Romero: Sales tax bill doesn't have her vote -- yet

I spoke to State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero earlier this afternoon about the effort to put a half-cent sales tax on the November ballot in Los Angeles County to pay for more road and mass transit projects.

The gist of it: A sales tax requires the passage first of a state bill, AB 2321, and as of today, Romero says she wouldn't vote for it. The bill is currently working its way through the Senate and if enough colleagues join her, the bill could die there -- meaning no sales tax hike on the ballot.

"At this point this bill is not in a satisfactory format for me to be able to deliver an aye vote," Romero said. "I think we can get there, but we intend to raise these issues."

Romero was one of many legislators from the San Gabriel Valley who met this morning in Sacramento for a two-hour breakfast. The 'issues' that she's talking about mostly pertain to a proposed extension of the Gold Line light rail from Pasadena east through the valley. The fear in the valley is that the line will be sacrificed for Westside rail projects backed by elected officials trying to curry favor with the Westside. "This isn't about putting ornaments on a Christmas tree," said Romero.

A few highlights from my interview:

-- Romero does not believe the $328 million set aside for the Gold Line is sufficient. "We'd like to see it extended at least to the county line in Claremont," Romero said. "I would say that for starters. This is a project that's ready to go. We don't see a need for us to wait to have more expensive projects in concept mandated in the state law" to be given a priority.

-- She said that she's leery that language in the bill would instead send money to a subway extension -- and  that dollars for the Gold Line wouldn't be allocated until later, if the sales tax passes muster with voters. "We definitely don't want to be shortchanged so that we have a token extension [of the Gold Line] for a few million dollars here in order to build a massive subway to the sea that might cost 3 billion plus," Romero said. "If the Gold Line is ready to go, let's build it. Why should we stand in the back of the line?"

-- The San Gabriel Valley should not have to support the congestion pricing proposal -- and the $213 million in federal funding that it brings -- to get money from the sales tax, Romero said. And, she said, that was a message she and other elected officials delivered to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at their meeting on Friday at City Hall. "We clearly articulated we didn't want the co-joining of the congestion pricing -- these are separate issues," Romero said. As for congestion pricing, she said that forcing tolls on San Gabriel Valley motorists wasn't fair because residents there had been, in her view, short-changed on mass transit over the years. "I don't think the MTA has been the most stellar representative for folks who live east of the Los Angeles River, she added.

-- Finally, I asked her about the subway extension -- with so many jobs on the Westside, wouldn't it benefit everyone in the region, including residents of the San Gabriel Valley? "I'm open to it, absolutely," Romero said. "It's not necessarily an either/or." And she reiterated her view that the San Gabriel Valley has historically been shortchanged on mass transit and that the Gold Line is a necessary project if populations continue to grow in the valley and Inland Empire.

AB 2321 has received initial approval from the Assembly and two Senate committees. It looks like it will be heard next July 14 in the Senate's Appropriations Committee. And, it appears, there's a lot of work to be done between now and then to satisfy everyone who wants a piece of the potential sales tax funding pie for their favored projects.

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: California Legislature

Comments

[calwatch]

Senator Romero just needs to position herself as the champion of the SGV and of the working class Hispanics so she can take Gloria Molina's seat in 2010. That's all this is about. Why is she pushing for East Los Angeles to get incorporated, why is she against HOT lanes, why is she for this worthless Gold Line extension? I would like to see, instead of the Gold Line, double track Metrolink, run half hour or more frequency, and and have LACMTA buy down the fares to $1.25 each way within LA County. That would be a more efficient and economical way of handling this.

[lsm]

With our population booming, gas prices soaring, automobile traffic gridlocked and mass transit infrastructure woefully underbuilt, we face a regional transportation crisis. Squabbling over which local crisis is worse than another is inane when the crisis is critical across our region. Feuding over inadequate resources is pointless when we need to unite to develop adequate resources.

