Bay City News Service
Santa Clara County supervisors last week unanimously approved two ballot initiatives asking voters if a half-cent sales tax should be levied for road and transit improvements.
Most speakers during the Aug. 6 afternoon hearing testified in support of Measures A and B, saying the sales-tax revenue was necessary to avoid increased traffic congestion and smog in the already crowded South Bay.
Measure A states the voters' intent that funds generated from Measure B be spent on specific projects. Some of those include establishing a BART link between Santa Clara and Alameda counties; widening and improving Interstate Highway 880, state highways 87 and 17, and U.S. Highway 101; and synchronizing signal lights on expressways.
Measure B calls for the half-cent sales tax itself. The tax would last nine years, and supporters estimate it would cost each county resident an average of $32 per year.
A handful of opponents, many of whom fought against similar ballot measures in 1984 and 1992, spoke against the proposal, calling it unconstitutional and unnecessary.
The 1992 measure was found to be unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court last November after a lawsuit was filed opposing it. The court invalidated the measure because it had not passed with a two-thirds majority vote.
However, Carl Guardino, manager of the campaign to place the new measures on the November ballot, said that the 1984 tax was successful and generated revenue for numerous transit improvements. It did not pass with a two-thirds vote, but there was also no lawsuit filed against it.
"If they [opponents] were successful in 1984, then [highway] 85 would be a line on a map, 237 would be a two-lane road with a dozen traffic lights and 101 would be two lanes in each direction," Guardino said.
Guardino and other supporters said that despite legal concerns, the tax is critical in a time of decreasing federal and state funding for transportation projects. Guardino said he is confident that the new measures will be successful even though they do not require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Opponents threatened to sue the county again if the measures go through.
Supervisor Jim Beall responded to the naysayers before he voted in favor of the initiatives. "Forget about the lawsuits, folks, because ... this is going to get two-thirds as far as I'm concerned," Beall predicted.
The measures appear on the Nov. 5 ballot.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, August 14, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved