Measure D

Due to the frequency of news and email going around with misleading and erroneous information.

NEWS: Carpinteria Councilman and others sue Marty Blum et al. for alleged misinformation in the voting pamphlet statement promoting Measure D.
Here are some links to documents.

The misconception that Caltrans workers build highways is wrong. Caltrans Maintenance does an excellent job of maintaining landscaping and drainage. However, except for small emergency jobs, all highway and bridge construction is performed by private contractor firms hired by Caltrans using a low-bid process. When a lane is closed at night, one can be almost 100% sure that a private company is doing the work. Either I (if it is a bridge job) or one of my coworkers (if highway) may be out there to inspect the work.

Construction Contractors should be, and are, private enterprises. Trade unions (another touchy subject) provide some standards for skilled workers.
Garbage collection is a good example of successful contracting out of "public services."
Marborg, a private contractor, does a fine job. However how would you feel driving over bridges that were not inspected, or inspected by poorly-trained, high-turnover consultants whose bosses are paid according to profit? Highway construction is costly and dangerous, and the contractors need to be approved and the work watched closely.

Every consultant design that I have reviewed has had errors, causing delays and added costs. The LA earthquake emergency jobs were necessary, but some predictions state that the lifetimes of emergency contract bridges, and those built at night, are 50% of what they should be. It is possible that a project possibly may be completed faster if design-build is used. The important question is: will it be built well? Will it be cost-effective over 30 years? If it costs less but the State has maintenance headaches for 50 years afterward, is it the most effective use of taxpayer dollars? It has been shown that Caltrans does a better and cheaper job of design and inspection than consultants. The State owns the bridges and knows them best!

Caltrans has specific training classes for their employees, which increase their quality and consistency of work. I left a better paying job to hire on with the State, thinking that I would go to private after I received the training and experience. One reason for my staying has been being surrounded by dedicated people. The ones that I knew that left the state were just after money.

Caltrans has specialists that work with University research programs to maintain our leadership in the world of highway design standards. California has earthquakes, and heavy traffic, which drive the cost and complexity of bridge design. Materials and methods are approved based on function, rather than marketing influences.
Much as the FDA is responsible for keeping pharmaceutical companies under control and medications safe; Caltrans has a sizeable job to control how bridges are built.

Commuter Railroads? Well, just ask a Union Pacific employee and see how they laugh! Anyone who thinks that Union Pacific will easily give up any more of their busy commercial track time is dreaming. Ask your elected officials if they have had any discussions with Union Pacific Railroad. I have asked, and gotten no response.

In Europe trains and buses are great, since there is a village almost every kilometer. People may live crammed into small apartments with their grandmother; and many countries are a fraction of the size of California. Here on the Central Coast, many commute to different cities for work, and mountains and ocean limit the corridors. I lived in Europe for years and prefer our free independent style of life, which is characterized by the automobile.

Rail works well in Manhattan, Chicago, London, Prague and Moscow, if you live near a station. In the 1980’s I was a hopeful young man working on the failed Metro project in Houston, when democratic petitions forced a proposition. Voters rejected the tax for the project just as design was almost completed and my boss was negotiating orders for vehicles. I wonder if Measure D passes, if the same thing will happen in Santa Barbara. Maybe if we all lived in Francisco Torres high-rise dorms and worked on collective farms, then buses would be very efficient. The truth is, kid's doctor appointments, working late, visiting the gym... all change that formula.

I commend trafficsolutions (see link below) on an effort to publicize alternatives for driving to work, but unfortunately, most are not practical for most commuters.
I used to bike 25+ miles per day when I used to race 25 years ago. However the bike lanes around the county do not reflect the promises and amount of money that has been spent. The bicycle advocates should be questioning their government, and not advocating increased congestion.

Daily I see dozens of bicyclists on this road adjacent to Highway 101. However I would be wary to pass this bridge on a bike, especially during the morning commute when cars are speeding to avoid the 101. Not once have I seen a bike on the fancy bridge.

Public agencies with questionable public support continuing to take control of huge sums of money for obscure projects, such as Move101.org’s “Add commuter rail.” One notable grassroots organization, Fix101.org, has begun to try to challenge our government to look at the statistics and I believe that a more transparent user-friendly body while keeping the governmental services economical and productive goals of the organization focused, rather that the

I applaud SBCAG for televising their meetings. This is a good step toward a transparent, user-friendly method of levying taxes, which respects taxpayers instead of ramming policy down the public throat.
I have asked some local agency members if they have discussed this idea with Union Pacific, and all that I have heard is that it can be “negotiated.” In this age of increasing public domain sequestering, should government be able to take money and property at their private discretion?
invincible, adversarial, sequestered, unapproachable, antagonistic, almighty leviathan that it has apparently become.
When I ask about local traffic, they have little to say, but much to say about adding high-density housing which only adds to the traffic problem.

On May 23, 2006, the Santa Barbara City Council appropriated $192,631 from the General Fund Unappropriated Reserves to fund the Upper State Street Study and Improvement Plan. This appears to be another parking study awarded without bidding to a private consultant.

