31st CD: Why Mayor Pete Aguilar is Bad for Omnitrans

This was another piece that I was going to write on why voters (specifically Democrats) should not support Pete Aguilar.

Besides being a DINO (Democrat in Name Only), he sits on SANBAG’s Commuter Transit and Rail Committee which is railroading (pun intended) this project by the communities throat. 

Redlands Rail is a transportation project that is doomed to failure. Not only did the Federal Transit Authority reject matching funds for this project, it is poorly designed. It just runs in a circle around Redlands and that’s it. In addition, the ridership will be low.

How this is being paid for is that currently, all transit agencies are undergoing individual  Comprehensive Operational Analysis’ (COA) to determine their “efficiencies” . The cost of this analysis for Omintrans is about $1M dollars. During meetings with Omnitran’s employees AECOM (who is conducting the study), transparently admitted that it is conducting this study to achieve cost savings.

So basically we are taking local dollars which go to local workers and subsidizing the Metrolink which has L.A. workers so that Redlands can have a train.

I applaud the CEO and senior staff of Omintrans for standing up against this COA and fighting for local working families.

This was another reason why I couldn’t support Pete Aguilar for Congress.