Positive Talk Could be Hiding the Truth Behind the Renewed Push for SunRail

[FayeforCure]

Nov. 19, 2009

By Isaac Babcock
Observer Staff

Sen. Paula Dockery is coming to Winter Park on Monday to update the City Commission on renewed plans for commuter rail, with rumors swirling that she may try to dissuade the city from helping push a modified SunRail plan forward.

Meanwhile Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer is talking up a commuter rail deal patterned after one that passed this year in Massachusetts.

But a Winter Park city commissioner says that the deal has no teeth to stop cities and counties involved in SunRail from being hit with large liability lawsuits if an accident occurs.

That deal in Massachusetts between the state and CSX included stricter liability provisions that would place more of the financial burden for rail accidents on CSX than the company had attempted to negotiate in Florida earlier this year. But that would only leave CSX liable if it were found intentionally negligent in causing an accident.

That's difficult to prove, said Commissioner Beth Dillaha, and if the SunRail plan follows similar language, it could be functionally nearly identical to the old commuter rail deal, which broke down earlier this year.

"It's like Groundhog Day," Dillaha said. "It's just the same thing over again."

The panel pushing the development of SunRail met Friday to discuss plans for a special legislative session on Dec. 7. Dyer, the panel's chairman, has long been a proponent of commuter rail in Central Florida. He estimated that a supermajority could be possible in a potential upcoming Senate vote on a deal between the state and CSX to buy up rail tracks and help move CSX's rail routes.

But Dillaha said that positive talk could be hiding the truth behind the renewed push for SunRail. She said the plan is too similar to past plans, and too flawed to work.

"Why should there be a special session for a project for the third time in a row with the same bad terms?" she asked, calling the project expensive and risky. "If a project is so bad that it's been defeated twice and they have to misrepresent a lot of the facts to the public, you've got to question the motivation behind it."

http://wpmobserver.com/WPMObserver/article.asp?ID=2674

I hear a lot of talk about the new CSX deal, but in the same breath it's said that there still isn't anything in writing. I wonder why?

[thelakelander]

Its nice to see you back!  Here is an article you quoted in an old thread back in April.  During that discussion, you bolded a quote about the Massachusetts deal as an example of Florida to follow. 

Am I right in assuming you're against this type of liability agreement as well?  If so, what type of agreement would put you on the Sunrail bandwagon and is there an example of an existing similarly design commuter rail system running with that type of agreement currently?

Kind of a funny take on the Central Florida Commuter Rail:

Tracking the CSX Rail Journey


Published: Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 11:34 p.m.
The Coffee Guzzlers Club members were waiting for our waitress, S. Lois Molasses, to clear the table. Meanwhile, Nevermore, the club's pet raven and mascot, had been going through the archives and had found a CGC column from a year ago this month.

It was about the ongoing battle in the Legislature to win approval for a $1.2 billion commuter-rail project that would bring a SunRail system to the greater Orlando area while paying hundreds of millions of dollars for CSX Corp. railroad tracks.

In addition, the state would have to agree to be financially responsible for any accident involving CSX equipment - whether the railroad caused the accident or not.

That April 2008 column cited a quote from Mike Thomas, a columnist for The Orlando Sentinel. He wrote … oh, wait, Nevermore wants to recite it.

Quoth the Raven: According to Thomas, "It's not surprising that the leading foe of our commuter rail is state Sen. Paula Dockery from Lakeland. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, because our Sen. Dan Webster can beat up their Sen. Paula Dockery."

At the end of the session, I summed up the outcome of the railroad deal this way: "When anyone last looked, Webster had ended his 28-year legislative career flat on his back, with little birdies twittering above his head. Isn't that 'our' Sen. Dockery, in the red trunks, looming over 'their' Sen. Webster?"

At least Thomas was fair enough in another column last week to admit the CSX supporters had come up against a formidable opponent who had some perfectly valid objections to the deal.

