For those following the saga of the Metro fare hikes (or lack thereof), the public hearing on the appeal of the Transit and Parking Commission's meeting will be Feb 24 at the Council meeting (which starts at 6:30 PM.)
For who haven't been following the saga, here's what's happened so far: Mid-Nov 2008 - Mayor proposes in his budget, and the Council passes a budget that requires Metro to come up with $682,000 additional funding from higher fares. The proposal is to raise the fare to $2.00 from the current $1.50. This fare increase must be approved by the Transit and Parking Commission (TPC), as they are charged with setting fares, service hours, and routes. Nov 24, 2008 - The TPC holds a formal pubic hearing on the fare increases. We listen to almost five hours of testimony. Dec 9, 2008 - The TPC refuses to raise fares in a 7-2 vote. Immediately after the meeting, the Mayor announces that he will ask the TPC to reconsider its decision at the Jan 2009 meeting. Jan 13, 2009 - After quite a bit of discussion, the TPC votes 5-4 to raise fares to $1.75. Several TPC members that voted against the $2.00 fare stated that they voted for $1.75 in the hopes that this would be seen as a reasonable compromise that would avoid the 33% jump in cash fares that $2.00 would represent. Immediately after the meeting, the Mayor announces that he will file an appeal and ask the Council to overturn the TPC's decision. There is some confusion about the procedure, this has never happened before. Jan 14 - The Mayor announces that he will ask for the appeal to be on the next Council agenda. A couple hours later, the "aggrieved party" changes to Lisa Subeck, who worked with the Mayor to come up with a proposal to allow 400 people per month to buy a 1/2 price monthly pass. (There must be an aggrieved party to file an appeal.) Within the two days before the agenda goes to the Clerk, ten sponsors have signed on to the appeal. Pretty good for a citizen. I wonder if she had any help lining up those sponsors? More on this sequence of events can be found on Brenda Konkel's blog: http://brendakonkel.blogspot.com/2009/01/updates-on-bus-fare-increases-tpc.html Jan 20 - Council sets the date for the public hearing on the appeal for Feb 24. Stayed tuned. Robbie _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
