Friends,

          It seems here that we have another case of "N.I.M.B.Y.". People, in general, try to do what is best for everyone

THAT IS, UNTIL IT INCONVENIENCES THEM!!!

That is when they tend to become a “N.I.M.B.Y.” – They start crying, “Not In My Back Yard”.

All it takes is for an intelligent person to look at I-4 from the Conroy Rd. overhead bridge during ANY rush hour to see that the ability to take JUST THE TOURIST TRAFFIC out of the mess would improve the traffic jams greatly. That doesn’t take into consideration, as the train would become more convenient and with more / farther reaching destinations, the people that would be able to us this for daily commuting. I lived in various cities during my life and have seen, first-hand, the benefits and usefulness of rail commuter services – Both regular trains AND light-rail vehicles. BUT – this benefit ONLY shows when the commuter service can be reliable and with more than enough scheduled frequencies that allow people to plan their daily trip(s) with minimum inconvenience. All of the traffic jammed routes NEED this relief. The traffic situation is only going to worsen. One only needs to look at the started developments and the outstanding permits requested for more development to realize that more homes = more people commuting. I am not blind enough to think that this is a “cure all” solution, BUT it IS a major step in the correct direction.

This should become a LOUD case of “Please Put It In My Back Yard”, so that you, too, could benefit from the convenience of being relieved of traffic jams and the stress that is incumbent, relieved of the “road rage”, entitled to the comfort of relaxing during your commute, entitled to the time to, maybe, even get some extra work done, entitled to use a cell phone without having to create a danger to others and yourselves by having to take both hands off the wheel. Aren’t you worth the relief and benefits? I think each one of us is. I live just out of walking distance to a current rail line. I can hear them at the road crossings when my windows are open. If commuter service were available, I would only have to drive or use a scooter for 3-6 minutes and then relax. Doesn’t that sound good to you? As I said above, “Please Put It In My Back Yard”.

Do yourself a favor. Do your community a favor. Force the governor to follow the constitutional mandate that we gave him 4 years ago. Force Jeb to STOP ignoring the parts of the State Constitution that he doesn’t want to obey. Four years ago, we said that we wanted this and he has acted as though he is above the law. This should not be allowed. Say, “NO” to Amendment 6 and make Jeb do his job. Say, “NO” to Amendment 6 and help relieve congestion on I-4 (and, eventually, on I-95, too). Say, “NO” to Amendment 6 and take a step towards simplifying your own life. Just say, “NO” to Amendment 6.

Earl

Tired of the I-4 “Parking Lot” and ready for better solution

  High-Speed Rail Supporters Bring Message To Orlando

POSTED: 3:23 pm EDT October 11, 2004

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A pro-bullet train group brought its message to Orlando
on Monday. The Rail Truth is a group that aims to educate voters on the
benefits of a high-speed rail system for the state.Four years ago,
voters approved a high-speed rail system. It still has not been
built.This year, voters will have to vote again on an amendment against
the high-speed rail.

"Now, some of those government leaders are asking voters to vote again
on whether you really meant what you said. We believe the voters knew
what they were voting on just four short years ago and will again say
that they want high-speed rail here in Florida," says Ken Walton, The
Rail Truth.The group says this year's ballot may be a little confusing.
If you want high-speed rail, you have to vote 'no.' If you oppose it,
you have to vote 'yes.'

Ray Dunbar
East Texas passenger advocate

Link from Florida:

http://www.wftv.com/news/3800558/detail.html

High-speed rail is vital to Florida's future

It would be a mistake for voters to vote down the high-speed rail
initiative on the November ballot. It was approved easily in 2000 and
deserves to be upheld. The reason is the need for alternative
transportation in the face of global warming, hurricane road congestion,
and scarcity of oil and gasoline reserves.

Glacier melting due to carbon emissions from coal and oil are having a
catastrophic effect on people living near the Arctic Circle. Deformed
fish, dying forests, and starving seals are the result. Two years ago
the prime minister of New Zealand offered to accept the entire
population of Tuvalu, an island nation being submerged by the rising sea
levels that global warming is causing.

