The City of Middleton just voted to spend another $60,000 on their TIGER project. I first wrote about the TIGER (Transportation Improvements Generating Economic Recovery) project back in August where I questioned whether or not they’ve really thought the long term costs through. Specifically I asked whether it was really too much ask that we take care of present business, present debt, before jumping into expensive, new projects we have no money and no plan for?

Well, I guess so. Consider that they had committed to $40,000 in consulting fees and missed that figure - even before anything is built. Not just by a little either. Missing this figure by $60,000 makes you wonder how the $4.3 million expenditure planned for this project is going to work out. If they’ve been as accurate as they were on the initial estimate, they’ll only need another $6.4 million or so to wrap this up – that’s a total of $10.7 million. I don’t want to consider if the overall estimate was done worse than this initial one was.  Perhaps they have a plan but it isn't looking like a good one.

To be fair, several aldermen voiced concerns about needing to throw more money in so soon but they were essentially trapped by the previous vote to start this whole boondoggle. At some point though we can hope a majority will realize that throwing more good money after bad isn’t going to solve this.

Not to be outdone by the insane spending in Washington, the City of Middleton is getting into the act with TIGER (Transportation Improvements Generating Economic Recovery). This is part of an effort to create a regional transportation hub. The critical piece of this is that the hub is designed to cater to non-existent commuter rail service which isn’t a done deal in Madison.

On top of whether or not Madison will eventually have an unaffordable and underused commuter rail, even the City of Middleton hasn’t fully thought through how they’ll finance their TIGER hub. The grant their applying for is only to cover the “upfront” costs of the hub. How many times do we need to start projects we have no long term strategy for funding? One guess who will pay for this when they find they don’t have the money. The taxpayers. If we also have an RTA (“Regional” Transit Authority for one county) then they will also probably find a way for all of Dane County’s residents to pay for it.

For the record, beyond the Middleton City Council (who vote 7-1 on this proposal), folks signing on to support this project are U.S. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold; U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin; State Senator Jon Erpenbach and State Representative Sondy Pope-Roberts. Again, we see the Democrats lining up on both the State and Federal level to find ways to spend money we don’t have. Remember it’s our money they’re spending on these boondoggles.

Is it really too much ask that we take care of present business, present debt, before jumping into expensive, new projects we have no money and no plan for? At least one voice of reason doesn’t think so. Jon DiPiazza (Dist. 3, Middleton) expressed similar concerns about the long term expenses of this project and a preference for paying existing debt. Kudos to DiPiazza for standing up for the taxpayers and common sense.