Troy Kills Transportation Center

[Ocklawaha]

Jacksonville citizens might want to note that the rendering shows Amtrak and Buses across the hedge from each other, as opposed to Jacksonville's insane idea that places them in different counties!

NEW YORK TIMES

Water flows uphill.

A city turns down $8.5 million in federal grant money.

In what could be a new high water mark of anti-Washington sentiment, the city of Troy, Mich., is rejecting a long-planned transportation center whose construction would have been fully financed with federal stimulus money.

The terminal, which would help Troy become a transportation node on an upgraded Detroit-to-Chicago Amtrak line, was hailed by supporters as a way to create jobs and to spur economic development. But federal money is federal money, so with the urging of the new mayor, who helped found the local Tea Party chapter, the City Council cast a 4-to-3 vote this week against granting a crucial contract, sending the project into limbo.

“There’s nothing free about government money,” Mayor Janice Daniels said in an interview. “It’s never free, and it’s crippling our way of life.”



The Troy transit center’s construction, by comparison, required no local contribution, and its predicted annual maintenance cost of $31,000 was, in the context of the city’s $50 million budget, “de minimis,” said Mark Miller, the assistant city manager.

The federal government’s largess is no reason to build the transit center when the national debt stands at $15 trillion, Mayor Daniels said.

Yet if the money does not go to Troy, it will not be used to pay down the national debt; it will be redirected to other projects around the country.

Taking Tea Party reasoning to the local level has outraged supporters of the transit center, which has been in the works for a decade. Michele Hodges, the president of the Troy Chamber of Commerce, which supports the transit project, said that her organization “will be a pit bull for what’s best for this community.”



Besides, he asked, “What if there’s a grant to provide 10 new police officers?”



The transit fight is not Mayor Daniels’s first brush with controversy. Earlier this month, it was revealed that she posted a message to her Facebook page last June, after New York State approved same-sex marriage, stating, “I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.” In an interview, she said she regretted the online comment.

The vote on Monday, she said, is about setting an example concerning the national debt. “I want to leave a legacy for our children of managing our responsibilities â€" not crushing them with debt money.”



“I am drafting a memo to all Magna group presidents and our Magna corporate executives strongly recommending that Magna International no longer consider the City of Troy for future site considerations, expansions or new job creation,” wrote Frank W. Ervin III, the company’s manager of government affairs. “I



“It’s all politics,” he said. “In the meantime, people are suffering.”

Mayor Daniels sounds like a piece of work!