As it turned out, this is not a boxing match. It is tag-team wrestling - at least for the CSX team. The railroad simply pulled Webster from the ring and brought in U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. "The project is alive and well," he said.

It has, however, began to look a little sickly recently. Oh, it has managed to get by some committee hearings - but those have been stacked with the project's supporters.

The upcoming budget has a $5.5 billion hole in it, programs are being slashed around the state, and the House version is handing education a 20 percent cut in many programs. So the CSX deal creates a pretty big blip on anybody's radar screen.

Moreover, Dockery has done some fact-checking on claims made by CSX supporters. And the answers she obtained from the Federal Transit Administration have been at variance with those statements.

And in just the last 10 days, something really strange happened. The Lakeland Chamber of Commerce came out in support of the CSX/SunRail commuter project.

Say what? It's backing a plan that will greatly increase the number - and substantially increase the length - of freight trains coming through town?

Yep. "In an e-mail sent Wednesday [April 8]," The Ledger reported, "Lakeland Area Chamber of Commerce's Katie Daughtrey asked members to pressure lawmakers for passage of the bill."

Daughtrey said she was "asking/begging everyone to contact the members of the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee and voice your support of SB 1212."

That bill was heard by committee on Wednesday where it stalled. "Members, I don't have to tell you that from a local standpoint this is important," the sponsor, Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs told the committee. "But from a statewide perspective it's incalculable how important this is … "

Now that's funny: The entire deal was negotiated in secret. Executive directors of planning agencies in Polk County and other areas of the state had no idea that the commuter-rail system was being proposed until it was announced. Now it is supposedly part of some sort of statewide grand plan?

Chamber President Kathleen Munson said that the promise of money in the budget to study and plan alternate freight routes around Lakeland and the promise of commuter rail through Lakeland made it advantageous to support the bill.

Surely the chamber folks must have nodded off when CSX officials said they weren't interested in looking at a new railroad path from their standpoint. And they added that even if such a thing would be paid for by state and federal dollars, getting it permitted and rights-of-way acquired could take much more than a decade.

Did chamber officials miss out on the fact that CSX is demanding the taxpayers of Florida take financial responsibility for ANY accident caused on the tracks, even if CSX employees were negligent? Do they know state officials in Massachusetts have refused to approve such an agreement with CSX because they don't want their taxpayers on the hook for such an expense?

Billy Townsend, a former Ledger editor who now writes opinion pieces for the Lakeland Local (www.lakelandlocal.com) Web site, had this take on the chamber speaking up at the last minute and literally begging for the bill's passage:

"Well, you know what that means: Break out the champagne, my fellow deal opponents. If you've lived here for a while, you know that every Lakeland political imbroglio has its chamber stage, the point at which the chamber rushes in on the losing side."

They sure can pick 'em.

[ Lonnie Brown, The Ledger's associate editor, is interlocutor of the Coffee Guzzlers Club. The club motto this week is: "Sen. Dockery may just be The Little Engine that Could." ]

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090419/COLUMNISTS/904195007?Title=Tracking-the-CSX-Rail-Journey

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,4629.msg74490.html#msg74490

[FayeforCure]

Its nice to see you back!  Here is an article you quoted in an old thread back in April.  During that discussion, you bolded a quote about the Massachusetts deal as an example of Florida to follow. 

Am I right in assuming you're against this type of liability agreement as well? 

For now, as I said in my original post, it's all smoke and mirrors. They keep claiming tha CSX might be willing to use the Mass. language, but nothing is in writing. The second vote took place without any changes,.........it may be that they are going to try for a third vote without any changes,..............why else hasn't CSX committed in writing to the liability changes?

[FayeforCure]

Its nice to see you back!  Here is an article you quoted in an old thread back in April.  During that discussion, you bolded a quote about the Massachusetts deal as an example of Florida to follow. 

Am I right in assuming you're against this type of liability agreement as well? 