In time cars will be the endangered species, and trains will be
considered a necessity. We can't afford not to go with rail in Florida.
Please vote to continue the excellent progress that has been made by the
high-speed rail commission since the 2000 vote.

Paul Winemiller

Venice

Link:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041003/OPINION/410030308/1029/OPINION01

• Any idea where HB and JD Towers are ??.

High-speed rail is vital to Florida's future

It would be a mistake for voters to vote down the high-speed rail
initiative on the November ballot. It was approved easily in 2000 and
deserves to be upheld. The reason is the need for alternative
transportation in the face of global warming, hurricane road congestion,
and scarcity of oil and gasoline reserves.

Glacier melting due to carbon emissions from coal and oil are having a
catastrophic effect on people living near the Arctic Circle. Deformed
fish, dying forests, and starving seals are the result. Two years ago
the prime minister of New Zealand offered to accept the entire
population of Tuvalu, an island nation being submerged by the rising sea
levels that global warming is causing.

In time cars will be the endangered species, and trains will be
considered a necessity. We can't afford not to go with rail in Florida.
Please vote to continue the excellent progress that has been made by the
high-speed rail commission since the 2000 vote.

Paul Winemiller

Venice

Link:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041003/OPINION/410030308/1029/OPINION01

In a message dated 10/9/04 9:30:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
robertglover@... writes:


> Well, Carleton may not drive "all the way" to work, but he drives from home
> to the MARC or Metro station, parks his car there, and then takes the train.
>

Carleton, if that's true, how do you guys manage with just one car?

Taking transit all the way is a laudable goal, but often it isn't feasible
unless you live in the city.

Tom Hoffman
Pearisburg VA


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 10/9/04 5:45:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, gkazin@...
writes:


> Once on Long Island, Mom did 'light' shopping on foot on Tuesdays (Dad got
> paid on Mondays) and 'heavy' grocery shopping by car with Dad on Thursday
> evenings (because the stores were open that night).

It's amazing how we ever survived. Grocery stores were not open on Sundays AT
ALL, and one evening a week max. I live in a very small town, but my local
Wal Mart is open 24/7/364. They do close on Christmas.

"That's why I think the houses are worth more.  Have you looked in the
Washington newspaper real estate sections lately?"

Every Saturday without fail, I check the real estate section of the
Washington Post for a column called "Where We Live." It features a different
neighborhood each week. My old area (American University Park) was in there within the
past year, and yes, the houses like ours are running 350-500K. 

We had a living room, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor, three
bedrooms and one bath upstairs, plus a basement and a crawl-space attic. So-so
sized yard.

Tom Hoffman
Pearisburg VA



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- gopullman@... wrote:
> Our family of five actually managed to get around without a car until
> 1959, right when I turned eleven. I actually remember my parents taking
> us kids to the pediatrician by piling on the bus. Imagine that today!

When we moved to Long Island, my mother continued to use the dentist in
Brooklyn, who I learned MUCH later was a cousin of my paternal
grandmother.   Every few Saturdays Mom would walk the three of us to the
LIRR (10 minutes) and we'd ride it to East New York.  A block walk took us
to an NYC bus and another three block walk took us to a second bus which
got us within three blocks of the dentist's office.

After visiting the dentist, we'd take in a museum or Radio City, then take
the subway back to the shop where Dad worked.

> We rode the RF&P and Seaboard to South Carolina once a year to visit my
> mom's family.

Well, we had no family in SC or anywhere else we could afford to visit by
train.  A few relatives were in Connecticut and Massachusetts, some in
upper New York State.  Pretty much we took driving vacations, two weeks in
August.  Mom managed to find lots of things that were free or inexpensive
(and lots of things were back in the 1950's).

> That's the root cause of my railfanism.

Would you believe the IRT?

> My parents went Christmas shopping on the bus and managed to get
> everything home.

When we lived in Brooklyn, we'd walk...  The grocery store was about four
blocks east; Mom would have things that wouldn't fit into her shopping
cart delivered later.  After my kid sister was born, the shopping cart
stayed home and everything was delivered.  Department stores were the
other direction on Flatbush Ave, and anything that couldn't be easily
carried was sent later.

