Gold Line Update - Special Meeting Today

It's been a while since we passed along any Gold Line news. Albert at iwillride.org has been blogging about the project and writes that did receive $10.3 million last month from the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

This was teaser money that's supposed to be part of the $743 million the Gold Line Foothill Extension is slated to receive as part of the Measure R county sales tax increase that was passed last November to fund transportation projects.

Albert reports that the MTA board is holding a special meeting today at 1pm to talk about the MTA's Long Range Transportation Plan. One of the items up for discussion is the manner in which the Gold Line extension will be funded.

The MTA board seems to have been playing hide the ball with this meeting, having twice postponed the discussion. This may be because San Gabriel Valley residents keep showing up at board meetings to hold the MTA's feet to the fiscal fire. The MTA board, on the other hand, tends to be LA-centric, and has been accused in the past of underserving our part of the county.

Albert writes:

For San Gabriel Valley residents, it is important to remember what’s at stake in the plan. Metro has allocated $743 million for the Foothill Extension — $10.3 million in the coming fiscal year that begins July 1, which Metro approved last month. The allocation is larger than what Measure R afforded but it does not account for getting the line open to Azusa in 2013. Metro still needs to fund the operation of the line. That’s a fight for another day.

If you can make the meeting, that would be great, but because Metro was coy about the plan and potential of a vote we understand if you can’t attend. Of course, for those not attending, we’ll be covering the meeting live on our Twitter feed @iwillride. You can also listen live by calling in at (213) 922-6045.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune has an editorial today urging the MTA to get off the dime and include the Gold Line extension in the Long Range Transportation Plan. The SGVT editorial notes that the Gold Line, unlike things like LA's Westside Subway-to-the-Sea, is ready to break ground now and could be completed from Pasadena to Azusa by 2013.

Claremont Councilmember Sam Pedroza gets a mention in the editorial, incidentally. The SGVT piece says:

The efficient Gold Line staff has lined up public-private partnerships ready to begin the work by next spring. If we can help secure the long-promised financing to do so, the contracts can be let and service can be opened to the Azusa/Glendora stop, including service to Citrus College and Azusa Pacific College, by 2013, not by 2017, as the MTA's current plans are.

That's a huge time difference in reducing the 210 Freeway gridlock in our time.

In order for that to be accomplished, the Metro board should attach funding from the recently passed Measure R.

This is a classically shovel-ready project that can help relieve congestion and create jobs. And those jobs are not just on the tracks. A number of our cities have station-adjacent development projects hanging fire until the rail line is sure to come to town. Once the commitment is there, credit will loosen up and we'll witness a healthy boost of commerce and housing in the region as well.

If you are interested in attending, you can simply take the Gold Line from Pasadena to Union Station, or you can drive, though that might not be in keeping with the spirit of public transit. The MTA building is located east of the station. You can find the agenda here.

Special Meeting - Today, 1pm
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
One Gateway Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90001

For information, call (213) 922-2000
www.metro.net

The Hedgehog and the Fox

The fox knows many things,
but the hedgehog knows
one big thing.

We are reminded constantly these days of the unholy trinity of ills facing California and Claremont finances: the cliff we are facing with reduced property tax revenues, the looming specter of the State pension system used by the City making a large capital call--probably in a few months, and less discussed, the probable large reduction in California income tax receipts due to reduced incomes and disappeared capital gains. We discussed two of these in our last post.

These three factors, the recent election in Claremont, and an article in Thursday's New York Times, crystallized some thoughts about how Claremont may plan to deal with the current situation--the old shell game.

Political junkies may remember these bits from the Claremont Courier endorsement of Larry Schroeder on February 21st (not online):

Mr. Schroeder served as Finance Director for the cities of Glendora and Lakewood for over 25 years. His finance background will undoubtedly help the city as it struggles over the next few years...
...He offered an original solution for using the transportation funds allotted to the [Village Trolley].

"Now I know the city of Commerce is in need of transportation funds," he explained. "For our dollar, we could have received roughly 75 cents back which would go into the general fund."

Unlike earmarked transportation money, cash in the general fund can be used at the council's discretion. For things like balancing the budget, replenishing our depleted fund reserves and securing more open space; the list goes on and on.

Was this option ever presented to the city council by our city staff? If it was, would we have a mostly empty trolley trucking around the Village today?

This type of innovative thinking is what our city will need over the next few years as we ride out the economic crisis.
Before the election we wondered where then-Community Services Commission-member Schroeder had been a year ago when the trolley matter came up. You'd think he could've at least offered the idea for discussion. However, we submit that there are too many foxes like Larry Schroeder running city and state government, and too few hedgehogs.

These kinds of things: derivatives, credit default swaps, securitization, tranches and baskets--they are seductive to people who are not as as smart as they want to be and who are looking for some painless way to paper over reality and to avoid a real reckoning. People like this--too many down at City Hall--are the natural prey of the modern snake-oil salesforce for these nostrums.

