Transit- Meeting Agenda (12/18/1997)

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and in fact are being used for that exact purpose. One of the interesting dynamics of the way this whole thing was laid out that disturbed him a little was that he did not think it fai~ly balanced out the partnerships that have been going on in this process. This Transit District has been involved in the issues in this community discussing siting. It is not a new issue, and is a necessary issue. This project is important, necessary, and should have happened many years ago. The District is in the process of making it a reality in the near future. From his personai standpoint, he concurs with a statement he heard at the Public Forum last night that, as the Board has deliberated on the numerous items which have come before them and the tough choices with which they have had to deai, very sound business decisions have been made by the Board and in the direction given to the General Manager and other staff on how to proceed. As an illustrative example only, he wnuld use the whole issue related to the day care facility, which has been a g~eat passion for both he and Director Kelfey-. It has been an issue they have strongly advocated for, and it was with great regret that a very difficult policy decision had to be made that it was not affordable to have day care as a part of the facility. In fact, it would have been poor stewardship of the resources from the property taxes the District receives for operating buses to include day care. The federal funds could not be used for that purpose, and even though in his heart of hearts this is something he certainly would have wanted, and still would hope that a way could be found to make this happen, the Board made the appropriate, prudent decision that that piece had to be withdrawn due to many factors. When the items are put in perspective, the Board has deliberated as a policy body, and has made sound business decisions in a new area in which no one has done this before. The Board has been open, has provided the public plenty of opportunities to participate, and will continue to do that at all tums. When the ultimate product is put forth, it will senrice the community greatly for the next 40-50 years, and the District will be vindicated. Director Wieprecht said he was not involved early on in the project, and does not have a pe~sonal ownership that some of the longer tenured Board members have. He looked at the Statesman Joumal article a little more subjectively. He grew up in the era of Watergate, and investigative repo~ters were heroes and were out there fighting the bad guys. He respects newspapers and what they do-he has a joumalist in his family. He was really disappointed with the tone of the reporting, the use of apples to oranges comparisons, and the half-quotes. It was bad reporting and just bad joumalism. A story could have been reported and it would have been interesting. He does not understand why it was necessary to go to excesses. He was not involved in many pa~ts of the project, and the one part in which he was involved, the discussion regarding the General Manager's bonus, the partial quote in the newspaper was taken totally out of context and did not reflect the discussion by the Board. He was extremely disappointed, and it will be a long time before he will be able to trust anything he reads in the Statesman Joumal. After the Public Forum last night, he was handed the current budget for the Courthouse Squa~e project. He reviewed it in as much detail as he could between 10:00 p.m. last night and his first meeting at 7:00 a.m. today. He had some concems with the ea~lie~ budget with regard to the contingency number. That has been rectified to his satisfaction. The budget numbers he sees show that the project is in really good shape. He is excited about the project and thinks it should go ahead. It is in the right spot, the timing is right, and it is needed. Director Towslee said she does not have a lot of comments about this because she was not on the Board when most of the decisions were Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting Salem Area Mass Transit District November 20, 1997 - Page 12