Cascade introduced its new Education Reform Outreach Director and lobbyist to the Club, 2012 Oregon Mother of the Year Bobbie Jager. Everyone interested in promoting school choice should check out Cascade's updated SchoolChoiceforOregon.com website and sign up for the School Choice for Oregon email list there.
Cascade is a co-sponsor of the Third Annual Equity and Innovation in Education Dinner on May 3rd in Wilsonville. Featuring two prominent national school choice advocates, the Dinner of complimentary and Invitation-Only. For an invitation please contact Steve Buckstein at Cascade.
Check out Cascade's website or sign up for its weekly email list here to sign up for two complimentary events coming up:
1. Thursday, April 20th at noon Kathryn Hickok will speak at a Policy Picnic at Cascade's office at noon on the topic: "Help! My Sister-in-law is a Teacher! How to talk about school choice when it hits close to home."
2. Monday, May 8th in the evening Dr. Jaquelin Merrill of the Fund for Academic Renewal will be a talk in Lake Oswego titled: "Challenges to Free Expression and Academic Integrity on Campus."

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Details of all Cascade events and publications are available at http://cascadepolicy.org/ and you can sign up for Cascade's free weekly Courier email list here.

Hello, fellow freedom lover!

Townhall.com, a national media outlet, featured Freedom Foundation's regional operation on Wednesday, March 8th: SEIU and Government Unions Are Now Having Their Tactics Used Against Them

Quotes that gave me a boost include:

"When [Freedom Foundation] realized SEIU and the state governors weren't going to inform home health workers about their ability to leave the union, Freedom Foundation stepped in. They developed a robust ground game, in conjunction with a strong public relations effort."

"There's no need for [homecare or childcare workers] to pay union dues," McCabe explained. "They're never going to have a grievance against their employer or a workplace grievance, because their employer is their child."

Every darn day, not during a campaign or legislative cycle, but every single day; Freedom Foundation has one laser-focused mission. Inform union members of their rights (and when they know they, they leave the union), and extract money out government unions.

Stay tuned, we have some other great wins I'll let you know about in the coming weeks. We are on offense; the unions are on defense.

That is a good thing for all of us

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In December the Oregonian published a guest column I wrote on this ridiculous dance that resulted in simply growing more government.

Click here to read it.

Thank you for your ongoing, strident support of freedom. We have done much in the last two years to drive the message that Oregon is transparency challenged and to continue to press our leaders to account for their ridiculous policies and postures. Your support has supported these efforts and so much more. The sky is the limit. A more free Oregon is on the horizon.

We believe the only path to freedom is achieved when the relationship between the liberal left and labor unions is dissolved.

We won't stop. We press on the gas every day. Join us. Click on our website listed below. You can sign up on the lower part of the page to receive our weekly email. You can click in the upper left corner to give a tax deductible donation as the year comes to a close.

Blessings,

Anne Marie Gurney
Oregon Director | Freedom Foundation
AGurney@FreedomFoundation.com
cell 503-901-5635 l ofc 503.951.6208 | PO Box 18146 Salem, OR 97305
FreedomFoundation.com

Metro is like many other government agencies. They do whatever they want because there are never any consequences even when caught.

In violation of state ethics laws Metro employees have been collecting frequent flyer benefits and using them for personal benefit.
http://www.oregonmetro.gov/follow-audit-report-frequent-flyer-benefits

Paid family leave abuse grew after audit exposed it.
http://rim.oregonmetro.gov/webdrawer/rec/272227/view

HR created new reports that would allow for better management of family leave and costs agency-wide. We analyzed these reports and found that the monthly average number of Metro employees out on a family leave case each month increased by 23% over the last two years and the annual payroll costs for family leave have increased by 48%.
Original family leave audit: http://www.oregonmetro.gov/news/leave-management-audit-follow

1. Metro does NOT track the effectiveness of their transportation planning strategies. Case studies show failure.
http://rim.oregonmetro.gov/webdrawer/rec/212993/view

2. Metro does not track the effectiveness of their costly Transit Oriented Development program. Case studies show failure.
http://rim.oregonmetro.gov/webdrawer/rec/212992/view

3. Metro's public involvement/communication is lopsided advocacy with staff free to choose what suits their advocacy.
http://rim.oregonmetro.gov/webdrawer/rec/212480/view

4. Metro's Capital Project spending is not recorded or tracked.
http://www.oregonmetro.gov/sites/default/files/Capital%20Project%20Planning%20Audit_0.pdf

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The central point in all of this is that Metro and TriMet are failing to produce their vision, intentions and objectives. They are covering up the failure and advancing more of it through perpetual propaganda.

Metro has been asked numerous times to reveal the cost ot date of the $3 Billion SW Corridor Light Rail planning. We now know why they have refused. Much like the CRC, they have no idea or intention of doing so.

No information was reported in some quarterly reports for some of the projects we reviewed.

It takes just a little bit of reading to grasp how severely Metro is out of control. As someone else says, it's "huge".

The punch line first: The cumulative detriment of such comprehensive government recklessness is responsible for much of the region's waste and worsening gridlock and housing crisis.

I have been hammering Metro to reveal the cost of planning the SW Corridor Light rail for at least least two years. In the middle of that span ODOT's region 1 manager Jason Tell warned the SW Corridor Steering committee that the projects could turn out to be as costly as the CRC and end up with the same result. That concern was omitted from Metro's reports on the project and never reported in the media. Jason Tell (soon after his warning) left ODOT to work for Parson's Brinkerhoff (light rail engineering firm ) and is now an advocate for the same project.

Clackamas County Chair John Ludlow also repeatedly requested the cost to date for planning the $3 billion light rail project and got no numbers in return. It may be that Metro and TriMet are nearing CRC levels of expenditure.

These chaotic Metro capital projects spending practices (below) exacerbate the impact of their planning practices. Former Metro Auditor reported that Metro does nothing to measure the effectiveness of neither their transportation or land use planning .

Consider how derelict this is. There is no reliable tracking of spending or merit in what they are doing with the money. Not surprising, the former Metro auditor also reported that Metro excessively spends the bulk of their public involvement & communication budget on feeding the public advocacy for their agenda vs gathering what the public wants etc.

Metro needs to improve its project management capability to better manage the scope, schedule and budget of capital projects. Spending on some projects did not go as planned. Some projects exceeded approved budgets and others moved forward without required planning and approval. We found that policies and procedures were inconsistently applied among departments, funding sources, and project types. This reduced the accuracy, completeness, and transparency of project planning and reporting. We were unable to determine the approved budgets for some projects. Annual budget amounts had not been established in either document for some projects. Budget amounts differed between the two documents.

That meant that two budgets had been approved for the same project in some cases. Without a baseline budget, it would be very difficult to determine if projects were on track. Planning documents for some projects were not complete, which may have contributed to the uncertainty about budget amounts. Some project plans had been completed but not signed by the appropriate authority, which should have prevented spending on them. We were told some projects did not require these forms because they were routine or ongoing projects. It was not clear who had the authority to make those decisions. Even when planning documents were signed they did not appear to be used as intended.