Sales tax vote delayed Sales tax vote delayed (January 27, 2006)

VTA seeks more feedback on new revenue projections, up $2 billion

By Jon Wiener

VTA officials are delaying a vote on a proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase in order to take a second look at the agency's long-term revenue projections, which recently increased by $2 billion.

The Valley Transportation Authority canceled a Feb. 2 board of directors meeting, putting off the vote, which included a long-term spending plan. The board will discuss the new numbers at a workshop Friday, but is not scheduled to vote until March.

"It [the new projection] looks like good news for everybody if it bears out," said VTA spokesperson Jayme Kunz.

Some civic leaders have criticized the new numbers -- which indicate that sales taxes could generate enough money to cover every proposed project in the agency's plan -- as overly optimistic or even dishonest. But Kunz defended them as independent and trustworthy. She said charges that the agency had somehow doctored the numbers were "inappropriate."

Mountain View City Council member Greg Perry, recently appointed to the VTA board, said the numbers are hard to believe. In an interview with the Voice on Tuesday, Perry said the projections, prepared by the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy, used a number of premises that were questionable at best.

"I don't want to call them projections," said Perry. "When they needed more money to promise everything to everybody, the numbers went up."

In particular, Perry said he is troubled by the assertion that taxable spending will increase by 1.3 percent per person each year, more than eight times higher than the same measure has grown over the past 25 years. Those projections are also higher than those used by the city of San Jose, which appoints five members to the 12-member VTA board.

Perry, for once, is not alone in his suspicions. The county board of supervisors, which has two members on the board, has expressed concern about the numbers. Morgan Hill mayor Dennis Kennedy called them "too good to be true." An editorial in the Gilroy Dispatch derided the new projections with the headline, "Look mom, it's $2 billion!"

Kunz referred all questions to Steve Levy, the economist who came up with the projections. Levy said that Perry's criticism regarding the taxable spending increase was "a good question" and that he was looking into it. He will answer the board's questions at the March meeting.

Liz Kniss, chair of the board of supervisors and a VTA board member, said the projections may be reasonable, but enough questions exist about the BART project that she will not support the proposal "until it's fair for the north end of the county and we get more of what we were promised in a shorter period of time."

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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