Two people so far have commented on the “why Mike Krusee and I aren’t going to be hoisting beers together” screed.
Addressing both of them:
Clockwork Orange is right. Most of the people who should be fighting Mike Krusee haven’t yet realized that he HASN’T turned into their friend, and as a result, he’s winning. I’m a friggin’ flea compared to this guy and the people he’s snowed, and yet I’m the most prestigious pro-rail-transit but anti-commuter-rail guy that people are able to find to speak at these panels. THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL! I’m no heavyweight, folks, I’m just the heaviest one who was willing to fight.
Jonathan is right too. What do we do? My tack is to keep fighting so that the historical record is NOT “everybody liked this and we built it and it failed so obviously rail doesn’t work”. At a MINIMUM, I need to replicate the Shoal Creek experience and have it be “at least Mike Dahmus wasn’t snowed by Mike Krusee; he pointed out how STUPID this plan was, and he was right”. This might shave a couple of years off the Dark Ages For Rail that South Florida went through because of the Tri-Rail debacle.
MORE PEOPLE SAYING THIS PLAN IS DUMB FROM A PRO-RAIL PERSPECTIVE WOULD HELP DRAMATICALLY! Right now, it’s way too easy for the Capital Metro guys to say “he’s the only one” or “he’s a crackpot” or “he’s on crack and pot”. And the media, with the exception of KXAN, has bought into the even worse theory that only Jim Skaggs’ band of anti-transit fund-raiders opposes this plan. Even the Austin Chronicle hasn’t done well here, which is truly disappointing.
I’m basically spending all of the forty-eight cents of political capital I have on this – since my councilmember wouldn’t return my emails after the very FIRST time I even started talking about this plan, I’m 99% sure that I’m not going to be reappointed in January. It would be helpful if people with more than my slightly-more-than-squat amount of power would speak up, but that’s not the world we’re living in. It would also be helpful if regular citizens would start to ask informed questions of the media here – like “how exactly is an individual going to get from point A to point B under this plan” and then when “high-frequency circulators” are mentioned, they’ll at least have had to say it.
At least I know that at the end of this process, I’ll have one more night a month free to do what I like!
What is Krusee’s educational background?
Oh, he has none?
Actually, Krussee completed high school and attended, not completing, a college program in Washington, D.C. I think. Come to think of it, I don’t think he graduated from college. Geez, isn’t there someone more qualified than that?
What can you do about it? I’ll tell you what you can do about it. You can help the Democratic candidate, Karen Felthauser, in her write-in campaign to defeat Mike Krusee. Her website is http://www.writeinfelthauser.org.
Send Krusee Cruisin’ — Write in Karen!
We really need poll workers for election day. We will be passing out flyers that show people how and why to write in Karen
Want to volunteer? Call 671-vote or e-mail writeinfelthauser@austin.rr.com