If the Westside and Downtown choke to death from stalled traffic, the San Gabriel Valley will get sucked into the undertow as our region's economic engine plunges to the bottom. If the quality of life in the San Gabriel Valley becomes intolerable because of gridlock, the Westside and Downtown will sink along with it. Like it or not, we are not suffering in separate local crises, we are stuck in a regional crisis and we can only survive if we work together.

This regional crisis demands leaders who will work to help us understand how vitally interdependent we are, how we need to develop workable mass transit across our county and why projects not just in our backyards, but across the county are vitally important to all our well being.

Sen. Romero may have valid concerns about historical distribution of inadequate county transportation funding. If she does, she must address these concerns privately with other regional politicians and do the necessary horse-trading to hammer out an acceptable regional transportation plan. Speaking publicly about "putting ornaments on a Christmas tree," or asking "Why should we stand in the back of the line?" or alleging "folks who live east of the Los Angeles River" have been "short-changed on mass transit over the years" is cheap demagoguery. Predictably, it has sparked responses in this thread about "west-side pigs feeding at the trough," "chiding a jurisdiction for wanting to get that money returned to it for their projects instead of just giving it away to a subway in LA City" and disbelief that any of us have "actually BEEN in the SGV during the rush hour." Sen Romero's public comments pander to our baser instincts, are guaranteed to scuttle any chance of passage of vitally needed funding for county-wide mass transit and will condemn us to tearing at each other as we all sink together. We need to get past this petty Balkanization and we must make sure our leaders work for us rather than against us.

[Matt]

As for receiving "fair share" of county transit dollars or coming out of nowhere to the front of the line, the Wilshire subway was promoted as the anchor or main line of the regional transportation system back in 1980 when Prop A proposed before LA County voters. Since then, Westsiders have helped fund the entire Metrolink system for the county including in the SGV and which none goes to the Westside as well as MetroRail projects all over the county of which none go to the Westside. This includes the lightly used Gold Line in the SGV, which has just 1/7th the ridership of the current subway. The SM freeway is still waiting for carpool lanes, which much of the county has as well including the 10 in the SGV, which has had them for 30 plus years. Fair share of taxes has to include Prop A and C as well as the current proposed sales tax.

Last week, SGV leaders said they needed $80M from the MTA and they could get the rest from federal sources to fund the extension to Azuza. Now they say $328M is not enough in local money for the entire extension. This is really just political pandering to appease local developers and say to local voters that they fought for their local project. All of this for an extension of a line that is so poorly used now, it is the embarrasment of the MTA. Some individual stations along the subway extension will have more boardings than the entire Gold Line extension to Azuza per MTA ridership studies!!! Funny thing is there may actually be more SGV residents using the subway extension than the Gold Line extension because so many SGV residents commute to Mid-Wilshire and Westside of LA.

[Dana Gabbard]

Cat is incorrect to state the Foothill extension would cost "a fraction" of the subway to the sea. In fact going all the way to Ontario would probably cost about two billion dollars. And that is for a line with very weak projected ridership. Condescending comments on westside pigs glosses over that the subway on cost benefit comparison beats the Foothill extension by a mile. And it is a mis-statement that the Gold Line is ready to be built; the documents cited by the Authority fall far short of any signficant design work having been done.

I am curious at this Don declaring "Dana, as usual, is wrong" in championing Gloroa Romero's misleading paroichialism. Is it wrong to scrutinize the actual value of a project regionally instead of allowing mypoia to win the day?

A Gold Line extension to Azusa makes sense. Beyond that is premature, and likely won't make sense for about a decade. And all the snarky comments etc. in the world won't change that truth.

This debate will turn on hard numbers, not insinuations and mindless demands.