Once on Long Island, Mom did 'light' shopping on foot on Tuesdays (Dad got
paid on Mondays) and 'heavy' grocery shopping by car with Dad on Thursday
evenings (because the stores were open that night).  We got a fair number
of catalogs from stores Mom liked and she would order from them using her
store charge account.  The selections came UPS; if it had to go back UPS
would pick it up a few days later after calling the store.

> We lived four blocks off Wisconsin Avenue and the #30 PCC line. The N2
> bus line was a little closer. Every now and then we'd take a cab for
some
> reason or another.

In Brooklyn, the IRT Flatbush Ave line was closest, a block beyond the
grocery store and at the corner where our savings bank was.  The BMT
Brighton Line wasa a few blocks farther in the other direction, but we
usually took the IRT because it went where we needed most of the time.
The Church Avenue trolley car stopped a block away; one of the earliest
things I can remember is sitting in my parents' bedroom one winter night
and seeing the trolley car snowplow go by shooting sparks, 1953 or so.

When moving out, Mom had to have shopping within walking distance (which
proved to be about a mile) and transportation to NYC.  Mom and Dad would
not look at houses that were too far; we ended up being a half mile from
an LIRR station and a quarter mile from a bus to Hempstead, then where the
'big city' stores had branches.

> I think it was grocery shopping that drove my mother into getting our
> first car. She worked weekends for a year as a nurse and bought a 3 year
> old, 1956 Chevy station wagon for about $1500.

Dad took mom (and us, at first) to do the heavy shopping in the car.  When
they came back, we'd all run out to bring the bags inside.

> Before that, I can remember going to the grocery store with a kid's
Radio
> Flyer wagon in tow.

Never had to do that...

> One time, my mom dropped a ham onto Wisconsin Avenue, where it promptly
> got crushed by a DC Transit PCC.

And we didn't have anything like that happen, though the market was four
or five blocks along Church Ave with frequent cars.  We did take the cars
to see my paternal grandparents, who lived a block off Church Ave about
two miles east.

> And no, we were not poor. My dad was a GS-15 in the federal government.

A GS-15 has ALWAYS been a good job; today it runs from about $100,000 to
$130,000.  Your dad was a big wheel, in charge of a department with at
least 100 people.

> My mom worked part time off and on, but back then one wage earner was
> enough.

Mom NEVER worked (for someone else and for money) after Dad got out of the
Army Air Corps in 1945.  Raising three children was plenty of work.

> My parents bought our house in 1952 for the princely sum of $20,500.

That WAS princely in 1952.  New York City area suburban tract housing was
selling for about $8,000 at that time.  Mom and Dad bought a model that
sold for $10,990 and had a half dormer added on the back (for $500 more)
so a future bedroom would not have the sloping ceiling so common in such
houses.  That house is worth over $300,000 today.

> Using the CPI index, that would "only" be $146,439.62 today.

I think you're using the wrong index.  Fifty years should make that house
worth at least a million today.

> But instead, houses in my old neighborhood are getting anywhere from
350K
> to 500K. There are no more telephone operators, Coast Guard captains or
> small drugstore owners living there like three of our neighbors were.

There are few telephone operators or small drugstore owners these days.  I
don't know about the CG, though.

> Plenty of high powered corporate lawyers, though.

That's why I think the houses are worth more.  Have you looked in the
Washington newspaper real estate sections lately?

=====
Gary R. Kazin
DL&W Milepost R35.7
Rockaway, New Jersey

http://www.geocities.com/gkazin/index.html


           
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com

Quote:

The residents in Florida are still in denial that there's a
transportation mobility problem. Oh sure they might complain, but
build more roads is their answer.

-----------
But the report said that a majority of voters would turn down the
repeal of high-speed rail. Therefore, a minority of voters are in
denial. Isn't that true almost everywhere?

