Benjamin William Ford

The proposed bridge and freeway project, (CRC) should not be approved by the Coast Guard for the simple reason that it is tow short. However, there are a host of reasons why the design itself is a horrible idea, from the overall cost, to the practical application of how it would change traffic patterns, to the fact that it will hit Clark County, Washington taxpayers harder financially than Portland taxpayers, eventhough it will benefit Portland taxpayers more than Clark County taxpayers. According to Tiffany Couch's accounting audit of the CRC's financials, the organization has wasted millions of taypayer dollars in an effort to force through their perferred design, eventhough it is not the perferred design of most citizens in Clark County. I know this, because every tax that has been placed on a ballot to fund the light rail part of the design has failed, showing that the citizens on Clark County do not want light rail in Vancouver. It appears that our elected officals and appointed buracrats will try and ram this design down our throats, so it is left to the Coast Guard to simply deny the permit, based on the obvious bridge height issue. I urge you to not give in and make an "exception" for the CRC, the jobs that exception would cost from up river businesses, and the millions of dollars it would require to relocate them make this an obvious decision for you.