VTA board poised to pass sales tax VTA board poised to pass sales tax (November 19, 2004)

Revenue would fund services, BART

By Jon Wiener

The Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) appears poised to put a sales tax measure on the November 2006 ballot to help pay for construction of the BART extension to San Jose and avert another service reduction.

The VTA board is scheduled to vote Dec. 9 on reprioritizing projects first passed as part of Measure A in November 2000. The two potential lists of priorities call for a new permanent half-percent sales tax increase, with 75 percent of the revenue being earmarked for VTA projects and the remainder for cities and counties.

VTA staff has said that the agency needs new sales tax revenue to sustain its current level of service. But a large and diverse group of critics argue that even with a new tax, VTA will be unable to pay for the BART-to-San-Jose project.

Add to that growing list VTA's own Policy Advisory Board, made up of city council members from each of the cities in the county. Last month the group endorsed the findings of a stinging grand jury report that called for a delayed or phasing approach to the BART project.

Council member Greg Perry, who represents Mountain View on the committee, said he does not expect that to influence VTA's decision.

"San Jose will just push it through anyway," he said, referring to the dominant cadre of BART boosters on the board.

There was some good news for the project last week, as the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission added it to a list of regional priorities in its Transportation 2030 plan. The listing will keep the BART project eligible for federal funding if the sales tax measure does pass.

In this year's election, Bay Area voters gave the necessary two-thirds support to five out of seven transit taxes. A sixth was awaiting the results of the absentee tally, and a seventh failed. Although the success of those measures is encouraging to BART backers, it is now less likely that legislators will support lowering the threshold for such taxes from a two-thirds vote to 55 percent, as some have suggested. @email:E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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