The T Continues Sticking It to Cowtown Taxpayers

So, the folks over at the yankee-owned daily finally wised up a little to what a rotten deal The Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T) is for taxpayers.

In today's article by Gordan Dickson, the S-T interviews a Mr. Alan Douglas. Mr. Douglas has concluded that he'd rather spend $3 a day on gas to drive his own car to work than take The T for $2.50. See, taking the bus would add a full two hours to his daily commute to the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base where he works. "It's worth the extra 50 cents to sleep the extra hour, and be home an hour earlier," he said. He'll get no argument from me there.

Of course, their tree-hugging prejudices prevent the S-T from spelling out exactly how badly The T is sticking it to Cowtown Taxpayers. So, I'll tell ya'.

Get your sliderule out and do some math with me.

Annual Budget for The T: $47,800,000.00.

11% of budget covered by fares: -$5,258,000.00.
Total Tax-payer Subsidy: =$42,542,000.00.

That's right, taxpayers are paying an astounding forty-two millions bucks so a handful of people can ride nearly empty buses.

Up for just a little more math?

According to the U.S. Census, only about 5,300 people in all of Tarrant County ride a bus or train daily. So $42,542,000.00 divided by 5,300 passengers means that taxpayers pay about $8,026.79 a year for people to ride the bus.

Put another way, taxpayers could give each and every regular bus rider a fairly nice, reliable, used car, abolish the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and still come out ahead.

Huh?

Mexican tacos? You mean instead of the other kind of tacos?

Storms Batter Cowtown

Some Fort Worthians awoke Wednesday morning to find damaged trees,blown out signs, and other damage. While the heaviest rains passed to the north of Cowtown proper, the area did experience some brief periods of rain.

The forecast calls for a chance of strong thunderstorms for the next couple of days. The wild weather should come as no surprise. After all, Mayfest is this weekend.

Cowtown Council Seeks 540% Pay Hike

A little talked about proposed City Charter Amendment would give Fort Worth City Council members a pay raise of over %540 the S-T reported today.

Proposition 1

• An amendment of the City Charter, Chapter III, Section 3, to be effective October 1, 2006, to increase the compensation paid to each city council member to $25,000 per year and $29,000 per year for the mayor.

Currently council members get paid $75 for each weekly meeting they attend. Mayor Moncrief says that the pay raise, "would attract better candidates." So, by putting this amendment before voters, can we assume the current councilmembers are admitting that they are really not smart enough to be on the council?

The mayor went on to say that the pay hike would help repay councilmembers for the amount of time they spend on city business. Moncrief explained that councilmembers, "no longer just come in on Tuesday, make a few decisions and go back to your own business." Well, why not? Then why do we paid the City Manager a six-figure salary?

What the mayor and his minions fail to realize is that the City Charter established the low pay for a specific reason. The citizen's that originally approved the charter did not want professional politicians micro-managing city business. It's bad enough we have to put up with dumb politicians trying to run every minute aspect of the city now. Do we have to pay them more to do so?