Friday, October 21, 2005
Bickering on the Board
MercuryNews.com | 10/21/2005 | No transit tax consensus
No, not the extra board, but the board of directors:
In a spending plan released earlier this month, Michael Burns, general manager of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, proposed shelving the $400 million airport line and cutting 10 percent out of planned Caltrain expenditures to help cover the rising cost of the planned BART extension to Silicon Valley.In other words, VTA wants more money to pay for fewer services. The reality of that proposal is sinking in to the minds of city councils and board members alike as they realize that CalTrain electrification and the San Jose Airport light rail extension are on the chopping block to help pay for the BART extension.
The Burns plan relies on both the half-cent Measure A sales tax voters approved in 2000 and the additional quarter-cent tax next year. But the projected revenue from the two taxes over 30 years won't pay for everything voters were promised in 2000, plus a new road maintenance fund being proposed as a means of attracting support for the additional sales tax."
This will turn into a bitter fight, and no matter what the outcome of next year's new sales tax vote, the aftermath will not be pretty. The Mercury talks about the tax initiative as though it is a slam dunk. They seem to think the voters are ignorant enough, or stupid enough, to give VTA more money after they were stiffed by VTA's backpeddling on promises for how the 2000 Measure A tax would be spent.
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