Tag Archive for: NO on AA

TAM Needlessly Threatens 2019 Crossing Guard Cuts if Voters Reject AA

Transportation Authority of Marin’s proposed ½ cent sales tax renewal has attracted considerable opposition owing to its 30 year term. With rapidly evolving technological and societal changes, that’s much further into the future than any congestion management agency can predict.

If TAM gets a 30 year renewal they won’t have to deal with us pesky voters again for a generation. Kids now in the 3rd grade will be nearing 40 before they get to vote on TAM’s priorities.

Those same kids’ safety is now held hostage in a get out the vote power play.

A major part of TAM’s effort to secure support for AA centers around its claims that it will have to fire at the end of this year 22 of the current 88 school crossing guards if AA doesn’t pass. TAM’s reason: a 25% rise in the cost of its crossing guard contract. What’s with that?

Now the pro-AA Keep Marin Moving campaign makes the fabricated threat that the crossing guard program would be eliminated altogether if AA isn’t passed. The Keep Marin Moving campaign is mostly funded by the companies that feed at TAM’s trough: those providing labor, engineering, construction, and consulting for major public infrastructure projects.

Here’s what they chose to post at the very top of their YES on AA Keep Marin Moving Facebook page:

Marin kids are relying on YOU to vote YES on AA! Measure AA will expand Safe Routes to Schools and will save Marin’s Crossing Guard Program from elimination. Support Marin kids – support Measure AA!

I posted on their Facebook page the reply below.

TAM minutes and emails substantiate every one of the statements in my above post.

My factually accurate post was promptly removed by the Keep Marin Moving Facebook page administrator. Three times. The same thing happened to several other people who posted on the pro-AA Facebook page. All of them were then blocked from viewing the page.I was not immediately blocked so was able to get before and after screenshots of my disappearing posts.

Who the heck hovers over an obscure pro-AA website instantly deleting inconvenient facts?

Folks who have a lot of money at stake.

Parties who have or seek contracts with TAM have contributed over two-thirds of the nearly $100,000 raised for the pro-AA campaign. By the time the campaign’s final financials are disclosed, that figure will certainly be higher, maybe much higher.

In fact, $7,500 so far comes from All City Management Services, the Santa Fe Springs based crossing guard company.

TAM has six years remaining in its current ½ cent congestion relief sales tax.

Don’t be manipulated by the supposed crossing guard crisis. TAM can allocate unrestricted funds in hand to sustain the full number of crossing guards for another year or two. During that time, TAM should come up with a 10 year sales tax measure that’s a coherent plan rather than a wish list designed to please (or terrify) each special interest and jurisdiction.

Vote NO on thirty-year AA.

COST says NO on TAM Tax Measure AA

Argument Against Measure AA (TAM Sales Tax Renewal)

Voters should reject Measure AA, a thirty-year renewal of the 0.5% county-wide sales tax whose revenues go to the Transportation Authority of Marin.

Thirty years is way too long. The Transportation Authority of Marin doesn’t have a coherent thirty year congestion relief plan.

It has a “Christmas list” of possible near-term projects intended to woo votes. Many of these would be completed in a handful of years. It’s impossible to know how exactly the money will be spent over the subsequent 20-25 years. Why trust TAM will make wise choices as technology, transportation modalities, funding sources and politics evolve?

TAM has ample time to develop a shorter, better, sales tax measure. The current ½ cent tax continues until 2025. What’s the hurry?

TAM should come back to voters with a 10 year sales tax measure and a detailed expenditure plan. It should specify each project’s funding allocation, impact on traffic congestion, and number of people benefiting.

TAM’s twelve not-directly-elected commissioners fund some pet projects ahead of ones citizens want most, like Yellow School Buses, crossing guards, electric vehicle infrastructure, and Adaptive Signal Control Technology (smart traffic lights). TAM now threatens to cut crossing guards or freeze school transit expansion unless we approve Measure AA.

Whatever your politics, Measure AA is bad policy. Learn more at CostMarin.org (sensible taxpayer-voter perspective) and Transdef.org (environmentalist perspective).

Voter-taxpayers deserve a comprehensive transportation vision, more transparency, and a regular opportunity to weigh in.

VOTE NO

 

Rebuttal to argument in favor of AA

How’s TAM’s existing congestion relief “program” working out for you?

Has your commute time on 101 fallen or neighborhood traffic reduced?

Have your potholes been filled and roads repaired?

Has it gotten easier to travel around Marin by bus?

After 14 years of paying TAM’s current ½ cent “congestion relief” sales tax, voters have little to applaud.

Now TAM wants free rein until 2049! Avoiding future voter scrutiny is the only reason for a tax measure this long.   They can’t plan that far out.
  
Don’t be misled by proponents’ promises. They’re nothing but a list of projects that poll well. There’s no coherent congestion relief vision, nor sufficient money to deliver all the bright shiny objects promised to voters.
 
Measure AA proposes Marin taxpayers provide key funding for a direct connector between Hwy 101 and I-580 – helping East Bay commuters.  How much more will we pay when costs overrun the purported $135 million?  Will the connector ever be built?   
 
Don’t believe TAM’s fear-mongering: There’s no revenue loss or delay for transportation projects if Measure AA fails this November.   The current tax doesn’t expire until 2025, over six years from now.   What’s the hurry?  Is it that TAM wants to get ahead of the next transportation sales tax on the ballot — a renewal measure for SMART?
 
Voters risk NOTHING by sending Measure AA back to the drawing boards. 

TAM must develop a detailed 10 year vision and expenditure plan.

Marin needs traffic relief. Measure AA doesn’t provide it. 

VOTE NO ON MEASURE AA