TRANSIT: The power game

I write in response to claims made by Kootenai County Transit Director Jody Bieze in the Nov. 16 front-page story, “Transit Center Moves Ahead.” Her claims that there is a groundswell of public support both for this boondoggle of a Transit Center and to link up our Bus Network with that of Spokane are both self-serving and inaccurate. This is a classic case of a bureaucrat engaged in empire-building at the expense and opposed to the wishes of our county’s residents.

As the minutes of the Kootenai County Transit Public Hearing on May 2 clearly indicate, the groundswell of public opinion is overwhelmingly opposed both to the Transit Center and especially to linking us to the crime and dysfunction of Spokane by cheap public transportation. That meeting, very well attended by a large number of citizens representing a cross-section of local residents, was actively hostile to both of these notions.

The Board of County Commissioners voted 2-1 against the expressed will of the people who came out to send a clear message of “no!” to both of these schemes. They are elected officials who have to face the Electorate. But an un-elected bureaucrat like Ms. Bieze has no such accountability. Her ambition to accrue power, and her willingness to distort the facts, make me wonder who will hold her accountable.

RALPH K. GINORIO

Coeur d’Alene