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Mr. Roush said characterizing a funding decision as legislative, so it is subject to a referendum, is a dangerous door to open. Typically funding decisions are considered administrative, not legislative. There may be another funding decision that Council would not want to be referendable, and once that door is opened, it may he difficult to close. Ms. McKeehan assumed there were two different tracks. One was that Council would not fund the project and put that on the ballot. The other scenario is that Council would say build the interchange and see if the citizens would referend that decision. Mayor Pico felt if Council decided not to fund the intemhange and asked the citizens to ratify that decision, it would be possible to have it on the ballot as early as November 2003. The community could then state its position. In the meantime, the General Plan update process is underway and steps could be taken to remove the interchange from the General Plan officially. In the meantime, the vote would give an indication of whether the community supports it or not and perhaps create some significant future barriers to the construction of the interchange. Mr. Swift said there are already policies in the Cimulation Element with respect to how certain infrastructure improvements get fimded. He believed that would be consistent with the policies already in the General Plan to do something like the Mayor has suggested. The only downside would be that the local traffic fee program has the West Las Positas interchange in it to be funded by new development. Ms. Ayala said the project could be taken off that list. Mayor Pico invited public testimony. Matt Sullivan, 7882 Flagstone Drive, indicated that in 1994 a group of West Side residents appeared before the General Plan Steering Committee and asked that the West Las Positas interchange not be built due to negative impacts on their neighborhood. In 1996, the same group asked that it be removed from the General Plan. Between 1997 and 2001, many of those same neighbors participated in the City study to evaluate alternatives to the interchange. Now, almost ten years later, he is again asking that the interchange be removed. During this period, the views of the residents have not changed, but they have learned more. For example, although the interchange is supposed to be a solution to traffic problems, in fact it would create more traffic by opening the floodgates from a grid locked freeway system. This would be along a corridor between four schools used by hundreds of students dally. The interchange, when combined with the Stoneridge extension to E1 Charro, would create a crosstown expressway for freeway cut through traffic. The interchange would be far more expensive than anyone every dreamed and commitments for its funding seem to have evaporated. Finally, the Committee has learned there are alternatives to building this interchange that maintain the General Plan level of service standards. In short the interchange is not in the best of the community at large. He believed the staff recommendation to include this as another alternative in the General Plan update is not following through on the commitment to remove the interchange. It is merely following through on what the Committee has been doing for almost ten years. He wanted a direct, focused process to remove the interchange from the General Plan while meeting CEQA requirements and providing the necessary information to evaluate the resulting alternatives and Pleasanton City Council 23 03/18/03 Minutes