Don’t forget all promised before

Unlike the writer of the Wednesday letter, “Columnist didn’t do his homework,” I think James McCusker did all of his homework on Proposition 1. The writer just doesn’t like the results.

In an interview with King 5 news, Jon Scholes from the “pro” Proposition 1 side admitted that actual costs for this project will be at least $28 billion, and not the $18 billion first reported. If you don’t care about an extra $10 billion dollars here or there, I guess that should not concern you. Mr. Scholes also stated the number they came up with does not take into account any interest on the bonds after 2027. The actual estimated retirement of the bonds is 2057. The 30 extra years of paying financing on the bonds is where the “no” side of proposition 1 gets the $157 billion number. Saying the cost ends when the last bond is sold, and not when they are paid off is misleading.

With the yearly increase of materials and labor the $157 billion number may not be high enough. Mr. McCusker did his homework and found that the $18 billion number was in 2006 dollars, and what that means is the only way this project would have cost $18 billion is if all of the work would have been completed and paid for last year! Ultimately it does not matter how many billions of dollars this project will cost. What does matter is whether the same people who voted in $30 tabs will be willing to vote for increasing that cost to a minimum of $110 per year. This does not even include the sales tax increase. Maybe we have also forgotten the 13 cent tax increase on gasoline we approved to improve the roads last time. I thought our vote meant something.

Doug Harris

Monroe