Shady City
The City of Lawrence and their public transportation department, in an attempt to form a more perfect bus union with KU on Wheels, is looking into a joint venture to build a bus garage in the North West Lawrence Industrial Park. The total cost will be $4.5 million and split, not so evenly, between the two entities. Chad Lawhorn of the Lawrence Journal World calls the agreement between the two entities “a sophisticated cost-sharing arrangement.” A more accurate description would be money laundering or fraud and at the very least an inappropriate use of federal deficit dollars.
According to the local newspaper report, the City will be paying KU and KU will take the lead on the entire purchase and handling of construction of a new bus garage. The facility will be more adequate than the current bus milieu. This portion of the agreement appears to be above the board, but digging deeper reveals the shady undercurrents of the pact.
The Journal World story describes the City’s intent to use federal stimulus dollars to aid in the purchase. The problem is that the stimulus dollars are not designated for such uses but may be used to buy new buses. The City doesn’t need new buses as the people at large elected to bilk themselves of millions of dollars to support the economic drain that is the “T” bus system. The plan is for the City to buy buses for KU at an estimated $2 million in stimulus funds and in return KU will spend $1.38 million in actual dollars on behalf of the City for acquisition and construction. This is akin to a welfare recipient desiring a $15 fifth of vodka and trading $20 in food stamps to someone willing to buy the vodka on their behalf. It’s fraud and NOT how stimulus dollars are intended to be spent.
Perhaps the greatest amount of salt in the wounds of America’s taxpayers is the reaction by City Transit Director Bob Nugent who is quoted by Lawhorn as saying “The stimulus dollars really were unanticipated dollars. I don’t really know what else we would do with that money at this point.” Here’s an idea, Bob; don’t spend it. Allow the grandchildren of today’s financially strapped Americans relieve themselves of a measly $2 million in deficit payback. That money belongs to the people, not to dirty government employees in a “T” bus candy store.
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