Dow Constantine wants to implement a $20 car license fee to fix more roads. In the proposal he is urging the approval of the fee where 250,000 people live. Many excuses where give why this is needed I particularly like that one about declining property values. First there is no collation with property values and property taxes. It nearly never adjusts and only goes up with regards to property taxes. Don’t believe me compare your last couple years property taxes to this years. Your home value went down and your property tax probably went up or stayed the same. What a joke. Next excuse was the declining population in these areas. Well… if we have less population in these area that means we have less cars on the road causing damage. Also means we should have less expenses when it comes to staff. I assume staff is at a record high sitting around tables “just because”. Give me a break this is a business so adjustments in regards to staff working, revenue, and population all need to work together. Is this being done? I highly doubt it.

We also got to look at the county’s general fund. 73% of $680.6 million dollar budget goes to justice. That means all the money is being spent on the Sheriffs, jails, courts, prosecutors, and defenders. Obviously, this is the area that needs the most work so lets clean up the laws to quickly manage this better. Dismiss the cases that obviously are losers, legalize things that should be like pot, and stream line the processes better. Another 20% goes to the administration costs so that leaves like 10%. This is just pathetic.

Another area of concern is the gas tax and where is that going? Where are at an all time high right now and the city is making the most they have ever made. We sure can come up with 50 million for a new arena tomorrow but can’t fix the roads? Are you serious?

It seems the only solutions ever presented when financial times get rocky are tax increases. They never cut and always pass the buck.

Perhaps if someone could figure out the bus routes more people would use them. That is just one big cluster.

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