Writer right on regarding trolley
To the editor:
Kudos to Karen Fox for asking some serious questions about the Almighty CRA and its favorite project, The Little Trolley That Couldn’t. Unfortunately, she’s not totally correct. I’ve figured out that this may have been a money-making proposition for the city.
My husband and I sat in Big John’s parking lot one night and counted folks getting on and off the trolley. We were told by a driver that it was basically a “bar hopping bus,” with people riding the trolley from one bar to the next. At the end of the evening, they get in their cars and drive home. Here’s where we make money: the police are waiting just down the street to write DUI tickets to trolley-riding, alcoholically-impaired bar patrons who are now driving their cars home from the trolley stop. They probably even catch people with other violations! Ingenious! Brilliant! In the end, the city’s actually making money!
Seriously, here’s just another reason why this city is going broke and another silly, unnecessary cost that has finally, after wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, been eliminated. The trolley contract should never have been signed, the person who came up with this idea in the first place should be fired on the spot and the clueless, useless CRA should be disbanded.
Finally, I know there will be a hue and cry from City Hall that the CRA operates separately from the city, via a TIF, and everything Ms. Fox and I have to say is, therefore, irrelevant. My pre-response to that is: In FY 2009-2010 City Manager’s Proposed Budget, at page 113, there is an interesting little item entitled, “CRA Tax Increment,” in the amount of $1,100,263, followed by this even more interesting description: “Tax revenue transfer to CRA.” If the city manager is arrogant enough to disavow any connection between the city and CRA and then blatantly list this item in his budget, I wonder how many more dollars are going to the CRA from the city under other disguised budget items.
Debra Bender
Cape Coral