This is exactly the too-clever-by-half type of dealing that got us into this mess, the kind of Seductive Something for Nothing that has been the governing and action principle of a generation of city and state leaders (and national leaders, who additionally have the ability to print money).

These tricky scams have to be beat down one by one since there are more people engaged in thinking them up than are involved in the productive activity of putting money in the bank honestly. We need more hedgehogs, and many fewer foxes.

Thus, in this era of change we can believe in, it was of more than passing interest to see this headline back on page A14 of Thursday's New York Times, following up on an issue first raised in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in an article by Alfred Lee:

"Cities' Plans to Swap Cash for Stimulus are Stopped"

The article, linked here, and well worth your time, gives the Feds' very low opinion of just the kind of "Money for Nothin'" swap plan Schroeder was peddling before the election, this particular one contrived by the green-eyeshade Madoff-crazed policy wonks at the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the people who brought you no Gold Line:
...that is essentially what several cities in Los Angeles County planned to do with federal stimulus money, until the local transportation authority, its face slightly reddened, pulled the plug on the plans. A spokeswoman for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure said Wednesday that the swaps would be illegal.
By the way, it's interesting to read in the article that the value of federal money dropped in the bidding wars held before the boom got lowered on Wednesday. Rather than the 75 cents Larry Schroeder was pimping, the stimulus transportation money only brought 62 cents on the dollar. After encouraging LA County cities to do the swaps in a letter last week, the MTA sent another letter on Wednesday, advising, "never mind".

If we can get copies of the two MTA letters, the first authorizing the swaps and the second stopping them, we will post. We think those are important documents. The embarrassed flaks at MTA are putting it all down to a misunderstanding, semantics. And there is nothing about it apparent at this writing on the MTA website.

Kudos for San Gabriel Valley Tribune reporter Alfred Lee for writing the original article on Monday, March 9, revealing this questionable activity. The ripples from this article have gotten national legs. And we must acknowledge the late Isaiah Berlin for bringing to everyone's attention his own comparisons between the hedgehog and the fox.

Transportation Monday

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension is getting in line for $150 million of those federal stimulus package dollars. Habib Balian, the extension project CEO, has a letter on posted online explaining the politicking that went into convincing the LA County Metropolitan Transit Authority to seek federal funds for the Gold Line.

You'd think it'd be a no-brainer, with all the talk about how the stimulus money is supposed to favor so-called "shovel-ready" projects. But nothing is simple with the MTA, whose board includes a number of members, including Zev Yaroslavsky, who don't want the Gold Line leap-frogging over other projects like the LA Expo Line.

In any event, the MTA board gave in at a February 26 meeting after some lobbying by Duarte City Councilmember John Fasana and LA County Supervisors Gloria Molina and Michael Antonovich, all of whom are on the MTA board. At the February meeting the board was considering a motion to seek $300 million in stimulus package money for the Foothill Extension and the Expo Line. Habib Balian's update explained:

During the debate on the motion, an amendment was made to remove the section regarding the Gold Line. Proponents argued that the Federal Transit Administration had yet to issue funding guidelines for rail projects, so the item containing the Foothill Extension should be removed from the motion. Board members Fasana and Antonovich protested, arguing the board should support the Gold Line because it is ready to go and could leverage the Measure R funding to secure additional federal money. Measure R is the county’s half-cent sales tax that goes into effect on July 1.

LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavksy countered if the motion was supported as it was written the Foothill Extension could “leapfrog” other rail lines for federal funding, adding that the board’s support for the measure would be tantamount to giving permission to the Foothill Extension Construction Authority to apply for federal funds. Supervisor Molina stood up in support of the Foothill Extension, saying the effort to remove the Foothill Extension from the spending proposal was “payback” for the San Gabriel Valley’s vote on Measure R.

Molina’s argument immediately shifted the debate, forcing proponents of the amendment to retreat and support the staff proposal, with some minor amendments that allow the board to alter its recommendation depending on the federal guidelines for rail projects.

* * * * *

It turns out that your morning cup of Joe may be good for more than merely getting you brain revved up. The Original Skrip had a post yesterday about the potential for coffee to fuel cars. Skrip found an article from The Economist magazine that explained how coffee grounds can be converted to biodiesel fuel.

According to The Economist article:

The researchers found that coffee biodiesel is comparable to the best biodiesels on the market. But unlike biodiesels based on soya or other plants, it does not divert crops or land from food production into fuel production.

A further advantage is that unmodified oils from plants, like the peanut oil used by [German engineer Rudolph] Diesel in the 19th century, have high viscosity and require engine alterations. Diesel derived from coffee is less thick and can usually be burned in an engine with little or no tinkering.

The diesel-extraction method for coffee grounds is similar to that used for other vegetable oils. It employs a process called transesterification, in which the grounds react with an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. The coffee grounds are dried overnight and common chemical solvents, such as hexane, ether and dichloromethane, are added to dissolve the oils. The grounds are then filtered out and the solvents separated (to be reused with the next batch of coffee grounds). The remaining oil is treated with an alkali to remove free fatty acids (which form a soap). Then the crude biodiesel is heated to about 100ºC to remove any water, and treated with methanol and a catalyst, so that transesterification takes place. When cooled to room temperature and left to stand, the biodiesel floats up, leaving a layer of glycerine at the bottom. These layers are separated and the biodiesel is cleaned to remove any residues.

