Three strikes for MTA- Congressional reps in a lather

The day after liveblogging an entire MTA building, I am quietly running out the clock on a Friday afternoon and not thinking about Gold Line. But then I am not an elected official- they get paid to keep thinking about policy. And I get paid to tell the public about it.

So, with that overblown introduction, let me tell you all that most that San Gabriel Valley's congressional reps (or most of them anyway) have already gotten together and written an angry response to yesterday's MTA meeting. The highlights, from the offices of U.S. Representatives Hilda L. Solis (CA-32), David Dreier (CA-26), Grace F. Napolitano (CA-38), and Gary G. Miller (CA-42):

"Yesterday was a three strikes kind of day for the San Gabriel Valley at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (Metro) board meeting.

The first strike:

First, Metro turned its back on the residents of the San Gabriel Valley
by refusing to support greater equity in the half cent sales tax
proposal.

Second:

Adding insult to inequity, Metro voted a second time to implement toll
roads on the I-10 corridor, in conjunction with implementation of toll
roads on the I-110

Well, that was basically already an established policy. Yesterday's decision was just a rubber stamp. But, there's more. Wait for it:

If inequity and insult aren't enough, Metro Board Members said no to a commitment of less than one half of one percent of its capital budget for the only project ready to be built in LA County - the Gold Line Foothill Extension.

So our local representatives, minus Adam Schiff, who has thus far been silent on most transit issues (though he has expended a lot of energy trying to get funding for the Gold Line) are upset. Our local council members are upset (Glendora councilman Doug Tessitor called today and wants to set up a meeting, along with some other local city officials, about how the SGV should react to the news- on the table, he says is strategeizing about how to defeat the sales tax, to coming up with a legal way to wrest funds away from the MTA to spend on local transit projects.

But, if you read the story I wrote for today, you will notice the state reps have been either supportive or non committal about the sales tax measure.

So there may yet be a divide over how to proceed against the measure.... I'll be looking at this more next week.

And, in one more transit note, a staffer at Anthony Portantino's office noted that the Gold Line Foothill Extension Authority, which has clashed frequently with the MTA, was actually created by a state Senate bill eight years ago by Adam Schiff. I have been writing that MTA created it.

The idea in pointing this out, I believe, is to suggest that the MTA never wanted to create an independent authority that would take over the Gold Line project. The question is whether the senate bill was initated at the behest of MTA, or over MTA's objections. I think that is believable that MTA would not have wanted to create the Foothill Extension Authority, but it is way before my time, so I'll have to look at it in more detail.