Measure D Predictions
Place your Measure D predictions here....did the Melinda Burns article help or hinder consider the News-Press lack of endorsement?
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 11/02/2006 08:33:00 PM
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25 Comments:
Bad idea. This should go down in defeat.
Does anyone even read the N-P any more?
I predict "D" will go down in flames.
The idea that Measure D should be defeated because someone screwed up a paving job is moronic. There are intelligent reasons why someone might oppose it, but that's not one.
Best reason to vote for Measure D is the people who wrote the "anti" argument in the voter pamphet. Old Santa Barbarans will recognize the names of Bob Kallman, Mike Stoker, Jeanne Graffy, Harrell Fletcher, and Willy Chamberlin. These rapid pro-growthers, when supervisors, voted for every single development that has led to our present massive traffic congestion. They caused the problem. Now they don't want to pay for it. You can find their phone nos. Call them up and tell them what you think.
Paying for transportation projects is a really, rally bad idea. Housing is so cheap here, everyone resides so close to their jobs they can simply skip to work.
Thus, no transportation improvements are needed, especially stop signs in Carpinteria because the other traffic on the streets never, ever has trouble merging and turning.
The Burns article was a thorough treatment of the need for transportation improvements, but The Tramutola aligning the Measure D vote with anything associated with The Newspress did not help. Thanks to the editorials, the news, even by Burns, is also tainted and not an credential to boast about.
Measure D - never, no way, not ever. Soundly defeated. dd
Prediction? Sadly, Measure D fails by getting only 63% or so, but does not even get a majority north of the Santa Ynez mountains. Much finger pointing and blame dishing ensue, the North blames the South Coast hippies, the South Coast blames the northern neanderthals. SBCAG staff make a valient effort to pick themselves up and dust themselves off and make another run at it. Goleta is the first city to cut and put their own sales tax measure on the ballot. It passes. The SBCAG effort falls apart. Santa Barbara goes next, followed by Carpinteria. The northern cities try but can't muster the two-thirds needed. The northern roads and County roads deteriorate, 101 never gets widened. Congestion worsens. We look like idiots.
dr buddy...
It was Bill Wallace and Gail Marshall who gave us the Camino Real Marketplace, an incredible traffic nightmare.
They promised shuttle buses from the Marketplace around Goleta. Didn't happen.
They promised a transit center at the Marketplace.
Didn't happen.
They promised a program for Marketplace employees to store their bikes and shower.
Didn't happen.
Measure D's alternative transportation part, if passed, will lead to nothing, just as all the promises of alternative transportation for Camino Real Marketplace led to nothing.
So that is why Measure D will fail... we know we have local governments that don't keep their word on alternative transportation.
We are idiots, meansure D has nothing to do with it.
Measure D will pass in a landslide. Beyond all the controversial big projects that it would pay for in the future, it currently pays for most of the day to day road maintenance, speed abatement, sidewalk and bike route projects that our communities need to simply function. Voters are figuring that out.
Anon. 12:47 PM, I truly wish I shared your dreamy optimism. However, it has been my experience that voters are notoriously slow to figure out that they have to pay for public infrastructure through taxes. I believe that the South Coast voters get it. But our more conservative brothers and sisters to the north believe that if this attempt fails they will get to vote on a new measure that gets them everything they want, for less money. They are wrong. The bitter mutual recrimination that will inevitably follow the defeat of Measure D will prevent the striking of any new regional compromise. It will then be up to each city individually to pass their own respective sales tax measures to address transportation needs within the various cities limits. The County will lose big time on such a scheme, and I doubt the Northerners will be able to amass two-thirds for any tax in their cities. I hope that I am wrong and will eat crow on this blog if I am.
Measure D will fail, for the simple reason that SBCAG lied about widening the 101 in the old Measure D!
Blame it in Bill Wallace, just like the Bushies blame it on Bill Clinton.
Next.
D will fail and we will hate ourselves in the morning. ( The politicos did such a bad job spending the money this round--we really should be voting on who to toss off SBCAG!)
Someone posted the text of the old Measure D at:
Full Text of Ordinance No. 3771
The words are crystal clear... `To help relieve traffic congestion, improve the condition of roads countywide, and increase safety by providing essential transportation improvements, including:
* safety improvements on Highway 1, Highway 154, and Highway 166;
* widen Highway 101 south of Montecito to the Ventura County line;...
I'm sitting here watching the rebroadcast of the Measure D forum at the Faulkner. The speakers simply are misrepresenting the original Measure D. The spending plan was not part of the full text, it appeared after the legal portion of the measure, after the signature of the 4 out of 5 supervisors who voted yes. (Wallace abstained).
So this `$15 million' argument (to show that the 101 widening money was too small) is specious: the spending plan was guidance, not part of the binding text of the measure. Further, the current advocates misprepresent the number: it is in 1989 dollars, but a major point of making Measure D a sales tax was to have the revenue float with inflation. Since it is 2006, they should convert the $15 million to 2006 dollars.
