Admittedly, we at The Chronicle were not enthusiastic about Twin Transit’s rationale for asking to expand the Lewis Public Transit Benefit Area — in fact we encouraged residents to vote down the proposed sales tax increase.
We didn’t think the sales tax base in rural Lewis County would be large enough to fund new routes, and we weren’t sure if demand existed for expanded service — concerns that were never adequately answered by Twin Transit leadership. We also felt the public transit organization was getting ahead of itself in simultaneously trying to build an up-to-$9 million transit center on Pearl Street with room for 12 bus terminals.
However, one argument Twin Transit made held water, or so we thought. Lewis Mountain Highway Transit, which serves far-flung East Lewis County, was in financial trouble, we were told, and would fold in 2019. Without Twin Transit stepping up, who would fill that gap in service? Who would help isolated residents get to doctor’s appointments, work or senior centers?
But a month after voters denied the expansion proposal, we’re learning that argument was, well — made up isn’t the right phrase. Exaggerated? Blown out of proportion, certainly. Manipulated comes close.
As it turns out, Lewis Mountain Highway Transit learned about two years ago that the Washington State Department of Transportation was considering a change to the grant system LMHT relies upon for operations funding. That change would have meant gradually increasing financial responsibilities for the nonprofit, which it would eventually not be able to afford.
However, shortly before that transportation bill was passed in early 2017, legislators noted the problem, and capped the requirement for financial contributions at 10 percent per year for nonpofits — a doable amount for Lewis Mountain Highway Transit, the organization told The Chronicle.
A year later, in early 2018, when Twin Transit board member and county Commissioner Bobby Jackson and Director Derrick Wojcik-Damers began hitting the bricks to find support for the benefit district expansion, they still stressed the impending loss of Lewis Mountain Highway Transit as one of the primary reasons for expanding Twin Transit’s service area.
Doug Hayden, executive director of the nonprofit that runs LMHT, recently told The Chronicle that he believes Twin Transit knew their fear-mongering on the non-profit’s demise was not strictly rooted in truth.
Jackson denied the allegation in the strongest terms. Wojcik-Damers threatened to sue us.
“To suggest that somehow we were dishonest in this is a stretch,” Jackson said. “A huge stretch. We did everything above-board and honestly. We never hid anything. We were honorable and up front.”
We know Twin Transit representatives pushed the threat to LMHT as a primary reason for the expansion — Jackson explicitly did so himself as recently as October in a Letter to the Editor to The Chronicle.
We also know the threat wasn’t real, and hadn’t been for more than a year. Still, in talking with us, Jackson and Wojcik-Damers stood behind their actions.
“If you print that we lie, in light of all this evidence, I will pursue legal action to see what we can do to remedy that,” Wojcik-Damers told a Chronicle reporter.
If they honestly didn’t know about the change to the legislation, where’s the harm in admitting it? We all make mistakes.
In the face of the facts, written in their own hand in Jackson’s case, they instead are choosing to double down, leading us to believe this wasn’t an honest mistake at all.
We’ve sent out a flurry of public records requests — we’ll let you know what we find.
In closing, no one is blameless here. Jackson and Wojcik-Damers were obligated to have the facts when asking the public for a tax increase, as were the other elected officials who supported the expansion and voted to put it on the ballot (we’re looking at you, county commissioners).
Doug Hayden had the obligation, when he believed misinformation was being exploited, to shout it from the rooftops. We appreciate that he’s sharing his concerns now, but it would have been a bit more helpful a month, or two, or six months ago.
We’re not blameless either. We should have more carefully checked whether Jackson and Wojcik-Damers were telling us the truth. We won’t make that mistake again.
