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Constantine vetoes plan to delay Metro cuts

8444499449_ec1094a7e2_b-1-400x266King County Executive Dow Constantine issued his first-ever veto on Monday immediately following a 5-4 vote by the King County Council that would have deferred painful cuts to Metro bus service.

The amendment, proposed by council member Rod Dembowski and narrowly approved by suburban Republicans, sought to delay making the deep cuts to Metro that county officials said would be necessary after suburban and rural voters shot down Proposition 1 in April, which called for a $60 car-tab fee and a 0.1 percent sales-tax increase.

In a sharply worded statement, Constantine reiterated that Metro’s revenue shortfalls were real and needed to be budgeted for accordingly.

“We need a reliable way to pay for bus service – but until then, we shouldn’t spend money we don’t have, we shouldn’t use one-time money to pay ongoing expenses, and decisions to save or cut service should be based on objective criteria and data, not on politics,” he said.

Democrats on the council support phasing in the deep cuts as scheduled, but giving Cosntantine the ability to reduce them if the revenue is there. Read Constantine’s full statement to council here.

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Jim98122x
Jim98122x
9 years ago

Good for him. Enough of this bullshit kicking the can down the road and avoiding the issue. Nobody wants these cuts, but if we have no money to continue service as we have now, we need to face the music and deal with it– one way or another. Delaying the service cuts would be just like DC politics on a local scale. Cowards.

Max
Max
9 years ago

These are the consequences of the history and reality of this issue. I’m sure Constantine wants a long term solution. I hope there is somehow a short term solution too. This is a shocking situation overall. One of, if not the largest growing big cities in the country right now, and public transport is being gutted. It’s reprehensible. I don’t want people to feel the pain from it. I didn’t need to feel the pain to know it would be a bad situation to lose that public transportation. But maybe some people being impacted by it more (including drivers) will generate support for a long term solution. Though I can see how it could also generate ill will toward public transport (blame the “victim”). Hopefully, the County can come up with a truly civic-minded solution that doesn’t leave people without critical transportation options. I’m not going to blame Constantine for the problem. I do want him to help find a short and long term solution and I’d say the same to King County Council. Please.

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Patrick
Patrick
9 years ago

If you look at a county voting map, the whole eastside except Redmond’s microsoft zone voted no in droves and Seattle was pretty much at least 60% approval city wide. Scrap Metro and Seattle make it’s own Seattle centric service, if the eastside wants transit they can pay into it.