Ed
http://www.railtravelnews.com

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004, charles hobbs wrote:

-> Oh well, at least we have the California HSR project on the Nov 2006
-> ballot. As far as I know, there's no out-and-out opposition to it as in
-> Florida, although the cost and length of construction time might cause
-> some sticker shock. http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
->
-> (Ideally, a nationwide HSR program would be implemented at the federal
-> level, just like the Interstate highway system was....)

If, in 1919, the proponents of the federal highway aid program had said
"this will cost us over $1 trillion over the next 80 years" do you think
it would have been built?

Start small, I say.

--
Peter Laws  |  plaws plaws.net  |  http://www.johnkerry.com/
RR Emergency Numbers: http://plaws.net/rail/emergency.shtml
   Caution: For the humor-impaired, this message *may*
             contain trace amounts of humor.

Oh well, at least we have the California HSR project
on the Nov 2006 ballot. As far as I know, there's no
out-and-out opposition to it as in Florida, although
the cost and length of construction time might cause
some sticker shock. http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

(Ideally, a nationwide HSR program would be
implemented at the federal level, just like the
Interstate highway system was....)


           
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com

I've been here almost 17-1/2 years, and have not once, ever, driven to work.
MARC or Metro, one or the other.

Carleton

-----Original Message-----
From: gopullman@... [mailto:gopullman@...]
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 15:59
To: All_Aboard@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [A_A] Florida residents in denial



In a message dated 10/9/04 2:53:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
carletonm@... writes:


> When we moved here I told the real estate agent that I did not want to
even
> be shown any house that wasn't near public transportation.  We are still
the
> only two-adult family in the neighborhood with only one car.
>

Much to his credit, my father bucked the trend set by the rest of his
generation. He worked for the federal government from 12/41 through 12/76 at
various
locations in downtown Washington. To the best of my knowledge, he did not
drive to work a single day in his life. The only "asterisk" was caused by
the 1955
transit strike, when he had to join a car pool for two months. My dad loved
to read, and he must have read a small library full of books on the bus
during
that 35 years. He rode the buses under Capital Transit, DC Transit and
Metro.
The first few years, he may have used streetcars as well.

For the first 17 of those years, my family didn't have a car at all. But we
never became a two-car family. My dad continued to ride the bus and left the
car for my mom to use during the day.

Our family of five actually managed to get around without a car until 1959,
right when I turned eleven. I actually remember my parents taking us kids to
the pediatrician by piling on the bus. Imagine that today! We rode the RF&P
and
Seaboard to South Carolina once a year to visit my mom's family. That's the
root cause of my railfanism. My parents went Christmas shopping on the bus
and
managed to get everything home.

We lived four blocks off Wisconsin Avenue and the #30 PCC line. The N2 bus
line was a little closer. Every now and then we'd take a cab for some reason
or
another.

I think it was grocery shopping that drove my mother into getting our first
car. She worked weekends for a year as a nurse and bought a 3 year old, 1956
Chevy station wagon for about $1500. Before that, I can remember going to
the
grocery store with a kid's Radio Flyer wagon in tow. One time, my mom
dropped a
ham onto Wisconsin Avenue, where it promptly got crushed by a DC Transit
PCC.

And no, we were not poor. My dad was a GS-15 in the federal government. My
mom worked part time off and on, but back then one wage earner was enough.
My
parents bought our house in 1952 for the princely sum of $20,500. Using the
CPI
index, that would "only" be $146,439.62 today. But instead, houses in my old
neighborhood are getting anywhere from 350K to 500K. There are no more
telephone operators, Coast Guard captains or small drugstore owners living
there like
three of our neighbors were. Plenty of high powered corporate lawyers,
though.

Tom Hoffman
Pearisburg VA


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Yahoo! Groups Links

In a message dated 10/9/04 2:53:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
carletonm@... writes:


> When we moved here I told the real estate agent that I did not want to even
> be shown any house that wasn't near public transportation.  We are still the
> only two-adult family in the neighborhood with only one car.
>

Much to his credit, my father bucked the trend set by the rest of his
generation. He worked for the federal government from 12/41 through 12/76 at various
locations in downtown Washington. To the best of my knowledge, he did not
drive to work a single day in his life. The only "asterisk" was caused by the 1955
transit strike, when he had to join a car pool for two months. My dad loved
to read, and he must have read a small library full of books on the bus during
that 35 years. He rode the buses under Capital Transit, DC Transit and Metro.
The first few years, he may have used streetcars as well.

