Oh, TransLink. A year after taxpayers kicked their butt in the referendum campaign, they’re still screwing up.

First comes this story from CBC. The headline is perfect: “Accused of wasting court's time, TransLink responds with lawsuit.”

So a college student wakes up one morning, is in a rush to get to class, grabs her U-Pass from the counter and heads out. She gets stopped on SkyTrain, asked for her pass, and realizes then she’s grabbed her boyfriend’s – which is identical to her own.

Now, every student has one of these passes. She certainly proved to TransLink later that she had one. But they wouldn’t let it go. They took her to court. From the CBC:

"When queried, she had a perfect explanation: both passes look the same, in a hurry to get to my school, inadvertently I switched mine with my boyfriend's," [the judge] Makhdoom wrote.

"Mindful of the stark dichotomy of shrinking public resources and increasing public needs, TransLink would have been better off demonstrating diligence in exercise of its fiduciary duties to the people of this province and save a student, likely already in debt, from incurring further indebtedness, or worst, waste her time with appeals and further appeals."

Makhdoom went on to tear a further strip off the transit authority, saying that in all likelihood, the "public is offended when its resources are misused. When such misuse involves hugely expensive, rather scarce judicial resources, there is a much greater likelihood of a much eroded public esteem for, and confidence in the administration of justice."

TransLink’s response to losing this case? Appeal – wasting even more time and money. And for what? To collect a $173 fine from a kid who is forced by TransLink to buy a pass as part of her student fees anyway? Ridiculous.

Screw-up number two is even worse. In 2011, a young UBC student was beaten by two Transit Police officers – they punched him 10 times, and hit him with a baton 11 more times. You can watch the video HERE.

From CTV:

One officer, Hughes, quit the force the year after the incident. Diaz-Rodriguez remained on and was put on administrative duties, where he’s remained ever since, drawing a salary of around $90,000 a year.

Diaz-Rodriguez pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in the attack and was sentenced on June 24. He was also convicted under the Police Act for neglect of duty in 2015, and suspended for eight days without pay.

Diaz-Rodriguez has collected a salary for FIVE years since the incident. In another CTV story, Transit Police spokesman Anne Drennan blames the former regime:

Transit police are under a different chief than they were in 2011, and spokeswoman Anne Drennan said officers involved in a similar incident today would be fired.

“Under the chief today, Chief Doug Lepard, and his executive, very different decisions would have been made,” Drennan said.

Come on, Anne. There has been plenty of time to correct this mistake. Meanwhile, this cop has taken half a million bucks in salary.

The student, who, given current events in North America, must be noted as half-black, shares his story here. Years later, he still bears a three-inch scar from this beating.

Your TransLink tax dollars at work.