Hey Kemper... don't let the door hit you on the way out...!

Kemper Freeman, a member of the Bellevue Downtown Association (BDA) for more than 30 years and whose father was one of the founders of the group, has quit the nonprofit, citing differences in opinion over the direction the agency is going, particularly over its endorsement of light rail.

Oh, boo-hoo.

What I find most irritating about Freeman isn't his nostalgic, 1950's-era vision of an automobile-centric America, or his personal campaign for a rail-free Puget Sound, or even his shameful family history. No, what really pisses me off is the way our media and political establishment continue to take him seriously.

I mean, let's be honest: everybody knows that Freeman is a bit of an OCD, neo-Bircher nutcase with a Christ-like devotion to the automobile and a penchant for equating mass transit with communism (really), so isn’t it time that truly serious people started taking him and his anti-rail conspiracies at face value? I don’t mean to diminish Freeman’s standing as Bellevue’s racist classist, rich, crazy uncle, but is that really enough of a reason to give him a greater voice in our region’s transportation debate than folks who, you know, actually know what the fuck they’re talking about?

Light rail is popular with voters, and good for business. Even the Bellevue Downtown Association has taken to rolling their eyes at Freeman and his personal anti-rail crusade. So you gotta wonder when the rest of our region's civic leaders will follow suit.