For the first 17 of those years, my family didn't have a car at all. But we
never became a two-car family. My dad continued to ride the bus and left the
car for my mom to use during the day.

Our family of five actually managed to get around without a car until 1959,
right when I turned eleven. I actually remember my parents taking us kids to
the pediatrician by piling on the bus. Imagine that today! We rode the RF&P and
Seaboard to South Carolina once a year to visit my mom's family. That's the
root cause of my railfanism. My parents went Christmas shopping on the bus and
managed to get everything home.

We lived four blocks off Wisconsin Avenue and the #30 PCC line. The N2 bus
line was a little closer. Every now and then we'd take a cab for some reason or
another.

I think it was grocery shopping that drove my mother into getting our first
car. She worked weekends for a year as a nurse and bought a 3 year old, 1956
Chevy station wagon for about $1500. Before that, I can remember going to the
grocery store with a kid's Radio Flyer wagon in tow. One time, my mom dropped a
ham onto Wisconsin Avenue, where it promptly got crushed by a DC Transit PCC.

And no, we were not poor. My dad was a GS-15 in the federal government. My
mom worked part time off and on, but back then one wage earner was enough.  My
parents bought our house in 1952 for the princely sum of $20,500. Using the CPI
index, that would "only" be $146,439.62 today. But instead, houses in my old
neighborhood are getting anywhere from 350K to 500K. There are no more
telephone operators, Coast Guard captains or small drugstore owners living there like
three of our neighbors were. Plenty of high powered corporate lawyers, though.

Tom Hoffman
Pearisburg VA


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I've thought about that too.

I live in a Maryland suburb (not by choice, but when we moved here in 1987
we had little kids and the D.C. government was an abomination and the
schools pathetic, so living in the District wasn't something we could do).
We have six bus lines about a 13-minute walk away.  All go to Metro by
various routes; one is a rush-hour only express.  One goes near the
Gaithersburg MARC station.  So we could survive without a car, though
shopping would be hard.

When we moved here I told the real estate agent that I did not want to even
be shown any house that wasn't near public transportation.  We are still the
only two-adult family in the neighborhood with only one car.

In San Francisco we had the 6-Parnassus trolleybus two blocks away, and the
streetcars (K, L, M one way, N the other) at the bottom of the hill.  I was
quite used to NOT driving to work and wanted things to stay that way.

Considering the future, it might have been better if HQ was in New York
City; I could have afforded a somewhat decent apartment then and would never
have had to consider a day when I could not drive.

Carleton

-----Original Message-----
From: gopullman@... [mailto:gopullman@...]
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 13:21
To: All_Aboard@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [A_A] Florida residents in denial



In a message dated 10/9/04 10:19:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
david348@... writes:


> Sure the good ol retires don't want to have transportation options
> but it's funny when they can't drive anymore, who's the first to
> complain.

I realize that I'm painting with an extremely broad brush here, and if it
offends anyone, I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it anyway.

AS A GENERATION (not everyone in it), the folks who are getting too old to
drive have only themselves to blame for decreased mobility. This generation
made
heroic, unbelievable sacrifices to defend America during World War II and
Korea.

But when they got back, they abandoned public transportation, and not just
rail. They used their GI bill money to buy houses in remote suburban areas.
So
what if they had to drive? Gas was cheap, any American with a job could buy
a
car, and there were all these nice new roads with plenty of room to drive
on.
Who needed trains or buses anymore? Those were for poor people in the inner
city.

Most Americans live only for the moment, so these people never gave any
thought to the idea that there might come a time when they would be too old
to
drive. So now the chickens are coming home to roost. Not too many retirees
can
afford to live in San Francisco, Washington DC, New York or other cities
with
good transit systems. They will want to get back the transportation systems
they
so eagerly abandoned fifty years earlier. And if they can ever get AARP on
board, they may succeed.