For now, as I said in my original post, it's all smoke and mirrors. They keep claiming tha CSX might be willing to use the Mass. language, but nothing is in writing. The second vote took place without any changes,.........it may be that they are going to try for a third vote without any changes,..............why else hasn't CSX committed in writing to the liability changes?

The fact that there has been so much resistance all along to making the deal more transparent and pallatable, is a major cause for concern.

[tufsu1]

Faye,

Would you be on-board w/ SunRail if the parties agreed to something very similar to the Massachusetts liability agreement?

[buckethead]

Can someone explain the Liability agreement as well as the issues with CSX? (In terms a layperson such as myself can comprehend)

[CS Foltz]

I have to agree with Ms Faye on this one...........all smoke and mirrors and just lip service. CSX has not committed to much of anything other than what some people are saying and I don't buy it! This is just more lip service to the public from people who think they know what the public wants to hear! Bull puckey and then some!

[JeffreyS]

CSX as I understand it has agreed in principle to concessions on the liability issue. When I bought my house from the time that we had an agreement to having it all written up was 2 months.  We shouldn't judge how good or bad the agreement is until it is in writing.  That said to not have it all written out in contract form day one is not at all suspicious.
If you are screaming about it already you are just spinning.

[tufsu1]

I have to agree with Ms Faye on this one...........all smoke and mirrors and just lip service. CSX has not committed to much of anything other than what some people are saying and I don't buy it! This is just more lip service to the public from people who think they know what the public wants to hear! Bull puckey and then some!

Why should CSX commit when the state can't commit?

[CS Foltz]

tufsu1 that is my point.........state can not or will not commit and CSX is doing the same! Liability issue's can be corrected and we could get moving on this......as you pointed out "We got to start somewhere"! SunRail has the chance to blossom and this could lead to other systems whether they be local in nature or interconnected to other cities........options and possibilities limited by imagination and funds!

[JeffreyS]

I just think it is funny the split second it looks like CSX is may be making some concessions we start hollering it must be corrupt if the finalized documents are not ready for review right......... wait for it.................not yet........now.  Too late late I knew it was all smoke and mirrors.

So as I agree it should be in writing before the legislature votes on it didn't this news break yesterday.

[FayeforCure]

I just think it is funny the split second it looks like CSX is may be making some concessions we start hollering it must be corrupt if the finalized documents are not ready for review right......... wait for it.................not yet........now.  Too late late I knew it was all smoke and mirrors.

So as I agree it should be in writing before the legislature votes on it didn't this news break yesterday.

Hmmm, most likely they want to push the deal through WITHOUT any changes ( under the banner "third time's the charm"), THAT is why there isn't anything in writing:

SunRail backers are willing to vote for the surcharge if Tri-Rail proponents support the insurance policy for its project.

That deal was offered last year, but the South Florida contingent largely balked at it, in part because of a caveat that the surcharge would have to be approved by a voter referendum no later than 2014. So Tri-Rail went home without its subsidy, and SunRail had no liability pact.

But now the federal Department of Transportation is dangling the possibility of awarding up to $2.5 billion to Florida for a high-speed train that would link Orlando with Tampa. But there is a caveat here, too. To be eligible, the Legislature first must prove it supports mass transit by getting Tri-Rail its dedicated funding and SunRail the liability agreement.

And I couldn't agree more with State Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate:

"If we are going to move forward, we are not going to move forward by reinvigorating the past," he said.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-sunrail-tri-rail-20091121,0,2028313,print.story

[FayeforCure]

Yup, I was right. The same bad Sunrail deal is being shoved down our throat:

November 27, 2009
SunRail the same old bad deal?

As a special session seems likely on rail issues, opponents of the proposed SunRail commuter system say it's the same old bad deal. The issues: cost, liability for taxpayers and federal protections for railroad workers on the tracks the state wants to buy from CSX for Central Florida commuter rail.

