{"id":1522,"date":"2019-09-29T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T16:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522"},"modified":"2019-09-27T15:30:03","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T22:30:03","slug":"sandag-continues-to-recklessly-waste-taxpayer-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522","title":{"rendered":"SANDAG Continues to Recklessly Waste Taxpayer Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The outlook of public transport initiatives, such as the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), has never looked bleaker. Currently, the amount of money allocated to SANDAG to pay for regional transportation projects is running low and only worsening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SANDAG entered into many risky side deals in bonds in 2008 in hopes of paying for TransNet projects. It was a wager on rising interest rates, doomed by the economic crash to stay at a historic low, and liability now comes with a price tag. The swaps resulted in a deficit of $77.6 million in June, which has since plummeted further to an $85.1 billion deficit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite these swap deals costing the agency almost $25.8 million dollars, SANDAG has chosen to bury its head in the proverbial sand, claiming that these deals are working \u201cas intended.\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure, if you intend to drive California\u2019s economy into the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As if we haven\u2019t received enough proof that SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata and his other officials have zero financial responsibility, the state of these bond deals should serve as the nail in the coffin for SANDAG.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sadly, the aspiration of a public transportation powered future seems to trump all else in the eyes of SANDAG officials. Their ridiculous practices will only carry forward to future projects. We cannot trust this institution with our public finances for any longer. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The outlook of public transport initiatives, such as the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), has never looked bleaker. Currently, the amount of money allocated to SANDAG to pay for regional transportation projects is running low and only worsening.\u00a0 SANDAG entered into many risky side deals in bonds in 2008 in hopes of paying for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1298,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SANDAG Continues to Recklessly Waste Taxpayer Money - San Diego News Desk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SANDAG Continues to Recklessly Waste Taxpayer Money - San Diego News Desk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The outlook of public transport initiatives, such as the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), has never looked bleaker. Currently, the amount of money allocated to SANDAG to pay for regional transportation projects is running low and only worsening.\u00a0 SANDAG entered into many risky side deals in bonds in 2008 in hopes of paying for...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"San Diego News Desk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-29T16:00:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-09-27T22:30:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/SAND.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"San Diego News Desk\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Logo-SanDiegoNewsDesk-Article.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Logo-SanDiegoNewsDesk-Article.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"San Diego News Desk\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/\",\"name\":\"San Diego News Desk\",\"description\":\"Your Source for News in San Diego\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/SAND.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/SAND.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=1522\",\"name\":\"SANDAG Continues to Recklessly Waste Taxpayer Money - 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