Don't get me wrong; I don't wish any harm on anyone. But what goes around
comes around.

Tom Hoffman
Pearisburg VA


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Yahoo! Groups Links

In a message dated 10/9/04 10:19:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
david348@... writes:


> Sure the good ol retires don't want to have transportation options
> but it's funny when they can't drive anymore, who's the first to
> complain.

I realize that I'm painting with an extremely broad brush here, and if it
offends anyone, I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it anyway.

AS A GENERATION (not everyone in it), the folks who are getting too old to
drive have only themselves to blame for decreased mobility. This generation made
heroic, unbelievable sacrifices to defend America during World War II and
Korea.

But when they got back, they abandoned public transportation, and not just
rail. They used their GI bill money to buy houses in remote suburban areas. So
what if they had to drive? Gas was cheap, any American with a job could buy a
car, and there were all these nice new roads with plenty of room to drive on.
Who needed trains or buses anymore? Those were for poor people in the inner
city.

Most Americans live only for the moment, so these people never gave any
thought to the idea that there might come a time when they would be too old to
drive. So now the chickens are coming home to roost. Not too many retirees can
afford to live in San Francisco, Washington DC, New York or other cities with
good transit systems. They will want to get back the transportation systems they
so eagerly abandoned fifty years earlier. And if they can ever get AARP on
board, they may succeed.

Don't get me wrong; I don't wish any harm on anyone. But what goes around
comes around.

Tom Hoffman
Pearisburg VA


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The residents in Florida are still in denial that there's a
transportation mobility problem. Oh sure they might complain, but
build more roads is their answer.

While it's sad to say, in the long run, it might be best to start
over with an incremental rail plan (ala California, North Carolina,
Illinois, Washington) and work from there.

Between Tampa and Orlando what is needed is a commuter network not a
HSR system.  The problems are only getting worse and commuter rail
(thus rebuilding the infrastructure for regional intercity rail) is
possible. 

The HSR is too much too soon for the backward thinkers in Florida.

Let them sit in congestion and deal with traffic, highway fatalities,
air pollution,REDUCED or ELIMINATED mobility for the aging population.

Sure the good ol retires don't want to have transportation options
but it's funny when they can't drive anymore, who's the first to
complain.  All is fine when you can drive where you want to go, but
life get's lonely without being able to travel.

Florida has its problems and the issue with HSR is too divided for
any rational decision making.

Florida needs strong leadership and the demand of the people for
improved mobility before any real decisions will be made.

The best thing to do now is push for improving local mobility with
commuter services along with incremental improvements to 'corridor'
development (79mph).  This approach will upgrade the infrastructure,
build support for rail service and make it a stronger arguement to
take it to the next level (110+).





--- In All_Aboard@yahoogroups.com, Ray Dunbar <RDUNBAR@C...> wrote:
> Speed rail repeal appears doomed
>
> But survey says 4 of 8 amendments have support
>

Business foes of bullet train stuffing PACs
The Villages tops contributors' list with $900,000 given so far.
By Noelle C. Haner
Orlando Business Journal
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2004

TALLAHASSEE -- A powerful consortium of business interests including The
Villages, Moving Florida, Universal City Development Partners and
Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. has joined forces for a common cause: defeat
high-speed rail.

advertisement

The businesses all are major contributors to two political action
committees, both created in the last two years for the express purpose
of rolling back a 2000 ballot initiative that created a constitutional
amendment authorizing Florida to undertake a $25 billion high-speed rail
project.

With the indirect -- and direct -- lobbying clout of Gov. Jeb Bush and
Tom Gallagher, the state's chief financial officer, businesses and
individuals have poured more than $3.3 million into DeRail the Bullet
Train and Floridians for Responsible Spending, according to records from
the Florida Department of State's division of elections.

Next month, Floridians will head to the polls in yet another vote on
high-speed rail. In essence, Amendment 6 asks state residents to repeal
their 2000 votes.

