"County Executive Ike Leggett has said he intends to recover the additional taxpayer money from the contractors who he plans to hold legally responsible for the mistakes made with the transit center.
'There’s always some risk, certainly there is, but I think we have a very strong case for the problems associated with the center and the fault and responsibilities for that and we intend to pursue every legal option available to us to recover the money,' Leggett said in December."
The bully pulpit is available to politicians, assisted by news media and search engines, to expound their views to a large audience. The blog pulpit is available to ordinary people, who, without the aid of news media and search engines, express their views to a small audience.
from the blog pulpit:
1. The public should never have to pay for contractors' mistakes. Any person who orders a brand new car won't pay for repairs to their brand new car before they've even driven it!
Why should the public pay for repairs to the brand new Silver Spring Transit Center before it's even open? Answer: they shouldn't.
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| Images from the KCE & WMATA reports |
2. Taxpayers from outside Montgomery County are also paying for the Silver Spring Transit Center. Montgomery County is responsible to them too for wasting their taxes.
3. When Montgomery County fails to use normal competitive practices for selecting a builder, engineer and inspector/tester for a public works project, and non-competitively selects their friends instead, and the project turns out to be a "monumental debacle" (as Councilman Phil Andrews puts it), then Montgomery County must answer to all taxpayers for their cronyism.
These principles not only apply to contractors' mistakes ("Five years behind schedule and about $50 million over budget"); but also to the entire 140+ million public dollars spent to date on the LEMON Silver Spring Transit Center.
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| Silver Spring Transit Center Botched Jobs Hall of Shame Lemon Award |
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