Why is this Board in such a hurry to sign us up for a big piece of what will probably be several hundred million dollars of extra costs? And where will that money come from?
Arrogant, yes, but beyond that Reckless, irresponsible, very dumb, and possibly corrupt.
Connolly is a smart guy. He wouldn't be acting this stupid unless there was something in it for him.
What is that something? Only somebody with subpoena power is going to find out.
-  TooMuchTraffic

I did suffer through, and learned a lot from, the entire series of briefings including the 10A.M. press briefing,FX staff "briefings" and non-answers to specific questions from BOS members as well as the mostly choreographed "hard" questions and evasive answers from both the DTP spokeman AND the WMATA rep.

Close to the tail end of the 4+ hours, after 80% of the crowd had left because they thought it was over (in more ways than one), there was finally some actual truth revealed about the enormous financial obligation soon to be dumped on Fairfax County taxpayers by BOS and Company.

Thanks to Dana Kauffman's persistent and extremely well prepared "let's do the math, children" insistence on public acknowledgement that the Agreement commits the county to 16% of cost over-run above the $400M baseline starting point as of 19 June 2007. Dana rightly called this 16% of 2.5B "plus 16% of whatever". It took Dana awhile to get even close to a straight answer from the professional question-dodger, but he got into such a tight box that finally he had to admit that it is possible that Fairfax County's 16% share of the burden could grow to as much as $800M.

BUT the real shocker came with the reason he gave, I think honestly, that neither he nor anyone else has a basis yet for cost over-run projections: Until the preliminary design is close enough to completion to solicit COMPETITIVE and FIXED-PRICE (not cost plus fixed fee) bids, there is no way to know how much the actual contracted costs will grow  - or drop as soon as the competent bidders realize the Tunnel is cheaper with lower risk for them !!

And yes, if you'll read/analyze the entire Agreement doc. (375 pages) you will find that both Phases 1 and 2 in the detailed Design and Construction Work sections do say that this work is required by terms of the Agreement (that's actually what the Fed. Government and most contract law attorneys I know call a contract)to be competed, not sole-source negotiated; and will be Firm Fixed Price, with obviously valid exceptions for what used to be called "Acts of God" such as hurricane damage, major accidents such as an 18-wheeler tanker truck or a terrorist bomb wiping out an aerail track suport pier, etc.

With that unavoidable answer, Dana made his point: If Farfax County's BOS-approved funding obligation does as most of us expect exceed the current estimate (guestimate/SWAG)by several hundred million dollars, the necessary county tax increases and/or major reduction in services that the county would be able provide would be unmanageble. In BOS terms, Dana's truth-finding exercise delivered a powerful but ignored message of the arrival of a no-win political suicide crisis; interesting coincidence that "Dr. Death" Kervorkian was just released from prison.

Sorry to have made this dissertation so lengthy. There were many, many more revelations, evations, falsifications and even truthful and helpful comments that I wrote down in the 4+ hours. I will endeavor to organize and provide a more succint summary, with direct quotes of greatest significance and excerpts from the Agreement by Section, sub-section and page, as soon as I can. I do promise to offer that larger set of details as a linked MS-Word file.

Short version: This is a long way from a done deal. When the Firm Fixed Price contract phase proposal developments begin and bidders start dropping their profit % to beat out their competitors, anything can happen especially including proving that a Tunnel will in fact be significantly less expensive, far less risky in terms of schedule, etc.

  T.C.

This thing just gets worse and worse the more you look at it...

Tom Counts, for years my fears focused on who will pay for the cost overruns.  For 2 years, I heard there will be no cost overruns as this is "Design and Build." 

Yesterday's viewing of the BOS in action brought home the fact that not one member of the Board, except Kauffman, is willing to push for me.  Thanks Supervisor Kauffman.

This Board, including Smyth who claims to listen to her constitutents, are more than willing to saddle me, my neighbors, my family and my friends with a staggering debt, just because "Connolly wants it." 

Now is the time for change.  Please ask your family, friends and neighbors to vote for Charlie Hall on Tuesday, June 12.  A Charlie Hall win would be one of the loudest message that we could send. We are tired of investing the time and energy trying to get this Board to do the people's business.  Charlie Hall is my candidate.

I was there.  Not a seat was empty.  People stood outside the doors glued to the TV screen.  I am sure that I could have auctioned off my seat.

But I would not have missed the big event of the day....when the BOS voted down the motion to have a 2 hour hearing on June 18 to hear from the citizens.

Lead by Gerry Connolly, we were told, "We don't need to hear from you.  We know what is best for you."  "But oh by the way, you will have pay....and pay....and pay....taxes, tolls, and negative impacts for the bad decision that this Board makes on June 18."

This was the worst case of fraud and abuse that I have ever seen this Board participate in with hundreds of people holding on to each word.  There is no doubt in my mind that they will vote on June 18 for the elevated train.

I felt like each member said....We will vote for the rail and you Joe Citizen can't do a darn thing. 

My response, "You are wrong Connolly and Smyth.  We will go to the polls on June 18 and elect Charlie Hall.

Sorry...I keep playing the Connolly script where he keeps telling us that citizens have been heard, that I put the date June 18 instead of the Voting date of June 12.

Keep my cool....keep my cool....keep my cool.  Got to stay focused on a encouraging all to Vote for HALL on June 12.

I noticed his silence all through the "staff briefing" until he made his comments and motion at the end.  Kauffman has showed his guts and leadership before, and he did again here, making the call for citizen input the FIRST part of his motion, and insisting that taxpayers should not have to sign a blank check for a $5.15 billion elevated train that ulimtately may make gridlock even worse.

However, not a single Board member other than Kauffman mentioned the right of citizens to be heard before a vote goes down.

With OUR vote June 12th -- and again on November 6th -- we should all vote THEM down!

Pretty exciting I would say.
The June 4th action by our Supervisors borders on, if not actually crosses the line into malfeasance.  The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is set to engage your pocketbook on a public project with seriously escalating costs and they are doing it with impunity.  Amazingly, they apparently are planning to do it with little to no understanding of the Contract and its obligations.  If you have been in the audience on the Goat Farm, Seakas development in Hunter Mill, and Wedderburn in Providence to name a few, this should come as no surprise.

Sam

Mr. Kauffman is an endangered species in local Fairfax politics, the rare leader who cares about average people.  Whoever thought this gravy train  and power mongering was going to continue indefinitely was sadly mistaken.  We will fight back.  We will inspire good people to enter politics whether it takes a revolution in this virtual backwater or whatever it takes.

Linda Smyth and her cronies on the current Board of Supervisor bear a major part of the responsibility for this enormous Tysons rail fiasco. Fairfax County taxpayers are about to be saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax liability for a hideously flawed line through Tysons. Vote for new leadership! Vote for Charlie Hall this coming Tuesday, June 12.

By January it may still be possible to head off this disaster....but not if Linda and associates are still calling the shots.
Road Warrior

how badly screwed they're about to get?  If they did, my guess is that they'd show up at the polls next Tuesday in record numbers...for Charlie Hall.