Will taxpayers be liable if CSX, which will continue to operate on the taxpayer-owned lines, causes an accident? Who knows? FDOT isn't producing any documentation showing what the deal is. Lakeland Sen. Paula Dockery has had to put in a public records request to find out. No response so far. What will the cost of the deal be? Who knows? FDOT isn't saying. Will railroad workers, who enjoy federal railroad protections, lose their labor rights? Who knows? FDOT isn't saying.


Yet we're going to have a special lawmaking session next week on the matter, anyway. And the fate of Tri-Rail funding hangs in the balance. So, potentially, does the state's application for high-speed rail money, which partly depends on the state showing more support for rail. AFL-CIO President Mike Williams just wrote a letter asking lawmakers to scuttle the SunRail deal. Expect the unions to make their case in Washington as well, where a certain president owes Big Labor a few favors and where mistrust is high of a Republican-led Legislature that went out of its way to once stop a bullet train plan that they now claim is a must for Florida.

Below is Williams letter. We asked FDOT for comment. Nothing in response. All aboard!


“The Florida AFL-CIO has worked tirelessly over the past few weeks in an effort to play a meaningful and constructive role in crafting a compromise among all interested parties that would enable the SunRail project to move forward, the Tri-Rail system to have a dedicated funding source and high speed rail to move forward.  It was our goal to achieve a compromise that would allow broad-based support of this legislation that included a wide, bi-partisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats interested in advancing Florida’s public rail system, while at the same time assuring such system created the highest-quality job force and safety conditions possible.  In fact, we believed based upon the good faith efforts of the Florida Senate that we were very close to achieving such a compromise.  But due to a lack of cooperation or compromise from FDOT, the Administration and the Florida House, the legislation being considered for the proposed special session next week fails Florida workers by continuing to enable FDOT to have unfettered authority to fire railroad workers subject to federal railroad protections and safeguards and replace them less qualified, less experienced transit employees not subject to federal railroad protections or safeguards.”   

“Therefore, the Florida AFL-CIO and our half-million members across Florida must reiterate our strong opposition to the CSX/SunRail transaction and the implementing legislation currently being considered for a special session.  As it has from its conception, this transaction remains nothing short of government-enabled union busting by FDOT, a move that threatens vital protections for thousands of workers and, by extension, the safety of the riding public.”

“While we respect and commend the goal of bringing commuter rail to Greater Orlando, we oppose this transaction and future transactions authorized by any implementing legislation that will give FDOT unfettered authority to enter into future projects that destroy federal railroad worker protections and railroad worker jobs.”

“It has become clear that FDOT’s primary purpose of the current SunRail deal is to ensure that federal railroad worker protections including, but not limited to, federal collective bargaining rights, federally-protected pension plans and federal railroad worker’s compensation protections become unavailable to workers in all future state-acquired rail corridors. FDOT’s goal here is, put simply, to decimate federal railroad protections in Florida’s railroad system, putting the jobs of thousands of railroad workers, their families’ livelihoods and the safety of the riding public in jeopardy.  The Florida AFL-CIO has no choice but to fight aggressively against the SunRail enabling legislation as long as getting around federal railroad worker protection laws remains a component of the deal.”

“Today, we began a concerted and aggressive outreach to our friends and allies in the Florida Senate to oppose this legislation and to characterize it for what it is:  a direct attack on organized labor.  We have asked them to stand with us against the implementing legislation, against a special session being called and against this deal until such time that a legitimate, meaningful compromise has been achieved on the labor issue.  Unfortunately, that time has not yet arrived and a special session on SunRail is premature. Should one occur next week, we will be asking our friends in the Senate to vote against the implementing legislation.”

“The Florida AFL-CIO stands strongly in opposition to the SunRail transaction and will continue to fight for the Florida’s railroad workers until such time that their issues are addressed.  We will fight for their jobs, their benefits, their rights and their dignity.” 


