Compromise gets a proposed L.A. County sales tax hike to pay for transit projects one step closer to November ballot.
Road Sage
The effort to put a half-cent sales tax increase on the Nov. 4 ballot in Los Angeles County has been like a movie action hero of late -- dodging bullets and hanging onto the edge of a cliff while people stomp on its fingers.
But it keeps surviving. On Wednesday, the effort got a boost when a key state bill, AB 2321 by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), was unanimously approved by the state Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill would give local officials the authority to put the sales tax proposal on the ballot.
But the effort has a ways to go. The full Senate must now vote on the bill, the Assembly must re-approve it and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must sign it -- and he has said he's not signing any bills until the state budget mess is resolved.
But in the world of mass transit -- where there's little money to build anything -- the sales tax is a very big deal. Proponents say it would raise $30 billion to $40 billion over its 30-year life span, money that would help pay for long-sought projects such as a Westside subway extension, a Gold Line extension into the San Gabriel Valley, a new Canoga Boulevard busway and other transit projects.
As recently as Monday, Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) had been publicly threatening to try to kill the bill if it wasn't amended to let some money go toward a Green Line light-rail extension to Los Angeles International Airport. Also not happy was Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who sought similar protections for the 710 Freeway tunnel he wants constructed under South Pasadena.
But amending the project list attached to the Sacramento bill also would have required changes to the list approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board. MTA officials said it's too late to do that and, besides, they don't want to give others a crack at challenging the list of projects.
Transportation officials also acknowledged that some big projects -- if they are to be completed -- would need more than the tax increase could provide. And that made legislators nervous, fearing that a future MTA board would raid money slated for the Green Line, for example, and dump it into the Westside subway extension.
The parties ended up reaching a compromise. Language was inserted into the bill that didn't change the project list but made it clear that the Legislature expects projects such as the Green Line and the 710 tunnel to be built or started with sales tax money.