Although some people make their own diesel at home from leftovers and recycled cooking oil, coffee-based biodiesel seems better suited to larger-scale processes. Dr Misra says that a litre of biodiesel requires 5-7kg of coffee grounds, depending on the oil content of the coffee in question. In their laboratory his team has set up a one-gallon-a-day production facility, which uses between 19kg and 26kg of coffee grounds. The biofuel should cost about $1 per gallon to make in a medium-sized installation, the researchers estimate.

Does this mean Starbucks can now enter the energy business?

More Local Project Construction News

MTA BAIT-AND-SWITCH

Reporter Dan Abendschein had an article in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune yesterday that said that the Gold Line Foothill Extension Authority may have to wait until 2011 before it starts to get any of that promised revenue from the half-cent sales tax increase L. A. County voters approved last November with Measure R.

No surprise there. The county's Metropolitan Transportation Authority sold the sales tax increase to voters in our area with the promise that the MTA would come through with money for the Gold Line extension. However, the MTA also ended up costing the Gold Line $320 million in federal money that it could have qualified for had the MTA simply come through with a matching grant of $80 million. Instead, the MTA denied the Gold Line that money and promised to come through with $735 million if Measure R passed.

Cynics, including the Insider, thought that once the sales tax increase was approved, the MTA, headed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would renege on the promise and would give West L. A.'s Subway-to-the-Sea first dibs on any money. And that may be exactly what's happening now.

Westsiders would say that their needs are more pressing, but San Gabriel Valley residents have argued that traffic in this area is every bit as bad as West L. A./Santa Monica and that the SGV doesn't receive nearly as much in benefits as it pays out to fund things like Measure R. Residents in our area would also argue that whereas the Gold Line is ready to go, the Subway-to-the-Sea is still in the planning stages.

And, no matter what your position is on which project is more deserving, the bait-and-switch tactics the MTA and Villaraigosa used to get Measure R passed certainly speaks volumes about the integrity (or lack thereof) involved here.

Dan Abendschein's article gave some of the details:

The Gold Line Foothill Extension may not be receive significant Measure R funding until 2011, and may not be completed until 2017, if the county's transit agency passes a proposed long-range plan.

The Gold Line Foothill Extension Authority, the independent agency charged with building the line, estimated a completion date of 2013 last month, after the passage of Measure R, the half-cent sales tax increase designed to fund county transportation projects.

If the long range plan is approved, the Foothill Extension Authority would probably not even see any tax money until 2013, according to Habib Balian, the group's director, who reviewed a report outlining the plan.

"There is not a lot of detail in the report, so we still have a lot of questions," said Balian. "But this action would appear to delay our funding."

David Yale, the Deputy Executive Officer of Regional Programming for the Metropolitan Transportation Agency said the Extension Authority would start to receive serious levels of funding in 2011.

The project could see "a little bit of funding" in 2010 from 2009 sales tax revenues, said Yale. MTA previously said the Gold Line would begin getting funding in 2010, but did not specify how much.

PADUA PARK FUNDING DELAY CONFIRMED

The Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II had an article that verified what we had wondered about the lack of construction activity at the Padua Ave. Park site in Northeast Claremont.

As you'll recall, last month we wrote about the fact that the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, the state agency that gave Claremont a $850,000 grant for the Padua Park project, was unable to come through with the grant because of the state's financial situation.

The state has placed a moratorium on the sale of bonds until its potential $42 billion deficit can be fixed. Woods explained in his article:

Belinda Faustinos, executive director of the San Gabriel & Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, noted Friday that a statewide freeze was ordered on bond funds Dec. 17.

Faustinos said there would be a meeting Tuesday with the Pooled Money Investment Board.

That board determines the amount of bond funds that can be sold and therefore how much cash is available for bond projects.

"Unless they authorize the sale of bonds, there is no money to spend for those types of projects," Faustinos said.

Faustinos said there is not expected to be much progress unless the state comes up with a solution to the budget crisis.

Woods also quoted Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor as saying:

"We're trying in many different ways to approach it," Mayor Ellen Taylor said Friday. Taylor was upset the money was frozen but said the council has "lots of plans. I can't go into the details right now, they're in the infancy stage. There have been no firm decisions made."

In other words, the city will get this done somehow, some way, even if we have to pay for the whole thing ourselves by shuffling money around in the old Claremont shell game. The City can put off paying police officers the pay and benefits it promised them, but it can come through with $850,000 for Ellen's pet project. As one friend of the Insider remarked about that prospect, "That's sick."

No, that's Claremont.

