By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist
This new CSX deal is so ugly it would make a freight train take a dirt road. It would cost taxpayers $1.2 billion, but according to this recent Orlando Sentinel article, that number could go up. According to a recent news release from Senator Paula Dockery, an opponent of the deal, the number is actually at $2.66 BILLION! She had the Florida Department of Transportation do a detailed cost estimate and this is what it produced.
Wasn’t this rotten deal only a paltry $649 million last year? I guess train track prices don’t go down in a recession, and neither did the number of disturbing details about this deal. Still present are the liability issues sticking taxpayers with the bill for negligence, the location issue (that send freight trains through downtown Lakeland) and, of course, there is that little matter of the cost. Not to mention the backroom way in which this scheme was originally cooked up. Taxpayers are getting totally railroaded. Some research finds that CSX is not a stranger to screwing Florida taxpayers; check out this article.
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