I received a response today to my PDA request trying to identify the costs incurred by the taxpayers with the hiring of a private law firm, Buck and Gordon, to represent KCDOT in the Redmond Ridge East hearings, lawsuit, and appeals of the King County examiner's June ruling recommending denial of Redmond Ridge East and the rescinding of its improperly issued transporation concurrency certificate in 2002. Here is what King County taxpayers paid to hire this pro-developer law firm to represent this government agency against the hearing examiner:
January - MayRRE Hearing Fees = $140,590RRE Hearing Costs = $ 7,426June - JulyCouncil Appeal = $ 43,458LUPA Appeal = $ 10,912Total all RRE Proceedings = $202,386
Can you imagine if the opposition to these "arbitrary and capricous" DOT actions had this kind of money to challenge the wrongdoing?
Add Quadrant's lawyers to the mix for the hearings, lawsuit and appeal, along with the PA's Office's costs in representing DDES in their appeal, and is there any wonder why opposition groups eventually are bankrupted and driven into silence?
Friends of the Law settled for $75,000, with most of it going to their lawyer to pay off their outstanding debts. I wonder what "fraction" that is of the profit on just one Quadrant house?
And from today's reporting on the settlement between Quadrant and Friends of the Law, now Quadrant is blaming King County for the hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded road projects. Quadrant's president is calling on the county to build their share of the roads to support Redmond Ridge, Trilogy AND Redmond Ridge East. Never mind that King County and Redmond's share will be in the half billion to a billion dollar range before they're done.
Maybe if Quadrant is such a community-minded mega-developer, maybe they should have stopped building and worsening the problems last year when volumes on Novelty Hill Road triggered project-halting conditions on Novelty Hill Road (A condition that King County is refusing to enforce while they've completely stopped counting cars on NHR). They didn't!
Maybe Quadrant will just stop building now until the roads are improved to handle the added capacity? They won't!
But now it's all King County's fault? And Quadrant would have us believe that King County continues to commit "arbitrary and capricious" acts for them becasue...
Friends of the Law settled for $75,000, with most of it going to their lawyer to pay off their outstanding debts. I wonder what "fraction" that is of the profit on just one Quadrant house?
And from today's reporting on the settlement between Quadrant and Friends of the Law, now Quadrant is blaming King County for the hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded road projects. Quadrant's president is calling on the county to build their share of the roads to support Redmond Ridge, Trilogy AND Redmond Ridge East. Never mind that King County and Redmond's share will be in the half billion to a billion dollar range before they're done.
Maybe if Quadrant is such a community-minded mega-developer, maybe they should have stopped building and worsening the problems last year when volumes on Novelty Hill Road triggered project-halting conditions on Novelty Hill Road (A condition that King County is refusing to enforce while they've completely stopped counting cars on NHR). They didn't!
Maybe Quadrant will just stop building now until the roads are improved to handle the added capacity? They won't!
But now it's all King County's fault? And Quadrant would have us believe that King County continues to commit "arbitrary and capricious" acts for them becasue...
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