Subj: Amtrak Alert! Bush stooges fire David Gunn, race to kill Amtrak before Congress acts!
Date: 11/10/2005 7:05:24 AM Central Standard Time
From:    [log in to unmask] (Mathews Hollinshead)
Sender:    [log in to unmask] (Transportation Chairs Forum)
Reply-to: [log in to unmask] (Transportation Chairs Forum)
To:    [log in to unmask]




Please contact via email or, better yet, call the US Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121 and ask for your senators or congressperson. Ask them to vote to reverse yesterday's firing of CEO David Gunn, and to suspend the authority of the current illegitimate Amtrak board. Pass this email to your friends to do the same.


David Gunn is a turnaround artist who in three years brought Amtrak back from the brink of oblivion through practical internal changes. Bush's rump Amtrak board wants to liquidate Amtrak before Congress can act. Once Amtrak shuts down, national freight railroads within three months will rip out stations, platforms and other infrastructure necessary to restart passenger rail whatever its form.


Leon Mineta, transportation secretary, has spent part of the past year touring the U.S. on a national campaign of lying and deceit in a futile effort to get the public to pressure Congress against Amtrak. The public and Congress have instead decisively refused to kill Amtrak and instead have acted to increase its pending appropriation for 2006 and authorizations for the next decade. The Bush Administration is racing to do by fiat what the public and its elected representatives oppose through the democratic process. Congress is on track to increase Amtrak's appropriation for 2006 and its authorization for the next decade.


George Bush's rump Amtrak board of directors has only four of its seven seats filled at present, and two of the directors it does have are recess appointments that expire with the current session of Congress. Bush made those recess appointments to escape Senate confirmation process.


Below is New York Times coverage.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/politics/10amtrak.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/opinion/10thur4.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/national/10amtrak.html


For four decades various anti-rail special interests, using Orwellian terminology like "Reform Council" and "Public-Private partnerships" have been trying to kill the future of national passenger rail. With this insulting firing of David Gunn, those interests have now decided to short-circuit the political process and cut any corner, regardless of public opinion, environmental merit, effect on urban development around stations or any other factor of benefit to the future of the country.


Mathews Hollinshead
Transportation Chair
Sierra Club North Star Chapter
651-698-0260 (o)
612-209-3559 (cell)
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