Last week, the bill authorizing a regional transportation funding measure, SB63, passed the Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday April 22 and the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee on Wednesday, April 23. In the process, authors Wiener and Arreguin accepted several amendments.
The bill includes three counties: San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties, and allows two counties to opt in: San Mateo and Santa Clara.
The amendments remove placeholder language describing the process of working out the expenditure plan, and clarify that the bill will not require expenditures from non-participating counties, however an understanding of these contributions is important to the measure.
What this means is that if Santa Clara or San Mateo County decide not to participate, the bill will not require expenditures of these counties. However, BART and Caltrain serve these counties. So knowing how San Mateo and Santa Clara are contributing to Caltrain and BART will be critical to voters (and to to the other countries) to understand how the measure will sustain Caltrain and BART in order to make their voting decision. It’s hard to believe voters would vote to tax themselves for a measure that would still lead to a crash in backbone rail service.
As a next step, the bill will move to Senate Appropriations Committee, where it will likely go on the committee suspense file and likely be heard on May 23 – at which point the bill is likely to move to the Senate Floor for a floor vote.
Important decisions remain, including how to fund Caltrain and BART and which counties will participate. The bill sets a deadline of July 31 for the counties to opt in. Santa Clara and San Mateo County agencies are saying that they will make board decisions in June about whether to participate. Polling for Santa Clara County will be reported at the VTA board meeting on Thursday May 1, and polling for San Mateo County is expected to be done by June. The polling will help the counties decide whether to participate in a regional funding measure directly, or to do local measures and contribute separately.
Good morning:
I am writing as a resident and taxpayer in Santa Clara County.
On Friday, April 25, the Board discussed SB 63 (Wiener/ Arreguin) which would establish a regional transportation revenue measure.
We don’t need another regressive transportation funding measure. Our taxes are already too high.
Vote NO.
Over the last several elections, voters in Santa Clara County have passed multiple tax and fee increases including gas taxes, the Caltrain Measure RR tax, two bridge toll increases, three VTA sales taxes, Santa Clara County’s Measure A 1/8 cent sales tax, the state prop 30 ¼ cent sales tax and the 2010 Measure B Vehicle Registration Fee of $10. Additionally, we’re on the hook to pay back numerous state bond issues including high-speed rail, the Proposition 1 water bond and the infrastructure bonds of 2006.
All this nickel and diming contributes into making the Bay Area a horribly expensive place to live; especially for people of modest means, who must pay the greatest percentage of their income in these regressive taxes and fees. Each increase by itself does not amount to much, but the cumulative effect is to add to the unaffordability of the region.
Before increasing taxes YET AGAIN, waste needs to be removed from transportation projects. VTA needs to “value engineer the BART to San Jose project, going with a twin bore tunnel and eliminating the redundant BART extension between the San Jose and Santa Clara Caltrain stations. The BART segment from these stations would duplicate both the existing Caltrain line and VTA’s 22 and 522 buses.