Sure, maybe Caltrans came in with a bad project for the widening back in 1992 or so. But given the text of the original measure, it was the responsibility of SBCAG and/or the County to come up with an alternative. They did not come up with one that complied with the original measure.
The current 101 improvment projects goes only from Milpas to Hot Springs, and does not go all the way to the Ventura County Line.
Other times I bring this point up, the Measure D supporters shift gears and say `do you want to haggle about history, or get the job done'.
Misrepresenting the past and being evasive now convinces me they are not honest enought to get the job done.
Measure D is a total boon-doggle and will lose. Burns has nothing to do with it at all.
I find it interesting that the Measure D naysayers have not put forth a politically viable alternative. Whether or not you trust them, SBCAG is the political body with responsibility for regional transportation infrastructure. The stark fact is, without sales tax revenue streets will not be maintained, bus service will not be improved, commuter service will be neither maintained nor improved, and 101 will not be widened in any time period that remotely resembles the near future. If the naysayers think that defeating this Measure D will result in a better proposal with better chances for adoption by the electorate, they are being politically naive and recklessly stubborn. They risk the Balkanization of transportation spending in Santa Barbara County, which cannot be a good thing by any measure.
Maybe, Eck. Or maybe the defeat of Measure D will lead to subsequent measures that are better.
There is a very strong county-wide consensus in favor of regional spending on truly regional projects. Regional buses are generally supported.
The consensus frays due to:
1)The earmarks for cities in Measure D, which means that large cities and unincorporated areas subsidize small cities.
2)The earmarks for alternative transportation which will almost certainly be very localized in impact... it is easy to understand why a Vandenberg Village resident would be annoyed that they fund, say, bike improvements for Ortega Hill.
3)The use of sales tax as the funding vehicle. Sales tax is regressive, and makes the poorer pay proportionately more.
Lots of alternatives to Measure D have been floated, but the proponents of Measure D are themselves very stubborn. They are totally alergic to property tax funding, because of fears over Prop. 13 knee-jerk nos. However, the fact is property tax increases have been passed at the ballot box by 2/3 (for example, for the Goleta Schools) in the last 10 or 15 years. I think the regional consensus for regional transportation is strong enough for a county-wide property tax measure. That alternative is politically viable and has been presented many times, but the pro-Measure D people wouldn't listen.
Of all things, the original Measure D in 1989 resulted in the cancellation of a then-existing special Goleta property tax for roads. A direct shift of burden from affluent to poor, who live in higher density housing and pay less in property tax per person.
As for local alternative measures, those are best funded locally anyway. By property tax increments, not sales tax.
So I must say, Eck, I think there are very rational and valid alternatives to this Meausure D, and should it fail, the proponents will have revelations as transcendent as St. Augustine in his garden, and we'll end up with a much improved new measure. The nay-saying about the impossibility of making the next measure better is pure rhetoric, designed to herd folks into voting yes on this Measure D.
Sorry eckermann, but Measure D ain't a good measure. It needs to be redone. A one size fits all piggy bank? No way!
Vote NO on Measure D..uh! Use the funds we already have to do the following:
Highway 101010101010101!!
Living by the highway, I can see the problems associated with too many people traveling at the same time. The highway is congested early mornings and late afternoons on the weekend..this is the time when folks leave en masse. The sad fact is California is growing too quickly and politicians are too stupid to see that or do anything about it. Another problem is people who don't know how to drive or who drive motor homes. Motor homes should be outlawed! Other forms of travel should be encouraged...trains, buses, bikes, etc. Now, should the highway be widened? Some stretches should. From Bates Road to Ventura would be a quick fix..just add lanes through La Conchita and most southern gridlock would be fixed...no need to study it, just do it..you got the real estate. Next, keep two lanes through Carpinteria and Summerland due to the natural beauty, and open 'em up at Sheffield Drive, going North...and another problem solved. Now, stop cryin' and get to work!
How could a community that cares about the environment suport Measure D?
This has to be defeated.
Measure D shoud be called Measure Development. NO!
Prediction ---
1) Voters are not stupid. They know pork when they see it. Measure D fails to get 2/3 of votes
2) Road gets bad. SBCAG bureaucrats get laid off and move to Los Angeles.
3) For the first time ever, alternative transportation become viable alternative.
4) We builds 21st century transportation system does not rely solely on cars.
Anon. 8:20 AM, I actually like your ideas, and you are 100% correct about sales tax being regressive. However, being rationally and doctrinally correct does not necessarily result in politically pragamatic policy. I actually hope that you are right; and if you are, I will fully acknowledge my error on this blog. But I have been around Santa Barbara County politics for 33 years and I just don't believe your utopia will come to pass.
Anonymous predictor:
So if you do not want a Countywide sales tax for transportation projects, then how do you pay for a "21st century transportation system does not rely solely on cars"????
One person's "pork" is another's bikeway, commuter train, or safe route to schools.
Or did you not figure out that along with your lack of verb tenses?
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