Local Financial News

PFF Bank & Trust was back in the news yesterday. The bank's planned merger with Illinois-based FBOP Corp., is being carefully watched by federal officials, according to an article by Matt Wrye in yesterday's Daily Bulletin.

PFF stock has fallen off a cliff this past year, tumbling from a high of nearly $40 a share to under $2. Here's what Wrye had to say:

More than $1.1 billion has been drained from PFF Bancorp and its bank branches since March 2007, most in customer withdrawals from its banks.

Walter Hackett, a former PFF executive, isn't sure the merger will be halted, but he thinks FBOP may be getting nervous about the deal.

PFF's losses and mounting shareholder lawsuits "may be part of the reason that FBOP is blinking now," said Hackett, who during the housing market boom was a vice president and commercial loan department manager for PFF.

Hackett is also a witness for a group of shareholders who recently filed a lawsuit against PFF - one of several suits claiming PFF executives foresaw financial losses and dumped their stock while telling shareholders everything was OK.

At the same time, FBOP is suffering major losses due to its exposure to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stock meltdown, according to a September article published by Crain's Chicago Business newspaper.

FBOP, owned by billionaire Michael Kelly, is trying to "extend the Federal Reserve approval of the merger, and to obtain other regulatory approvals," and intends to complete the merger on or before Dec. 31, documents show.

* * *

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority, whose board is chaired by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, is in some potential trouble over lease-back arrangements it and other public transit agencies made over the past decade.

The Daily Bulletin has an article that explains how the failure of insurer AIG figures into the MTA's problems, which started when the MTA sold off assets like buses and trains to private investors over the past decade. The MTA then turned around and leased the assets back from the investors. The deals generated about $65 million in cash for the MTA's operating costs.

The MTA's lease-back deals were insured by AIG, and the insurance included a provision that requires the MTA to find a new insurer within 60 days if AIG's credit rating ever fell below a AAA rating, something that is a given as a result of AIG's current problems. If the MTA cannot find another insurer, the investors can take possession of the assets. Now, MTA officials are lobbying Washington to step in to guarantee the lease-back arrangments, the Bulletin article reported:

"Because the federal government now owns over 80 percent of AIG shares, they would be the logical candidate to guarantee those deals," said MTA spokesman Marc Littman.

The MTA is one of dozens of transit agencies nationwide that are in Washington this week seeking help because of troubles with similar deals.

The MTA's deals originated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when it sold off a huge number of buses and trains to corporate investors, including Phillip Morris and Comerica.

It then entered into long-term leases to use the equipment. The sales netted about $65 million to put toward operating costs, said Littman.

"Essentially, they were tax shelters," said Joseph Henchman of the Washington-based Tax Foundation, a taxpayer rights organization that opposes guaranteeing the leases. "They were a way to get short-term revenue that was never appropriated."

These sorts of things don't exactly inspire confidence in the MTA or Villaraigosa, who pushed the half-cent county sales tax increase passed by LA-area voters this past election. The Bulletin article mentioned a concern that some of the revenue from the sales tax increase might have to be used as collateral against money the MTA would have to borrow if they don't get a bailout. Move to the back of the funding queue, Gold Line folks.

A FOOTNOTE: This same sort of arrangement was suggested by former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard in 2005. Shortly after he left Claremont, Southard recommended this to some of his Claremont 400 friends as a way of financing projects like Padua Park, saying that city property - City Hall or the Hughes Center, for example - could be used as collateral and leased back from private investors in exchange for project funds.

Luckily for Claremont, Southard's scheme never gained traction.

East vs. West on Measure R

The Los Angeles Times had an article last Saturday that discussed the LA County Measure R sales tax ballot measure. The article focused on the differences between LA's Westside residents and those in the eastern LA County. (Politicians in outlying county areas like Lancaster or the San Gabriel Valley have argued against Measure R, saying that the money generated would go disproportionately to Los Angeles, particularly the Westside "Subway-to-the-Sea".)

The article, by Times writer Steven Hymon, also made use of Hymon's interview with Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor, who, along with the rest of the Claremont City Council, has opposed the measure. The article also noted that although it is true that West LA does suffer epic traffic congestion, so does the San Gabriel Valley:

Despite the widely held view that the Westside has the county's worst gridlock, traffic statistics from the California Department of Transportation and the Freeway Performance Measurement System at UC Berkeley suggest that drivers on the east side of town aren't doing much better.

Although parts of the 10 and 405 freeways carry more than 300,000 vehicles daily -- a very high load -- so does the 210 Freeway in Pasadena. And in the last two months, the two freeway bottlenecks where motorists experienced the worst delays during the morning commute were in the San Gabriel Valley, on the 10 and 210.

Ranked four and five on the list: the westbound 10 at Robertson and La Cienega boulevards, respectively.

Measure R has generated much excitement on the Westside because it is considered the first concrete funding step for a Wilshire Boulevard subway, which for decades has been the Holy Grail for those trying to reduce congestion.

The subway could get $4.1 billion from the ballot item. That makes the proposal the largest Measure R project, with the subway possibly accounting for 10% or more of the funds that the sales tax is expected to raise over its 30-year life span.