[Cat]

First of all, no transit project "recoups" its construction costs. What we should focus on is the cost of the project as it relates to the number of riders it will serve. The Gold Line is far, far less expensive build than the subwat to the sea. So, now that the two projects are on a relatively even playing field as far as cost per rider, one of these projects is ready to be built and one of them isn't. Now why does it make sense to "park" the project that is ready to be built, which in real dollars would cost a fraction of the cost of the one that will be built in five, ten, or even fifteen years. The funds needed to get the Gold Line up and running are a fraction of what will be needed to fund the STTS. Ah, but the return? Billions of private dollars invested in the areas along the Gold Line..the areas that will absorb the county's population growth in the nest 25 years. If we build it right....we build it right now. Senator Romero is correct...why on earth would the Gold Line stand in the back of the line. Could anyone ever iimagine the Subway to the Sea ever standing in the back of the line over funding? Not with the west side pigs feeding at the trough.

[Don]

Um, let me get this straight. Sales taxes are collected countywide, in rough proportion to population. And you're chiding a jurisdiction for wanting to get that money returned to it for their projects instead of just giving it away to a subway in LA City? That's insane.

If you want more "destination-based" transportation, start imposing higher user fees to cover the cost, which is more equitable than taxing the entire County so Antonio can get his subway.

Romero is right on this one. Dana, as usual, is wrong.

[Tom A.]

Have any of you actually BEEN in the SGV during rush hour? Do you KNOW what the 210, Foothill Blvd., Arrow Highway and the like look like? Are you even AWARE that had the FE gotten the green light, it could have been up and running by the time the STTS was ready to begin construction (per Mayor V's estimated timetable)?

Just asking.

[Morgan Wick]

Can't send funding to a project that actually warrants rail and that's been promised since the 80s, gotta send it to a recent pork barrel project through sprawlville that goes all the way to the county line where it's impractical to actually take it all the way downtown. The SGV "has historically been shortchanged on mass transit" so let's fix that problem by continuing to shortchange it and send a rail line through the sparsely populated northern foothills of the valley instead of where the core of the SGV is along the 10 corridor!

[lsm]

Let's congratulate Sen. Romero for serving as poster child for myopic politicos who blithely trade our long-term regional welfare for their short-term, parochial political agendas. Her statement that she is "open to it [completion of the Purple Line], absolutely," as long as she can hold it hostage to prioritization of "her" project is one all our children (including our children in the SGV) should remember as they ponder how our failure to provide workable transportation between our county's largest employers and through our county's densest neighborhoods led to their declining payroll taxes, employment opportunities, quality of life and environment. We must note these self-serving, Balkanizing politicos who are so eager to drag us all down with their back-biting and make sure we never re-elect them.

[Felix]

Sen. Romero's rationale is typical of both short-sighted bureaucracy as well as self-defeating inter-regional bickering. Leadership is lacking a broad-based vision for a cohesive and comprehensive Southland transportation strategy that includes not only infrastructure, but also a staunch commitment to funding. Unanswered is the question of what LA county's existing 1/2 cent sales tax (enacted a quarter century ago) will go towards now that so much of our subway and lightrail lines have already been built using this funding? Or are we only trying to replace eroded per gallon gas taxes that haven't been raised since the early '90s? Why should consumers pay for these projects through higher sales tax to the benefit of drivers through cheap 18 cent gas tax?

[Dana Gabbard]

I am tired of the "fair share"argument. I think they are more interested in the project as a trophy for proving political mojo, and facilitating development. She is out of touch if she thinks an extension to Claremont is happening any time soon -- the ridership projected is very minimal. We need to serve needs, not political ambitions.

[Chris Bucka]

Does our State Senate majority leader feel that more ommuters would be served by a Gold Line extension, or just her constituents. If we're looking after the COMMON good of the county with this sales tax hike, Ms. Romero is going to have to let the gold line take a back seat to more destination based transportation.....I could easily see tourists utilizing the subway down Wilshire; it's by UCLA, museums, the Miracle Mile, and would seriously reduce congestion. The most densely populated part of the county is where the subway is proposed, so why can't the Gold Line wait just a little longer? Think for the good of the state and for the county's economy. How are you going to recoup costs for a Gold Line I doubt could even be in the same ballpark for ridership numbers? STEVE, I propose a poll on the blog to see how many readers would use each proposed extension. Then our biased state senator can see that she's abandoning the LA county family for a select few constituents in the Northeastern part of the county. Shame on her.