ACTC attack

Here it is, the rationale for Marilyn Ezzy-Ashcraft’s Council Referral at tonight’s City Council meeting.  I received the first of my Public Records Requests from the Alameda County Transportation Commission.  Mayor Trish Spencer is the representative from Alameda to the ACTC (self appointed) and receives $225 plus a $25 travel stipend to attend these meeting on behalf of the City of Alameda.

At the March meeting ACTC there was a legislative report about what’s going on with various bills at the state level regarding transportation projects and/or policy.  As you know, a lot of the money for any infrastructure projects in Alameda comes from regional, state, or federal grants.  Not a whole lot comes from Alameda general fund money, so typically it’s in Alameda’s best interest to play nice.

According to the discussion and staff report there are four bills pending that the ACTC Board was asked to take positions on.  The ACTC subcommittee that studies these proposed bills in detail had already suggested a position of “support” for all the bills (it’s on page 6 of the linked legislative report).  The only “no” vote came regarding one specific bill ACA 4 introduced by Assemblymember Jim Frazier (Chair of the Transportation Committee)  which would, from the staff report:

ACA 4 would amend the Constitution to lower the approval threshold to impose a special sales tax that provides funding for local transportation project to 55%. Local transportation projects are defined to include the funding needs for local streets and roads, state highways and freeways, and public transit systems. ACA 4 does not lower the voter threshold for parcel taxes.

Guess who that “no” vote came from?

The discussion prior to the vote indicated that while California residents were generally supportive of infrastructure projects, they generally did not want to fund mechanisms to pay for these projects, with the exception of the immediate Bay Area which had higher numbers when it came to gauge willingness to impose taxes for transportation projects.  Other ACTC Board members discussed how the sentiment of ACA 4 was something that had been identified as important to this Board for a long time.  Of course for anyone that has attempted to pass a parcel tax requiring 2/3 of the vote knows how difficult that can be, doubly difficult for projects that don’t have the benefit of being “for the kids.”

In case you were wondering, Trish Spencer did not speak all that much, she only asked to verify if the current threshold was 2/3, then she asked that the chair bifurcate the four bills so that individual votes could be taken on all of them.  The Chair responded that she should just tell him which one she wanted to vote against when the vote was taken.

She was the sole vote against this item and did not indicate why she believed that voting against supporting ACA 4 was in the best interest of the City of Alameda as that is her role on ACTC and not to cast votes that mirror her own personal anti-tax philosophies.

I opted to not excerpt any audio because, really, Trish Spencer didn’t say anything except what I referenced above.  For someone who was so insistent during City Council meetings that she rightfully should be able to explain her “no” vote after the vote was cast, she certainly didn’t attempt to assert that believed privilege at the ACTC meeting.