That has led critics to say that Measure R is a thinly disguised plan by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to secure subway funding at the expense of everyone else.

Some San Gabriel Valley officials are upset that an extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena was denied $80 million in seed money this summer by the Villaraigosa-led board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Measure R provides $735 million for the project, but backers say it is not enough for the line to reach Montclair -- their goal -- and they don't believe they will get the money anyway.

Transportation Friday

We've got more transportation news today, beginning with the Claremont Trolley, which began service yesterday. The free, trackless trolley will run three days per week, Thursdays through Saturdays, from 11am to 11pm and will now cost an estimated $1,290,596 for the three-year trial, up from the original estimate of $887,000. The city is estimating the trolley will average 15 riders per hour.

The trolley is being paid for with money Claremont receives from state transportation bond money, even though it has been described by city officials as an economic development project rather than as a transportation project (it supposedly encourages shoppers in different areas of the Claremont Village and Village Expansion).

The Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II covered the trolley unveiling:

CLAREMONT - City officials and residents on Thursday celebrated the Claremont Village Trolley with a barbershop quartet, christening and free cake and punch.

"I think having a trolley will make the downtown attractive" to those who live outside Claremont, said resident Ping Chang, 42, who rode the trolley for the first time with her 4-year-old daughter, Tiffany.

For Community Services Director Scott Carrol, this is exactly what he believes will happen, as the trolley "promotes economic development in the Village," he said.

To welcome the start of the free trolley service on Thursday morning, Mayor Ellen Taylor spoke to city officials and residents at the Claremont Depot on First Street.

The event was the culmination of events that started with the City Council's approval in January of using transportation money to fund the new service for three years.

The Bulletin's David Allen also had a column on the trolley. Allen seemed skeptical of the project's success, and the column's headline is "Not All Aboard 'Trolley.'" Allen also managed to fit quotes from a current and a former Claremont mayor into the piece:

....Mayor Taylor is already a fan.

"It's very cute," Taylor said. "Very Claremont."

And also very Victoria Gardens, I told her.[SNOB ALERT - CI ed.]

"Do they have one?" Taylor asked. "I never go there."

The "trolley" was about to depart for its third trip. I climbed aboard. It has arched windows, wooden slat seats and straps for anyone who stands. But it also has tires and a bus driver.

A few passersby gave us curious looks. At Bonita and Yale, two women jumped up and down and took photos. Outside the Back Abbey pub on Oberlin, an employee watched quizzically before giving us a wave.

I rarely walk along First, so it was educational to learn the Peyton Grey clothing store is gone. With Chloe & Hunter, that's two recent closures in the Village Square. Oh, if only they could have hung on until the "trolley" started!

Moments later the vehicle was back at the depot, disgorging a columnist. I say, disgorging a columnist.

Former mayor Karen Rosenthal, who rode the faux trolley earlier, was lingering.

"I don't know who's going to ride it," Rosenthal admitted. "Maybe if you park in the Metrolink lot. But if you park in the Village, you could walk three blocks to the trolley, or you could walk three blocks to where you want to be.

"The ones who'll ride it," she added conspiratorially, "are the people who really need to be walking."

Queen Ellen (left) also received a mention in LA Times writer Steve Hymon's Bottleneck Blog. Hymon caught Taylor's opinion piece against LA County's Measure R, the proposed half-cent sales tax increase that would fund transportation projects. Hymon spoke with Her Highness:

I also spoke to Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor earlier today. She recently wrote a scathing opinion piece against Measure R that ran in the papers in the San Gabriel Valley. She doesn't believe the Gold Line Foothill Extension receives enough funds in the spending plan to get it to Claremont and Montclair -- the plan guarantees it $735 million -- and, equally important, she doesn't believe the money that the Gold Line is promised would arrive in any kind of timely fashion.

I posed this traffic question to her: What's it like in the Valley these days? Her answer:

It's miserable. I’ve lived in Claremont for 30 years and traffic has gotten much worse -- to the point that we don’t go into L.A. anymore. That’s not good for me. I like a full life where you experience stuff. We’ll go to a concert on Sunday afternoon [in Los Angeles] rather than Saturday night because it’s easier to get in and out...

We’re like the bologna in the bread here. And they keep building. You take the 210 east and all you see is roofs and they’re building them without building the infrastructure.

That's a fascinating quote. Why? In early 2007, Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote a piece about how bad Westside traffic is, with quotes from one resident saying they too no longer tried to attend cultural events in downtown L.A. (The Lopez column led to the creation of the Bottleneck Blog). Taylor is essentially saying the same thing, but from the other side of Los Angeles County.

Gold Line's Future Tied to Sales Tax Approval

Friday's Los Angeles Times carried a front-page story about the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) decision to pursue passage of a half-cent sales tax increase for LA County. Money from the proposed measure would go to fund transportation projects throughout the county, including the Gold Line Foothill Extension from Pasadena to Claremont. The measure will be placed on the November ballot, assuming it is approved by the state legislature.

