More Lies from Jason Gloyd & COAST!

In order to deflect and therefore control the conversation, COAST now points to underutilization of the Riverfront Transit Center as reason to oppose the streetcar. But paradoxically their "streetcar" petition will prevent the Transit Center from being utilized by commuter and intercity passenger rail! This is a political win-win for COAST is a lose-lose for Cincinnatians like you.

The COAST/NAACP petition drive is built on lies. Not only do they cite false facts & figures at every opportunity, but like a child's game of telephone they disseminate different numbers to media outlets in order to create confusion and the appearance that there is no organized and achievable streetcar plan. Sympathizers like 700 WLW's Bill Cunningham have played along with their disgusting game.

Click HERE to listen to Jason Gloyd's typically deceptive appearance on Bill Cunningham's July 2 show.

The conversation is full of nonsense. Cunningham intentionally misidentifies intercity passenger rail as light rail in order to insinuate a disorganized plan, intentionally confuses Portland, OR and Portland, ME, and Gloyd repeatedly cites the cost of the Riverfront Transit Center as $57 million.

On May 19, 2003 The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the Transit Center cost $23 million, less than half what Gloyd broadcasted to 200,000 700 WLW listeners:

Transit center dedication today

By James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It opened to limited use last fall and won't be fully in use for another year or
two. But today's dedication of the Riverfront Transit Center is more about what the $23 million facility helped do before it was even built and what it can do many years from now.

[...]

Its designers also made the center adaptable to either light rail above, on
Second Street, or to commuter diesel rail through the center itself. And it was the first time that Ohio's transportation funding panel approved a transit project using Ohio Department of Transportation money.

Things get more interesting when this week's Enquirer article, "Transit Center: Bust or Bargain?", reported by Barry Horstman, is considered:

Although Ohio Department of Transportation officials have said the agency spent $47 million on the project, Deatrick said those figures include money spent on Second Street - which essentially is the center's roof - and other associated expenses. The cost for the center itself, local officials say, was about $23 million.

Gloyd not only chose to use the unfair figure that includes fixed 2nd St. costs (funds that were budgeted before the Transit Center was conceived -- 2nd St. was originally to have been built atop fill dirt), he added $10 million to that figure for the helluvit and Cunningham took him for his word!

Horstman makes a call to COAST and local political dinosaur Tom Luken, and reps from Queen City Metro did a good job offering factual information in support of the Transit Center, but he didn't contact anyone from Cincinnatians for Progress, or anyone with a political interest in the Transit Center's success:

"I'm tired of this line of reasoning that this isn't wasteful because it was federal money or that we had to spend it fast to avoid losing it," said Chris Finney, a Cincinnati lawyer and co-founder of Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes. "It's a classic case of obscenely wasteful spending of government money."

Horstman doesn't ask Finney how he would have spent the grant monies differently -- Finney falls back on the old COAST "it's all from the same pot" line (we hear it every time anyone mentions the difference between the city's operations and capital budgets or when a federal or state grant will help pay for a local project) and that's good enough for Horstman. The Provost remembers, for example, the call for artist's proposals for the tile work, an element of the project that was paid for with a grant. Would Finney have simply told them to keep the money? To spend it somewhere else in the state?

For good measure, Horstman lobs some typical Bronson-ish anti-city nonsense:

One of the few visible signs that detract from the center's pristine condition is the water leaking in spots from Second Street, rusting some metal fixtures and staining some walls and walkways. That problem, Metro officials say, is the city's to fix.

And where did Horstman get the idea for this article? From Tom Luken, of course, who brought the Transit Center into the streetcar conversation at his Ollie's Trolley stump speech back in May. The timing is fascinating -- the beauty of the COAST/NAACP coalition is that one story can be branded as as a NAACP story, another as a COAST story, and the same group can get two front-page articles in The Enquirer in one week. Gloyd's appearance on Cunningham's show made it a hat trick. Well played boys, and way to get played, Enquirer.