CCMIN051899 - Laserfiche WebLink

Mayor Tarver said he did not support Measure B because it did not have everybody's best interest. He is tried of hearing that there is not enough money to take care of the growth that is causing the demand. He felt traditional funding would not work and that a bigger basis needed to be looked at. From a tax payer's point of view, sales tax is not the way to finance highways. He said the problem will never be fixed as long as the State Legislature and the federal government do not want to recognize the people that use the roads need to pay for the roads and raise the funds accordingly. He has not seen the problem fixed even though the sales tax has been collected for several years. If the right pieces are put together the people will vote for it. He did not know what the solution was, but felt putting it to the vote of the people again was not right answer. Ms. Michelotti said the sales tax is just part of the solution. She said Highway 84 has always been a priority. She wanted to double its capacity. She was not willing to put a lot of money into Highway 84 and only get a 25% increase in capacity. This proposal is an extension of a tax that is already being collected. She said the collection of the sales tax would not fix everything that a regional solution had to be looked at as well. Mayor Tarver said there is a lot of legislation trying to get down air districts to pay for the bad air that is flowing into the San Joaquin Valley. Ms. Ayala asked what is different about transportation planning today than in 1986. Ms. Monsen said there is now legislation that requires congestion management programs to be adopted in counties. There is now an agency that looks at all the development happening in each city as well as in the unincorporated areas. The Alameda County Congestion Management Agency review the environmental documents and make sure the plans are consistent with the regional modeling. The also identify where the hot corridors are going to be and program twenty years worth of funds. The also identify what the priorities should be for Alameda County over the next twenty years. The good news is that revenues have increased from federal sources which are programmed by the congestion management agencies. Ms. Ayala understood the federal funds are gas taxes that has been collected for several years. She asked how many dollars were in the trust fund before the transportation tax was gathered. Ms. Monsen did not know. She said Congress has started to release some of the trust funds. Ms. Ayala said Ellen Tauscher said the trust fund has been opened and that any new money coming into the trust fund and that any of the new money coming in would go out. The question is what happened to all the money that was in the trust fund. She said the chances of getting any of the old money back was zero. Therefore, how does someone go to the voters and say to them, pour more money into this because it will make a difference. Pleasanton City Council 13 05/18/99 Minutes