SB Councilmember Greg Hart stated in January 2001 that, "In the next few years residents of the east and westside will be able to walk a block or so from their homes and catch electric shuttle buses that come by every seven and half minutes for a quick ride downtown." I love the idea of shuttle buses, but while building Micheltorena Overcrossing in 2003, I would regularly see many more people walking and biking than taking the shuttle, which was stuck in the same traffic downtown as the cars. Looking at current schedules, I see that the shuttles actually come at 15 minutes, about the time one could walk downtown. I actually live one block from the bus, but my local service has been cut, while I am forced to pay an $18.00 MTD fee with my SBCC class (increasing to $19.00 next Semester.)

"The uniquely built environment that generations of Santa Barbarans have worked to create is a magnet for new development that promises to... create the kind of jobs that allow our children to afford to live in their hometown" (January 2001).
Hmmm. I guess that the same was said about North Hollywood 30 years ago. What really happened is that Aerospace left, and Costco arrived, and we all know what happened to real estate.

They think of themselves as heroes when they densely pack cheap housing into our neighborhoods, but then place obstacles in the roads when traffic increases along with the population. Congestion kills people, as a heart attack kills cells.

Our freeway has congestive heart failure, and every time there is an accident, it experiences a cardiac infarction. Whenever the 101 is closed at Gaviota or La Conchita, we see the effect on the 154 interchange at La Cumbre and other places. Total chaos. Many drivers are obviously not local and not able to replace their cars with bikes or local trains. Some organizations proclaiming to be grassroots, have shown themselves to be special interest groups that don’t seem to use logical and pragmatic thought when they promote certain issues while vehemently opposing others.

What disturbs me the most is that I have seen first hand many vehicle and train accidents, including fresh fatalities, some of which are attributable to the delays in widening freeways. I hold each member of each government body personally accountable for the death, destruction and lost prosperity caused by blocking construction plans, sidetracking Gas Tax money into the General Fund and wasting it on expense padded “research.”

Caltrans has been extremely cooperative with consultant designers. Caltrans even has websites (click here) to assist private design. But To design a project, right of Way must be planned and acquired (bought). Permits from the Coastal Commission, Fish and Game, local water districts, Army Corps of Engineers and others may be necessary. When I worked on Micheltorena Overcrossing, it took 3 months to get approval from the Santa Barbara Tree Committee to remove approximately 6 trees. I am glad that we have agencies to standardize regulations. I am not impressed with legislators and consultants who make big promises and then charge extra for less.

Widening of several busy freeways with great results is how I began my career with Caltrans, with over 15 years as an engineer in State Bridge construction. Also I was oversight engineer on the $900 million design-build Eastern Transportation Corridor (72 new bridges) in the late 90's. The contractors and the inspectors were paid essentially by the same agency. Design-build equals the foxes watching the henhouse, and sometimes I thought that I needed one of the Irvine Rangers' shotguns!

Almost 30 years ago I began working in an Architect's office. The past 15+ years I have been building bridges on the Central Coast and in Southern California. In this climate of misinformation, I can't hold my voice any longer. Spending part of my life in a communist country, I am reminded of it by how some local and State government officials are behaving.

I can’t bear to see half a BILLION dollars go into a black hole. I will vote NO on Measure D as it stands.

Paul Svacina, P.E.
Board Member of Fix101.org
http://www.svacina.com/structures/construction.html

Statement from the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association:

The so-called new Measure D would become the BIGGEST TAX INCREASE in the history of Santa Barbara County!

In California, local sales taxes are ALREADY more than 200% HIGHER than the national average! And of the 58 counties in California, Santa Barbara County's sales tax is one of the HIGHEST!

Sales taxes hit the working poor the hardest and this new Measure D TAX INCREASE will hurt them even more by raising the local sales tax to 8¢ of every dollar – this is a 50% INCREASE in the current Measure D sales tax!

The current Measure D, which was passed in 1989, will raise approximately $475,160,000 by the time it expires in 2009. The politicians promised they would widen the freeway with that money. But twenty years and a half billion dollars later, OUR FREEWAY IS STILL NOT WIDENED!

According to the fine print, $688 million, or 43% of the total for this new Measure D is earmarked for such things as a $126 million commuter rail service that benefits residents of Ventura County.

Why should Santa Barbara county taxpayers raise our sales tax so residents of Ventura County can get a FREE RIDE?

This new Measure D, $1.6 BILLION DOLLAR TAX EXPENDITURE PLAN, was ill-advised and the result of POLITICAL HORSE-TRADING so a few politicians can get their PET PROJECTS funded.

Now the politicians are saying: "renew" Measure D, but this time at a cost to taxpayers of over $1.5 billion dollars, THREE TIMES AS MUCH!

This new Measure D provides NO GUARANTEE the 101 Freeway will be widened within the next thirty years! Can we really trust politicians to do what they say they will do with our hard earned money?

We urge county taxpayers to Vote No on this ill-advised, fundamentally unfair $1 BILLION DOLLAR TAX HIKE!

Think how many cars the shuttles take off the roadways. - Dick Weinberg, City Council, Carpinteria (MTD Newsletter 2001)

The real solution is not reducing traffic to fit capacity. We must expand capacity to handle the growing traffic. - DOT Secretary Norman Mineta, Feb. 28, 2006.

I will harm you the most when I leave you in the hands of academics. - Gengis Khan.

If something appears not to be working, the answer cannot be to make it more punitive. - John Martin, SB Builder

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance. - Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

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Readers are reminded to seek information and use their best judgement when voting on tax increases.