Board of Supervisors spurns sales tax measure

I just got off the phone with Tony Bell, Michael Antonovich's deputy, and the county Board of Supervisors voted this morning not to put the half-cent sales tax measure on the November ballot. The measure would fund $40 billion of transit projects over 30 years.

The MTA board, of which all five supervisors are members, approved the tax two weeks ago. They did not have the votes on the MTA, but they had it for their county supervisor's meetings.

What does this mean? Bell believes there will be a legal scrape between the board's lawyers and MTA lawyers. It could mean that the sales tax measure will have to be voted on in a future election or a special election.

Meanwhile the state legislature needs to pass a bill supporting the tax. The bill is supposed to be discussed on Thursday. The deadline for putting it on November's ballot is Friday. But now it may not be legally allowed to go on November's ballot.

More on this later

UPDATE: In the left corner Los Angeles County, in the right corner the MTA.... yes, it's happening. MTA spokesman Rick Jager says the agency is gearing up to get into court as soon as possible.

Also, Jager says that even if the MTA loses the lawsuit, it can still put the measure on the November ballot... it would have to be on a separate ballot from the consolidated county ballot, ostracized from the world of ballot measures and electoral contests from nation to city as the only measure not allowed to be on the main ballot.

It would also cost the county (or MTA?) extra money to print up the separate ballots. Plus, of course the costs of the legal battle (MTA is forced to look for outside counsel because they cannot, of course, be represented by county counsel).

Tony Bell, in Antonovich's office, says it is not clearly legally established that MTA would be able to print up a separate ballot, though he admitted it was discussed as a possibility at today's meeting. I am trying to get county counsel on the phone to figure out the legal ramifications.

Sometimes, I think it would be more effective to send would-be journalists to law school instead of journalism school. Of course, journalism would be the most low-paid job that any any law-school graduate could conceive of taking.