Exploring Root Causes of Transportation Mess
The Los Angeles Times’ glowing support for the new 20-year Transportation Plan (May 14) comes as no surprise, since The Times wholeheartedly backed the previous transit turkey overwhelmingly rejected by voters in 1984.
The Orwellian specter of the son of Proposition A must have The Times dancing with joy at the possibilities of a public-works spending binge unparalleled in the county’s history. Forget, for a moment, that the new baby--created by the Orange County Transportation Commission social scientists--is stillborn (The Times calls the plan not perfect). The only purpose The Times can promote for this son of Proposition A is the need for “funding” regardless of use or whether residents favor project purposes.
To finance this quilt-work scheme, OCTC commissioners want to start out small--a half-cent sales tax now for some $3.1 billion--and think about a future 1-cent additional tax.
There is nothing in this new transportation plan that someone cannot find fault with. The Times likes to think in reverse, i.e., that there is something for everyone “regardless of whether residents favor freeway improvements, local street and rail projects. . . .”
Orange County Tomorrow warned the OCTC that the real risk it runs with this new plan is giving more voters more reasons to vote no. We strongly urged the commissioners to pare down the public improvements list to no more than one recognizable project. Right now the spending criteria are way too broad, prone to political decision and project-unmanageable. Further, Orange County Tomorrow predicts the ultimate failure of the sales-tax plan without the oversight authority of a citizens review and bonding administration commission. All public and private surveys have pointed to the failure of government to be entrusted with this new taxing ability.
The Times, in praising this plan, has shown its lack of practical knowledge on the subject and disregard of the political realism this plan has at the ballot box. There can be no rationale for The Times’ sweeping justification that Orange County is the only county not to tax itself, when voters have no confidence and trust in public officials.
Without dramatic change to this ill-conceived plan, the voters will have far too many reasons to “just say no.”
RUSSELL BURKETT
Executive Director
Orange County Tomorrow
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