Back in June, the MTA board decided to put off until the November election the decision on whether to include the Gold Line Foothill Extension in the agency's Long Range Transportation Plan. That decision not only cost the Gold Line $80 million in LA County money, but also may have cost the Foothill Extension $320 million in federal grants that were dependent on the county funds as a match.

The sales tax increase is being pushed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is the MTA board's chair. The increase would raise the county sales tax from the current 8.25% to 8.75%, which would tie LA County for the highest sales tax rate in the state along with Alameda County. Estimates are that the half-cent increase would generate up to $40 billion over 30 years.

The MTA board approved going forward with the sales tax measure on a 9-2 vote, with the only "NO's" being the two San Gabriel Valley representatives, LA County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Duarte Councilmember John Fasana.

Antonovich and Fasana objected to the fact that the MTA board would not commit to making a solid pledge of $735 million to the Gold Line. The sales tax measure allocates that amount, but there are no guarantees that the money could not be moved to other projects, such as the Expo Line Extension to Santa Monica, which has been competing with the Gold Line for MTA funds. The measure only promises a minimum of $325 million to the Gold Line and indicates that an additional $400 is available.

LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina abstained from voting, citing her concerns with the haste with which the allocation of the money was decided.

Supervisor Antonovich has raised his own concerns with the sales tax measure, saying that the way the MTA has allocated money has been too LA-centric and that areas like the San Gabriel Valley have not received their fair share of transportation funds. Antonovich's reservations played into his refusal to support the sales tax measure, and the MTA board's reluctance to commit the total $735 million to the Gold Line Foothill Extension make us wonder if there isn't a Villaraigosa sponsored bait-and-switch going on here.

Villarairgosa's sale tax needs a two-thirds majority to pass, so he needs every San Gabriel Valley vote he can get. We vote to support this tax increase with the carrot of $735 million dangling in front of us, then once the measure is passed, they pull that $400 million and give it to the Expo Line Extension or some other LA project. At least that seems to be the sort of scenario that troubles Antonovich.

Saturday's LA Times had yet another front-page article on the proposed sales tax increase. The article reported that passage of the measure is no sure thing with voters having to approve a number of other state and local tax increases on the same November ballot. The article also reported that four members of California's congressional delegation - David Drier (R-26), Gary Miller (R-42), Grace Napolitano (D-38), and Hilda Solis (D-32) - have issued a joint statement that supports giving more of the sales tax money to the San Gabriel Valley.

The text of the statement is available on the LA Times' Bottleneck Blog, and seems to echo Supervisor Antonovich's concerns about the equity with which the MTA transportation funds are being dispersed. According to Times blogger Steve Hymon, Congresswoman Solis has indicated she may actively campaign against the sales tax measure. Judging from the statement's language, Solis and the other three representatives who signed the statement certainly feel strongly that the MTA is sticking it once again to our area:

If inequity and insult aren’t enough, Metro Board Members said no to a commitment of less than one half of one percent of its capital budget for the only project ready to be built in LA County – the Gold Line Foothill Extension. This project could save our residents money – households that use public transit save an average of $6,251 every year. It could create jobs - every $1 spent on infrastructure results in a gain of $6 in jobs. Construction alone could create at least 2,000 new jobs. It could deliver needed economic development – more than $40 billion by 2030.

The Federal government has stood up and done its part to demonstrate support – our local Congressional delegation has already delivered $27.19 million. If Metro would commit its share, we could fight for an additional $320 million in Federal funds. Rather than join us, Metro said no to the San Gabriel Valley.

“Residents of the San Gabriel Valley deserve better than what Metro delivered yesterday. It’s time to say no to inequity, no to insult, and yes to economic development in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s time to say no to Metro.

Gold Line News Continued

We received a response to yesterday's post about the Gold Line that pointed out that readers might come away with the mistaken opinion that Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich is opposed to extending the Gold Line from Pasadena to Claremont.

In fact, Antonovich has been supportive of the extension, as a recent editorial by the supervisor demonstrates. In the piece, Antonovich argues for equitable revenue sharing for the $40 billion or so that would be generated by a proposed half-cent increase in Los Angeles County sales tax that would fund transportation projects in the county.

Antonovich points out that in 2006 California voters passed the $19.9 billion Proposition 1B transportation bond partly with the help of residents and elected officials from so-called county subregions like the San Gabriel Valley. (In Claremont, Prop. 1B funds will be used to pay for the Claremont Trolley.)

Antonovich writes that once Prop. 1B passed, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) gave the lion's share of the fund allocated to the county to projects in the City of Los Angeles:

So what happened? Prop 1B passed and Los Angeles city took over 48 percent of the $3.16 billion in funding the county received from bond categories designed for highway, rail, bus, streets, roads and traffic signal synchronization projects.

By contrast, the San Gabriel Valley only received 5 percent of this funding, the South Bay Cities 2 percent, the West San Fernando Valley Cities 0.05 percent and the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys 0.7 percent.

