On Tuesday, when we called for Lewis County Commissioner Bobby Jackson to step down from his position as chair of the Twin Transit Advisory Board, we thought the drama surrounding the tiny transit district had finally died down.
Boy, were we wrong.
That very morning, Jackson resumed his monthly guest spot on Centralia City Councilor Peter Abbarno’s “Let’s Talk About It” — which runs 8:30 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on KELA — after a month’s hiatus. Predictably, most callers wanted to ask Jackson about Twin Transit.
There’s a lot to ask about. In the past six months Twin Transit — the business name of the Lewis Public Transit Benefit Area, which is basically a junior taxing district encompassing Centralia and Chehalis — has run a failed ballot measure to expand its boundaries and sales tax revenue, abandoned plans to build a downtown transit center with a maximum building price of more than $9 million, and its two main figureheads, Jackson and former general manager Derrick Wojcik-Damers, have been accused of spreading false information to get that ballot measure passed.
That’s not all. Twin Transit is under investigation by the state Public Disclosure Commission for campaign finance violations. Wojcik-Damers resigned last month, the day after The Chronicle revealed he had a felony conviction and a string of civil cases filed against him in two states regarding financial issues under a different name. Twin Transit paid him $65,000 plus moving expenses and health insurance as a severance.
The firm Twin Transit hired to recruit Wojcik-Damers charged the agency for background checks that somehow didn’t reveal the conviction a cursory internet search from our staff uncovered. We’re not sure how they can justify that, but the same firm offered to help Twin Transit find an interim manager.
When asked if he knew about Wojcik-Damers’ criminal history, Jackson declined to comment and hung up on Chronicle staff. He hasn’t commented to us since.
So Bobby Jackson goes on a radio show called “Let’s Talk About It.” You’d think he’d want to talk about it, right? Nope.
Jackson didn’t answer questions from the public in any meaningful way, when he chose to answer at all.
When one caller scolded Jackson and asked him to clarify his statements that the LPTBA expanded despite the vote of the public, Jackson said “Well, I think I’ve already answered those questions … Quite frankly, I think it’s time to move on. Let’s take another call.”
It’s not just the radio show. In the past few weeks, Jackson has started making the rounds with a claim that the Lewis County Board of Commissioners and city council members from around the county voted to expand the Lewis Public Transit Benefit Area in April 2018. He’s saying they only needed the public to vote on a tax, and that Twin Transit can expand its bus service any time it wants and figure out funding another way, without approval from the taxpayers.
Except they didn’t expand the boundary. The Chronicle was at that conference. It’s just not true. But you don’t have to take our word for it.
“That certainly wasn’t my understanding and I’m not sure where (Jackson) is coming up with that,” said Chehalis Mayor Dennis Dawes. “I think he’s stretching his logic pretty hard to say the transit system expansion was already done. To me, that’s going to be a pretty good stretch and a cause for concern, because that’s not what was talked about.”
It certainly is a stretch.
We’ve said it before — public officials are answerable to the public. We pay their salaries, we hire them and we can fire them. We are owed an explanation, and we must demand transparent and competent management of our public agencies going forward.
“No comment” just isn’t good enough.
