The reply brief, as well as an amicus brief by TRANSDEF and its allies have been submitted to the Court of Appeal. All the briefs are available here. Interestingly, MTC filed an opposition to TRANSDEF’s amicus brief, a very rare move by a litigation party.
The final brief has been filed in the Tos II appeal. The case awaits the assignment of a hearing date. Appellants’ motion seeking calendar preference was denied by the Court of Appeal.
The San Francisco Chronicle printed its endorsement of Measure J on January 29. While TRANSDEF was disappointed, we were pleased that the newspaper gave serious coverage to our rationale to oppose the tax: to avoid creating institutional momentum for decades of further sprawl development that will result in impassable highways. We believe that future development needs to be within walking distance of frequent transit, a model that doesn’t work in widely dispersed neighborhoods.
TRANSDEF’s President David Schonbrunn debated Newell Arnerich, a member of the CCTA Board and Danville City Councilmember on Contra Costa TV. The highlight of the debate was the discussion of suburban sprawl at 18:00, culminating with a take-down of Contra Costa’s vaunted linkage of transportation and land use. The subject came up again, with a particularly good discussion of sprawl at 29:00, peaking at 31:00, with TRANSDEF’s statement that “Single-story ranch homes–that’s obsolete, in terms of new construction.” Moderator: “But people like that! That’s why they move here.” TRANSDEF’s response: “They may like all kinds of things, but when you…
In a strikingly comprehensive editorial, the East Bay Times described the flaws of Measure J and recommended voters say No. Here is a list of those flaws, as articulated by the Times: The ballot language doesn’t mention that Measure J would double the existing transportation sales tax. Measure J is not the promised “transformative plan.” We cannot pave our way out of the congestion crisis. Allocating nearly 20% of tax proceeds for local road maintenance bought support from local government, but duplicates existing funding. Asking county voters to pay for BART improvements makes no sense when BART has its own…
TRANSDEF was invited to present the opposition position on Measure J at an endorsement meeting of the Sierra Club’s West Contra Costa Group. The text of the presentation captures the environmental reasons to oppose CCTA’s tax measure. Here’s the audio of that presentation:
Prior to the Measure X campaign in 2016, the Contra Costa Times (now the East Bay Times) published these thoughts:
After discovering an intentional weakening of the so-called Impartial Analysis of Measure J by Contra Costa County Counsel, TRANSDEF submitted letters yesterday to the Board of Supervisors, the Acting Registrar of Voters and County Counsel, demanding changes to the Impartial Analysis. These letters speak for themselves. The letter to the Board of Supervisors is especially worth reading.
The Tos II case has moved to the next stage. Petitioners have filed the opening brief in their appeal.
