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| Re: M.T.A. Cuts Delay Some Big Projects Until 2010 (639073) | |||
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Re: M.T.A. Cuts Delay Some Big Projects Until 2010 |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Tue Jun 24 18:16:23 2008, in response to Re: M.T.A. Cuts Delay Some Big Projects Until 2010, posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue Jun 24 17:34:35 2008. Point of order on that for reference ... Division of the budget issues quarterly progress reports on an agency's finances though the agency itself is supposed to try to figure it out. Since the state's FY ends on April 1, whatever he had for a March "report" couldn't have been current since the first quarter's figures don't even come out until almost a month after the quarter ends from the comptroller's office. So if he had figures for March, then they would have HAD to be the last quarter of 2007 posted in January of 2008 ... just how it works.Had Sander's speech been otherwise, I might agree with you. But Sander was quite specific on March 3rd as to what he meant, so that there can be no mistaking it. He says, in the March 3rd address at Cooper Union, I have reviewed our 2008 revenues to date, which are in line with our budget projections. There's no other way to read that except that he indeed reviewed MTA's 2008 revenues to date, the date being March 3rd 2008. To reinforce that, Sander goes on, in the very next sentence, to talk about how those revenues up until March 3rd - or maybe March 2nd, depending on how you want to read it, OK - were in line with projections. Even if you're right, that only necessarily implies that Sander's statement was materially false: he had not, in that case, reviewed 2008 MTA revenues to date, and so he could not have compared them to projections for 2008. In the leading press account his March 3rd comments were read this way: The announcement that the authority could not afford the improvements now was an abrupt reversal from just three weeks ago, when Elliot G. Sander, the authority’s chief executive, said its finances appeared good enough to go ahead with the improvements. Mr. Sander made that announcement on March 3, a day after subway and bus fares increased and two days after commuter rail fares went up. Bridge tolls increased March 16. Speaking at Cooper Union in what was billed as the first “state of the M.T.A.” address, Mr. Sander said he had “a lot of good news to share” about service. “Our customers will benefit from increased service on 11 subway lines, extended and new bus routes, additional commuter rail trains and cars on L.I.R.R. and Metro-North, and improved customer communications,” he said, according to the text of his remarks on the authority’s Web Site. We never heard back from Sander as to any explanation for the flip flop. Nor did we hear him apologize for misleading millions of New Yorkers. Nor did we hear him offer his resignation over the episode. |
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