With a total of $900,000 in PAC contributions to date, The Villages, a
45-year-old sprawling 40,000-resident retirement community that
straddles Lake, Sumter and Marion counties, by far tops the list.

And while it is not immediately clear why The Villages has invested so
much money in an attempt to defeat high-speed rail, state campaign
contribution records may tell at least part of the story.

Gary Morse, chief executive officer of The Villages, is a major
Republican supporter and an even bigger Bush family backer. In fact,
since 2000, Morse has given $103,500 to Republican candidates for
national office and $2,100 for those running for state offices,
including Gov. Jeb Bush.

Morse also lent his private jet to the governor's 2002 campaign on a
couple of occasions for a nominal fee.

Repeated phone calls seeking comment from Morse and officials at The
Villages were not returned.

Some political figures believe The Villages' PAC contributions are suspect.

"It has to be just raw politics," says Dick Batchelor, president of Dick
Batchelor Management Group and a former state legislator. "There is no
logical explanation as to why The Villages would be interested in this
issue.

"It is obvious Gov. Bush and Gallagher are calling in big chips on this
one," says Batchelor, a lifelong Democrat. "You can give $10,000 to
$20,000 to a cause when you just have a small stake in the game. But if
you give up toward $1 million, you've got skin in the game somewhere."

A spokesman flatly denies Gov. Bush is flexing his political muscle,
especially on party loyalists.

"The governor doesn't pressure anyone," says spokesman Jacob DiPietre.
"He has made his position clear on the bullet train. That doesn't mean
he has pressured or coerced anyone into giving money to help fight it."

For the last 30 years, high-speed rail has been a bitterly divisive
issue in Florida.

Since 1976, legislative mandates have created feasibility studies and
high-speed rail commissions.

In 1996, the Florida Department of Transportation provided a funding
source for a statewide high-speed rail system, setting the amount at $70
million a year for 30 years with a 4 percent escalation clause. But when
Bush was elected governor in 1998, he made it clear he did not like the
idea of high-speed rail, and a year later, he redirected the state
funding for the project.

Enter Doc Dockery, the Lakeland businessman who bankrolled an effort to
get an amendment on the ballot in 2000 to constitutionally mandate
high-speed rail.

The voters -- by a 52.7 percent majority -- approved the measure, and
although Bush has reluctantly enforced the amendment, he and Gallagher
also have been busy orchestrating an effort to overturn it. In fact,
both have been heavily involved in the two PACs -- DeRail the Bullet
Train and Floridians for Responsible Spending.

Gallagher serves as chairman of DeRail the Bullet Train, and in May,
Bush launched his own personal e-mail campaign, urging recipients to
sign an attached petition from DeRail the Bullet Train and distribute it
to their friends and family.

"He (Gallagher) specifically asked the state's legal counsel if he could
do this," says Tami Torres, a spokeswoman for the state's CFO.

While their participation in the PACs is not illegal, it has raised
concerns from state politicians, high-speed rail proponents and public
policy analysts.

"There are a number of things we can talk about that Gov. Bush has done
a great job on, but this is simply an issue where we disagree. We don't
understand his disagreement with high-speed rail," explains Ken Walton,
executive director of The Rail Truth, the new PAC supporting Florida
high-speed rail.

Political experts are perplexed by the governor's stance.

"It is interesting," says Aron Pilhofer, a campaign contribution expert
with The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan
Washington, D.C.-based group. "You're talking about the governor of the
state. He has the biggest bully pulpit of all."

Among the hefty contributors have been a wide range of real estate
developers, railroads, airlines and rental car companies -- and
Republican fat cats.

After The Villages, the biggest contributors have been a group of
companies specializing in road construction -- Moving Florida -- with
$755,000 to both PACs. Universal has contributed $520,639, and
Anheuser-Busch, the owner of SeaWorld, has given $400,000.

Sarah Bascom, a spokeswoman with Voters for Responsible Spending,
insists the groups' contributors go far beyond party and business lines.

"We have received support from numerous Republicans and Democrats," she
says.

Link:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6208575/



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