Problems With Proposition A

Barely after approval of Gov. Deukmejian’s Proposition 111, which doubles California’s gasoline taxes, the Board of Supervisors has put the “Traffic Reduction and Growth Management Ordinance and Expenditure Plan” for sales taxes on November’s ballot as Proposition A.

Proposition A is nothing but pure pork-barrel politics. It will cause more population, pollution, potholes and poor planning. In the end, Proposition A proponents will still plead poverty when the pot of money runs out, as the politicians poor-mouth the public for not paying more for their development pipe dreams.

Proposition A increases the countywide sales tax burden on all of us by more than half a billion dollars. Traffic volumes and congestion will be unabated, and growth will be managed no better than today. . . .

Needed transit expansion and improvements will be limited to less than 20% of these sales tax revenues, and may receive only 5% of the monies. Even this may not be used for modern, mass transportation, but instead be spent on exclusive transportation services, unavailable to the general public.

Proposition A requires no better management of the adverse effects of increased countywide population and commercial development, but only continuation of today’s poor planning and permitting.

Proposition A really is the Politicians’ Excessive Growth and Traffic Congestion Tax and Wasteful Spending Plan of 1990. We will all pay for it through 2010.

NEIL A. MOYER

Ventura