County Association of Governments Sued Over Measure A

Sadly I believe the Sierra Club's opposition will backfire. Most folks will say" Great, spend all the money on road repares and screw those cyclists who just get in our way". I don't agree with that philosophy but I suspect that's why 75% of folks are in favor of Measure A. Time will tell if it really passes or not.

The "group" filing this lawsuit has yet to identify anyone in the group except for the lawyer who filed it - for all any of us know, it is just him.

The Sierra Club has not yet made a final decision whether or not to support Measure A.

The 'coalition' mentioned in the article was not formed to see that the measure gets approved. Called the Coalition for a Fair Measure D, it was formed to get adequate funding for "alternative" transportation, and several of its member organizations, including the Bicycle Coaltion, CoastalRailNow, SBCAN, and COAST (The Coalition for Sustainable Transportation), had seats on the committee that helped design the measure. For an analysis of some of the pros and cons of Measure A, go to www.coast-santabarbara.org and the 'Measure A' page.

For a more complete article on this lawsuit, go to
www.noozhawk.com/local_news/measure_a_op...

The Plaintiff here is not a "group" but just one guy, Eugene Wilson, who writes his own flawed lawsuits and who has said he moved to the area just a couple of years ago or so.

He sells T-shirts, charges a sales tax for them, so thusly has standing to file a lawsuit against local government, so his lawsuit implies.

After reading his lawsuit and discussing the issues with him, I conclude that he thinks that if we all just vote NO on the upcoming ballot measure, then monkeys will fly out of our collective butts and the North County Supervisors and City Councilmembers (who form the large majority on County Association of Governments) will --next time again, for the third time after two failures-- vote to place on the ballot a radically different form of a transportation sales tax on fuel only instead of general sales.

Wilson also apparently thinks those SBCAG majority people from Buellton, Lompoc, Santa Maria, etc. (the ones who already luv Santa Barbara per the other Indy article today) also will have that new tax pay only for buses and trains and anything but the roads used by their North County constituents.

Not.
Going.
To.
Happen.
Ever.

Our chance for such UTOPIA ended when the County split vote failed at the ballot in June 2006. Eugene Wilson and his Coalition Of One will have more success reviving a countywide ballot measure to split the County again.

The new Measure A-2008 to be on the ballot in November is a good --politically realistic-- mix of projects for private cars and bikes and public buses and trains, and the project list represents the best and realistic socio-political hope for how these decisions are made in local, countywide government.

I participated in all 10 of those South County meetings by SBCAG for crafting the transportation projects expenditure plan, while Eugene Wilson was not present for any of them and has come so late to the party that the poor scavengers already have picked the recyclable glass and aluminum liquor containers out of the blue bins on the curb.

Some facts for the Independent Research Department:

The proposal is for 30 years of a sales tax, not 20 years.

The continuation of this half-percent sales tax is not a "surcharge" by the normal use of the word, as this sales tax has existed since 1988.

The total sales tax revenue estimate in the County for that 30-year period is one BILLION dollars, not the figure cited of 20 million over 20 years. The transportation project needs in the County easily could be $3 billion during the next 30 years, based upon the initial lists compiled.

Will the Independent assign a reporter to cover this consistently now??