Yes on AC, BART, & Alameda County housing, and elect Saltzman and Simon for BART:
- AC Transit Measure C1: YES YES to support bus service (AC Transit)
- AC Transit At-Large: Chris Peeples
- BART Measure RR: YES YES to keep BART safe and reliable
- BART District 3: Rebecca Saltzman
- BART District 7: Lateefah Simon
- BART Districts 1, 5, and 9: Contact me if you want my opinion
- Alameda County Measure A1: YES YES to build more affordable housing
- Contra Costa County Measure X: Contact me
AC Transit
AC Transit C1: YES YES to support bus service (AC Transit)
This is a slam dunk for me. AC Transit’s bus service is vital to the East Bay, carrying about 200,000 passenger trips each weekday (3rd in the Bay Area after Muni and BART). About 10% of AC Transit’s budget comes from an existing $8/month parcel tax. Measure C1 would extend that funding for another 20 years. Supporters include the Sierra Club, TransForm (the organization I used to help run), Transport Oakland, Democratic party, Alameda Labor Council, and the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Vote Yes on C1.
AC Transit At-Large: Chris Peeples
I’ll quote my friend Nathan, who knows these races better than just about anyone:
“Peeples has poured his heart and soul into this position for years, making himself a leading transit advocate with broad support. Peeples’ opponent, former bus driver and perpetual candidate Dollene Jones is well intentioned (and endorsed by the Stonewall Democratic Club) but ill-informed.”
BART
BART RR: YES YES to keep BART safe and reliable
If you ride BART, you know it needs some serious maintenance work. It needs to fix up its tracks and tunnels and control systems, all the basic steel and wires that make the system work. BART carries about 450,000 passengers every day. During rush hour, more people ride through the BART tube than cross the Bay Bridge. The Bay Area’s economy depends on BART. So even if you don’t ride BART, you benefit from it.
Measure RR would authorize $3.5 billion in bonds, to be repaid by a property tax increase that amounts to about $1.29/month per $100,000 of assessed value. Strict requirements prohibit any of the funds from being used for daily operations or even for replacing the train cars. The bonds would be used entirely to pay for those infrastructure repairs.
These repairs are vital to keep BART running. Without them, we have a real danger of having BART fall into the same kind of disrepair as New York’s subways in the 1970s or the Washington DC Metro now: built at the same time as BART and with the same technology, DC’s Metro has had to to close entire lines for months at a time to deal with deferred maintenance. BART isn’t that bad … yet, and we should make sure it doesn’t get anywhere close by passing Measure RR.
I know a lot about BART’s repair needs through my day job working on transportation issues. Measure RR is endorsed by my old organization, TransForm, and by a wide array of others: Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, Alameda Labor Council, Bay Area Council, and many more.
Opposition comes from State Senator Steve Glazer (eastern Contra Costa & Alameda counties), who disagrees with BART’s prior decisions about labor contracts. If RR fails, BART will still have its maintenance needs, service will get worse, the costs to fix the system will grow higher, and BART will still have to come back to voters later to ask for even more money.
How did we get into this problem? Pretty much the same way we’ve gotten into every other problem of deferred costs since the 1950s: we spent more money & energy on building new things (roads, freeways, water system, BART, schools) than we did on maintaining what we already have. In BART’s case, it spent billions expanding into the suburbs in the 1990’s and 2000’s, largely at the behest of suburban elected officials, and didn’t spend enough maintaining the core system. Now we have to play catchup. The current BART management has been making the RIGHT decisions for the past five or so years -- putting part of every fare into maintenance, for example. Passing this bond is a key part of the strategy of putting BART back on track. Please vote YES on RR.
And if you’re thinking of voting no, please tell me why so I can try to convince you otherwise :-)
BART District 3: Rebecca Saltzman
I’ve known Rebecca for years and have been impressed with her. I was delighted to endorse her four years ago (link), and I’ve only been more impressed as she’s been in office. She understands BART needs to be safe, reliable, and affordable to make the Bay Area work. She’s great. As for her opponents, I’ll quote my friend Nathan, who says
“Opponent Ken Chew, who’s endorsed by the anti-transit East Bay Times and a host of anti-transit Contra Costa elected officials, thinks that “bloated salaries” are the problem. Software engineer Worth Freeman thinks BART is a technical problem. Varun Paul looks cool in his kayak on his website, but shows little knowledge of BART.”
BART District 7: Lateefah Simon
I heartily endorse Lateefah Simon to unseat incumbent Zakhary Mallett. Lateefah is a long-time progressive activist who now runs the Akonadi Foundation working for racial justice in the US. She’s spent her career working on issues such as immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, and civic engagement. Just to get an idea of how impressive she is, here’s a short excerpt fromm her work bio:
“Lateefah has received numerous awards for her work, including the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Jefferson Award for extraordinary public service. She was named “California Woman of the Year” by the California State Assembly, and also has been recognized by the Ford Foundation, the National Organization for Women, Lifetime Television and O Magazine. In 2016, Lateefah was named one of The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 40 Under 40, and in 2016, was appointed by the Governor of California to the California State University’s Board of Trustees.”
The incumbent, Mallett, has not been impressive on the BART Board. He ran for the board with a pledge to get a BART extension to Hercules, something that undoubtedly helped get him elected but is an irresponsible promise to make when BART clearly needs to focus on repairing its core system. The other candidates, Ronald Emerson and Will Roscoe, offer little to nothing to recommend them.
BART Districts 1, 5, and 9: Contact me if you want my opinion
I know a little about the candidates in these races. Contact me if you’d like to hear what I know. Or leave a comment to share your opinion with others.
Alameda County
A1: YES YES to build more affordable housing.
Measure A1 would authorize a $580 million bond to build or repair homes for low-income families, paid for by a property tax increase of about $1/month per $100,000 of assessed value (and a home’s assessed value is usually below market value). This is about as good as it gets for ballot measures: this is a clear need, paid for by a progressive tax, where the benefit (homes for low-income families) is linked to the thing being taxed (home values). Maybe that’s why there’s no argument filed against it and no organized opposition. Vote YES on A1.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment