EDF Report Calls Transportation Measures a Dead End

Calling the recent pledge by the Board of Supervisors to implement the controversial transportation advisory Measure B “a charade,” members of Citizens Against Wasting Millions challenged sales tax proponents to tell voters exactly which projects in the measure they would cut when faced with an inevitable financial shortfall.

At a press conference this morning, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released a detailed report that concludes that the $627 million sales tax increase, Measure C, will not be enough to deliver all projects listed in Measure B. The report finds that widening of Highway 101 could not be completed until 2016 unless supervisors issued bonds to expedite construction. Interest charges on bonds could cost over $90 million and could force cancellation of other promised road and transit projects.

“This report clearly demonstrates that the supervisors cannot live up to their pledge,” said Michael Cameron, EDF transportation program manager. “The sales tax increase, even with other available funds, simply won’t raise enough money to fund all of the projects included in Measure B unless the big ticket items, especially the widening of Highway 101, are delayed for many years. We challenge the proponents of Measures B and C to provide a specific schedule for project delivery and costs that refutes this fact. The financial uncertainty means that the sales tax increase would be nothing more than a blank check to the county.”

“They?ve promised us the sun, the moon, and the stars but it’s clear that they?ll never be able to deliver. Meanwhile county residents get stuck with the second highest sales tax in California,” said Jean Marie Foster, executive director of the Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association.

In addition to finding that Measures B and C will not raise enough money to deliver all of the promised transportation projects, the EDF report, the first in a three-part series of studies by EDF on Sonoma County transportation solutions, also finds that significant cost overruns on both road and transit projects are likely to cause further delays and cancellations of many proposed transportation projects.

The Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association and Citizens Against Wasting Millions joined EDF this morning, along with Sebastopol City Council Member Anne Magnie, to call for the defeat of Measures B and C. The group spoke, with a blank check as backdrop, in front of the Board of Supervisors’ office.

“This report shows what many of us in Sebastopol have been afraid of all along. When the inevitable clamor to widen Highway 101 right away hit the Board of Supervisors, projects like the Highway 116 improvement and local roadwork for our community will fall by the wayside,” said Sebastopol City Council Member Anne Magnie.

“Since Measure B, the advisory measure, is non-binding, and given the many financial uncertainties, there are no guarantees as to how the sales tax revenue will be spent,” said Citizens Against Wasting Millions spokesperson and business instructor Gayle Goldstone. “Would you sign a $627 million blank check to the Board of Supervisors?”