Saturday, May 15, 2010

Because a bad legal opinion....(CORRECTION)

CORRECTION: please see the linked post.



...is still just a bad legal opinion.

Even if Metro's favorite ChronBlog blogger says differently:

(Voice mail key to Metro's "Buy America" defense, Mike Snyder, ChronBlog)
A year-old voicemail retained by one of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's outside attorneys may hold the key to preserving the first federal light-rail funds in Houston history.
The April 17, 2009, message from Scott Biehl, then the Federal Transit Administration's acting chief counsel, to Metro attorney Ed Gill responded to Gill's inquiry about whether “Buy America” rules would permit the assembly of two prototype rail cars in Spain if the cars were purchased with local, not federal, funds.
“Ed, you nailed it,” Biehl said in the message, which was included in Metro's formal response Friday to the FTA's Buy America investigation. “The answer is we don't care.”


Not "caring" about a law and being forced to enforce it (especially during times of economic recession.) It was nice of Metro to provide this information to Snyder so he could put it out there for him. You have to wonder if Metro's PR staff is thinking about freshening up their resumes given that ChronBlog seems to be willing to float their PR budget for them.

As an aside: It thought this comment was unintentionally funny:
OneOfTheHerd wrote:
Houston will never be a first rate city until it has a first rate transit system
With this at-grade streetcar/reduced bus capacity monstrosity in the works....keep waiting.

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