-- Marc Caputo

Posted by Times Editor at 02:26:14 PM on November 27, 2009

http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2009/11/sunrail-the-same-old-bad-deal.html

[Ocklawaha]

    The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
    Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed

FAYE, what a freaking drama queen... This isn't the "Same Old Deal," but a mere part of some sort of package that the writer admits hasn't been presented yet. I've never seen anyone more willing to rip the floor from under our representatives then offer an apology that you know more then we, what is good for us. Just your record on Railroads here in this site has been all over the board, going from "we need jobs now," to "we don't need THESE jobs," "Tri Rail is good," "SunRail is bad," "High Speed Rail anywhere, anytime, is good."  Not speaking for yourself is like a cut and paste ransom note, you stay in complete anonymity, while thrusting your tilted agenda in our faces. It all comes down to making the choice that fits us the best. You can't imagine how thankful we are to have you making these choices for us and eagerly await the day when you can make those choices for us too. And now, excerpts from Faye's latest copy of "The Daily Worker." 

The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.

Who knows? FDOT isn't producing any documentation showing what the deal is. Lakeland Sen. Paula Dockery has had to put in a public records request to find out. No response so far. What will the cost of the deal be? Who knows? FDOT isn't saying. Will railroad workers, who enjoy federal railroad protections, lose their labor rights? Who knows? FDOT isn't saying.

"This common 'something' cannot be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities. . . . If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour."

This is nothing more then Big Labor trying to play CYA and force a right-to-work state (Florida) to hire only from the brotherhood. Maybe they have an advance copy of the FDOT bill, but the writer and you Faye, make it sound like it's the darkest hour since the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government in Cambodia.

In fact, we believed based upon the good faith efforts of the Florida Senate that we were very close to achieving such a compromise.  But due to a lack of cooperation or compromise from FDOT, the Administration and the Florida House, the legislation being considered for the proposed special session next week fails Florida workers by continuing to enable FDOT to have unfettered authority to fire railroad workers subject to federal railroad protections and safeguards and replace them less qualified, less experienced transit employees not subject to federal railroad protections or safeguards.”

"In speaking of a co-operative union we generally mean a group of associations which, for the purpose of facilitating their work, establish mutual relations for collaborating with one another along certain lines, appointing a common directorate with varying powers and thenceforth carrying out a common line of action."

The TRUTH is Faye, this is the same old "special interest," group always supported by the far left because they intend to create a cradle to grave, government panacea.  You won't have to choose, just count on Washington, is another way of saying do it our way or you don't do it at all. In the rest of the world this type of thing is quickly identified as Socialism. Sad Faye, because people like you know it has failed to produce the fuzzy karma most expected. In fact, our own left, (that would be you Faye) has no problem looking us straight in the eye and telling us, it failed there because it wasn't America that did it. You know that sort of blind militant patriotic socialism is called fascism, aka: National Socialism. Now your trying to peddle this drivel on Jacksonville and Florida, fat chance. The last Fascists that landed here (at Vilano Beach) were rounded up and hung.

When the day comes that you and your kind enforce wages, living standard, health care, transportation and commerce, based on your will and not ours is the day America dies. But then who cares right? We'd be marching in lock step with our beautiful new world a world that has written a legacy of blood by these same caring, know all, be all, think all, fools. The idea that Washington must force FDOT to hire only "approved" union workers reeks of despotic dictatorships. Communist, Socialist or Fascist, just tell us which one are you Faye.

By the way Faye, if you really want that high speed "Rat Rail" project to have any success, you better pray for cheap labor, your going to need it.

laissez-faire Comrade, it's the American way

OCKLAWAHA

[FayeforCure]

Ock, that was quite a diatribe!!

It seems that you favorite activity is to label any policy you don't like as socialist or fascist without knowing the clear meaning of the two words.

Many of the policies you don't like are policies that have worked out great in other civilized capitalistic societies that also believe in government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Remember we are not the only ones with capitalistic democracies.

There isn't only our system and socialism.

For example China is an interesting case, because it has a capitalistic society without a democracy.

So within our own framework of a capitalistic democracy, we can certainly make changes that make our system more civilized and less prone to to the excesses that caused the economic collapse that led to our current recession.