This result was well below these subregions’ fair share of funding based on any measurement of equity, most notably population. Once again, they were a victim of Los Angeles city’s greed.

From the three major Prop 1B funding categories for highways, transit and traffic signal synchronization, the city of Los Angeles took home a whopping 61 percent, 52 percent and 94 percent of the county’s share, respectively.

So, the Gold Line's fate is now linked to the successful passage of a half-cent county sales tax increase in November. Unfortunately, MTA is once again in charge of the allocation of those funds, and there is no guarantee that money would be shared fairly with residents outside of the city of Los Angeles. Antonovich says in his article that voters in the San Gabriel Valley, who passed Prop. 1B with 70-percent of the vote, may not feel like getting burned again - fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

There are other problems facing the proposed sales tax measure, as an article in the Daily Bulletin notes. The measure must be approved by the MTA board at its meeting next Thursday, July 24th, and then it a similar version must be approved by the state legislature. All this must be done before the August 8th deadline to get the measure to the county for the November ballot.

The Bulletin article laid out the possible roadblocks to getting the sales tax measure on the ballot:

The county version of the measure might not get passed at next week's MTA meeting, either. Several board members of the MTA said they had objections to the expenditure plan that still needed to be worked out.

Michael Cano, the transportation deputy for county supervisor and MTA board member Michael Antonovich, said his boss would introduce amendments to the proposed ordinance at the meeting.

He said Antonovich wants language that guarantees each region receives a percentage of the sales tax money that is equal to the percentage of the county's population in each region.

The San Gabriel Valley is currently allocated 16.4 percent of the money, while the MTA estimates it has 18.3 percent of the region's residents.

Cano added that the MTA should commit to funding the full $1.4 billion cost of the Gold Line.

He said Antonovich also has concerns that projects on the expenditure list that are not yet approved, like the 710 Freeway tunnel, might end up not being built.

Antonovich will likely not vote for the measure in its current form, said Cano. If the measure does not get passed next week, he said, the only recourse will be for the board to schedule an emergency meeting before the Aug. 8 deadline.

Part of the opposition the MTA and the City of Los Angeles might face in getting this sales tax increase passed is the result a blowback against MTA's track record of project mismanagement and waste (and in some cases accusations of possible fraud) and LA's record of stiffing its neighbors.

Of course, another problem is that what's really needed to move people effectively from the our area to Pasadena and Los Angeles is not a light-rail but a real commuter train like the Metrolink. As the Foothill Transit board could tell you, in a city like Paris, to get to many areas outside the city you take a regional express train (the RER). The smaller metro trains are used mostly for shorter hauls, like a bus system on rails.

But, the Gold Line is what we're left with, so we'll have to take what we can get. Or just choose not to have it.

Gold Line Left Out of the Money - For Now

[UPDATED 9:30 p.m.]

The LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted yesterday to leave Phase I of the Gold Line Foothill Extension off its Long Range Transportation Plan. This means that the first part of the extension, from Pasadena to Azusa, will not only not receive $80 million of county money, but will also lose out on a $320 million federal grant because that money had been dependent on the county providing some matching funds.

The extension will now have to wait until November to see if a possible ballot measure for a half-cent county sales tax increase passes. In the best case, the Gold Line Extension's construction start is pushed back a year.

The FC Blog has the a full discussion. One comment raised an interesting question. With all the transit-oriented development planned around the Gold Line extension's stations, what happens if it doesn't come through.

[Update, 9:30 p.m. We hear from a reader that the Foothill Transit Board didn't take the smack in the face from the MTA very well. MTA sent a representative to the Foothill Transit Board meeting this morning (Friday) in West Covina. Seems the MTA wanted approval by the Foothill Transit Board of some cockamamie plan--you'd have to figure such things originate in Washington--to turn the HOV lanes on the 10 and 210 freeways in to TOLL lanes. This is the so-called Congestion Reduction Demonstration Initiative. Well, the Foothill Transit Board was having none of it. Pomona College graduate and Pomona City Councilmember (and Foothill Transit Executive Board member) Paula Lantz opened up on the hapless representative, who was reduced to citing a poll of poor people saying that 80% of them supported the toll lanes because--we're not kidding--they hoped someday to have enough money to use them.

Ms. Lantz brought three of her colleagues with her, and the motion to support MTA's pursuit of the Federal Congestion $$$ failed, 4-1.

Apparently there is NO support in the San Gabriel Valley Legislative Caucus for this crazy plan, which will accomplish nothing so much as grinding the regular freeway lanes to a stop. How much intelligence does it take to figure out if you want people off the freeway, those people need an alternative?--like the Gold Line. This plan is to nothing more than one to turn the left lane into a profit center.

Kudos to Lantz for pointing out the elephant in the room.]

