And, while I understand what Bill is saying in the post above, it all comes out in the wash. While some people in Northern California are helping pay for our new bus, we are helping (in the form of grants) to pay for Shark research off the coast of San Francisco. Or whatever.

Can anyone help me understand this better?

Sure!

Dakota County population as of 2008: 392,755.
Cost of two Gillig buses: $785,468
Cost per potential resident: $1.99
Likelihood this could affect a political campaign: moderate

—

US population as of 2009: 307,006,550
Cost of two Gillig buses: $785,468
Cost per potential resident: $0.00255
Likelihood this could affect a political campaign: hilariously low

“It wasn’t paid for by tax dollars. It was paid for by a grant! Yay!!”

I’m not at all an expert, but where the hell does “grant” money come from? To my knowledge the tax dollar and the federal grant dollar all come from the same place — my pocket and yours.

I hear a lot of bitching about taxes, but when it’s called a “grant” everyone throws a happy “at least it wasn’t taxes” party.

Seems like a pretty popular scheme for politicians to get tax money for things but not have their feet held to the fire nowadays. Am I the only person who hates wasteful grants equally to hating wasteful tax spending?

Can anyone help me understand this better?

I searched but couldn’t find it on the MVTA’s site thus I left out the cost of older buses. Feel free to request the information from them. I don’t have the time to wait days, sometimes weeks or months, for them to get back to me about something I consider irrelevant.

Feel free to do the research and provide the information for us here as we’d love to see it.

I can only surmise that they sidle around the FCC rules by farming out the telephoning jobs to private contractors. I don’t know the rules, but I do know that the phone calls came from all kinds of numbers, and usually they weren’t identified as the Pioneer Press.

Patti, it would be nice if whoever stole your paper would be “tagged,” and the phone calls would follow them to THEIR homes. But hey, I’m a dreamer.

We always know when there’s a new resident in our building; the Press shows up on the doorstep. We old-timers stay far, far away from it. : )

Mikeh wondered where I am getting the funds to pay for all of these items. I announced my candidacy last September and had my first fund raiser in November and several others to follow. Those funds with donations from other supporters have helped finance my campaign.

Eric addressed the logo on my patch being blackout; unfortunately I was not able to leave the name on my patch. My administration advised I could wear the uniform, but I must black out the name. I appreciate all of the comments. Trust me neither I nor any of my people will place fliers on any vehicles in the future.

If any of you have further questions or concerns, I would be happy to speak with you.

Also, isn’t it a possibility that better marketing of public transit saves money in the long run? We spend a lot of public funds to accommodate cars, after all.

There are pros and cons to both the train and bus. What is really stupid is spending extra money to make a bus look like a train.