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Regional & Local Races (State House & State Senate Seats in the 17th, 18th, & 49th) (and Clark County Commissioner Seats) |
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State House, Position 2: Deb Wallace (D) (incumbent) v Micheline Doan ( R )
Accountability . . . Light Rail, the I-205 Bridge & Deb Wallace, et al 10/24/2008
It seems that we have great difficulty in this area in keeping our elected officials accountable. And, apparently, the press.
Prior to leaving The Columbian, via an early retirement option, sometime during the summer of this year, editor (and long time chief political columnist) Gregg Herrington reported that the I-205 Bridge was not considered structurally sound enough to have Light Rail installed on it.
In all the debates about Light Rail, it was always openly dreamed by its proponents that Light Rail could come across The Columbian River over both a NEW I-5 Bridge and the EXISTING I-205 Bridge, making a wonderful LOOP through Vancouver, thereby uniting the neighborhoods locally with each other and with the much larger world of Portland, Oregon, via a clean, wonderful, and fast means of modern transportation.
But finally, at the end of probably a decade or more of rancorous debate, all of us in Clark County were operating under a delusion. Mr. Herrington reported that the SW WA Regional Transportation Director informed him that the middle spant of the I-205 Bridge was just not strong enough to support the weight of Light Rail (as somehow we had all been misled to believe). It was meant for Bikers and Walkers, only.
Mr. Herrington gave no explanation as to how we could have been operating with faulty information for so long. Actually he, himself, acted like a deceived and injured party.
All I could wonder was if Mr. Herrington and his newspaper hadn’t just failed to ask this itty bitty question of the right government authorities at the right time, that is, BEFORE The Columbian had championed this very idea of a Light Rail Loop, itself.
I also asked myself why SOME elected official or some government worker reading The Columbian and listening to these Light Rail Debates, and possibly even attending them, or speaking at them or presiding over them, might not have tried to clear up this matter a long time ago. Because NOTHING in Mr. Herrington’s column indicated that this was NEW information to the engineering experts.
I do not live in the 17th Legislative District, therefore, I really haven’t been keeping up with the Deb Wallace v Micheline Doan race.
Has Deb Wallace been answering to this great disclosure of Mr. Herrington’s?
Deb Wallace worked at the Department of Transportation before becoming a state legislator, the 1-205 Bridge serves HER district, and Wallace is a multi-term incumbent.
Shouldn’t we expect that Deb Wallace had a public obligation to acquaint herself with the engineering basics underlying many years and much debate regarding Light Rail? And, further, that Deb Wall had a public obligation to step forward and correct our misconceptions?
Shouldn’t the voters of the 17th hold Deb Wallace at least partly accountable for many of the fallacious arguments and unrealistic fantasies that occurred all this time?
Sadly, there is no practical way to keep The Columbian accountable for at least failing to ask the right officials the right basic questions early enough in a debate that this newspaper, itself, championed and editorialized about ad naseum! |
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For more remarks on Local & County Races, please turn to . . . |
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17th District: |
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State Senate: Don Benton ( R ) (incumbent) v David Carrier ( D ) |
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State House, Position 1: Tim Probst ( D ) v Joseph James ( R )
Incumbent Jim Dunn ( R ) was defeated in the August Primary by Joseph James. |
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Sorry, about the lack of comments in the first two 17th District Races. But time doesn’t permit essays on everything. I have had to reduce the number of issues & races that I focused on. – MKA |
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The 17th is a fast growing and highly suburbanized area. It is probably considered a swing area, for state legislative purposes, so no party is apt to be predominant here, now, or in the years to come. |