Light-Rail Spotlight

GOLD LINE DECISION TOMORROW

The Daily Bulletin reminds us that the Gold Line Foothill Extension's fate could be decided tomorrow at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) board meeting when the MTA board will consider the agency's Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP):

The 24-mile project to extend the Gold Line from Pasadena to Montclair has received a federal pledge of $320 million - if the county's transit agency funds the remaining $80 million required to start the first phase of the project.

The first phase would take the line out to the border of Azusa and Glendora.

At Thursday's meeting, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will vote on whether to commit the $80 million.

The article, by Dan Abendschein, goes on to say that current Gold Line ridership is up 19-percent over the past year, primarily due to the rapid hike in gas prices. That increase, however, may not be enough to get the MTA board to support the Gold Line extension. As we wrote a few weeks ago, there's more than a little behind-the-scenes politicking going on here.

Thursday, June 26th, 9:30am -
MTA Board of Directors Meeting
One Gateway Plaza, 3rd Floor
Los Angeles, CA

MTA BOARD CHAIR ON TV TONIGHT

The Gold Line is competing with the proposed Expo Line light-rail from downtown LA to Santa Monica, and the Expo Line proponents are pulling out all the stops to make sure they get funding over the Gold Line.

MTA board chair Pam O'Connor is scheduled to appear tonight from 8pm to 9pm on a call-in cable TV talk show that available only to viewers in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The call-in phone number hasn't been made available and won't be giving out until it appears on viewers' TV screens tonight.

So, the calls to the MTA board chair the night before the crucial vote will be limited to callers from areas that would be serviced by the Expo Line. Hmmmmm, anyone want to guess which project the callers will support?


LA TIMES EDITORIAL: LET'S BUILD BOTH

Then there's the LA Times editorial board, which ran a piece in today's paper arguing that the decision on the Gold and Expo Lines should be put off until after the November election when county voters may have a chance to vote on a half-cent sales tax increase to fund transit projects. If the sale-tax measure should pass (currently there appears to be a 71% approval for the increase), then there would be enough money to go around.

Students Show Support for Gold Line

Fred Ortega, a writer for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, reported on yesterday's Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting. (The Daily Bulletin carried Ortega's article.)

College students from iwillride.org showed up for the meeting in support of the Gold Line Foothill Extension from Pasadena to the Ontario Airport. About half the audience was there in support of the Gold Line, according to Ortega's article. In addition to the college students, there were a number of other area VIP's who support the extension, including La Verne Mayor Jon Blickenstaff. The article said:

"Improving the environment was the driving force behind Emily Romo's support for the Gold Line extension.

I feel the extension will help people maintain sustainable environment because as the San Gabriel Valley continues to increase in population, traffic and pollution will only get worse," said Romo, a 21-year-old English major at the University of La Verne who is also part of the school's Green Institute for Village Empowerment.

Officials estimate that once completed, the extension will eliminate 126 tons of carbon monoxide from the air and save about 1.5 million gallons of gasoline each year.

Joining the students Thursday were local elected officials and business leaders from throughout the region, including La Verne Mayor John Blickenstaff.

"These students are one more example of the broad base of support for this project," said Blickenstaff, who also chairs the Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority board. "Education is a major factor with the many education institutions along the line, all in support of this project."

The meeting was important because the MTA board was considering the MTA's draft Long Range Tranportation Plan, which currently does not include funding for the Gold Line extension. Without the $80 million inclusion in the plan would bring, construction on the project would be delayed beyond the end of 2009.

Ortega's article indicated that yesterday's show of support for the extension at least caught the MTA board's attention:

The show of support for the Gold Line - nearly half of those in attendance at Thursday's meeting were there in favor of the project - was acknowledged by Metro board Chairwoman Pam O'Connor.

"I'd like to ask staff for a report on the Gold Line, its status and readiness, because of the support shown today," O'Connor said.

The article did not indicate if any Claremont officials showed up to speak. The City of Claremont is busy with its own transit project, the Downtown Trolley covering a six square block area, so Mayor Taylor and company may be understandably preoccupied with more important things than the Gold Line.

You can read more about the Gold Line Foothill Extension here.

Students Wanting to Ride the Rails

PROPOSED METRO GOLD LINE EXTENSION

The Real Zajac over at the Foothill Cities Blog has a post about a group of San Gabriel Valley college students who have organized a grass-roots effort to lobby for the Gold Line Extension from Pasadena to the Ontario Airport.

The group calls itself I Will Ride and has been posting videos on You Tube. The website has some student videos as well as an online petition to sign.

Funding for the Gold Line was left off the most recent Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) draft long range transportation plan, so the timetable for completion of the extension to Montclair has been pushed back to 2014. The Ontario extension will take even longer.

The Real Zajac's post also includes a link to the Gold Line Authority's Call to Action page, where they have instructions for submitting letter to the MTA in support of putting the Gold Line Extension back into the final long term plan. They also mention that there will be a public meeting on April 8th to address the draft plan and to take public comment. Here's information for the meeting:

MTA Draft Long Term Transportation Plan Meeting
April 8, 2007, 6pm
Potero Elementary School
8026 East Hill Drive
Rosemead, CA 91770