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By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Facing a Friday deadline to turn in petitions, opponents of a Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train are still not sure if they will be able to force an election to repeal the SMART sales tax.
“I don’t know if we have enough signatures,” said Clay Mitchell of Windsor, co-chairman of RepealSMART. “I think we are close. Beyond that at this point, I don’t know.”
Mitchell said backers of the petition drive plan to turn in petitions to the registrars of voters in Sonoma and Marin counties on Friday, if they believe they have 15,000 valid signatures.
They argue the threshold is 15,000 signatures, citing Proposition 218, a 1996 initiative requiring voter approval of tax increases. However, SMART officials believe it is 39,000 signatures, the threshold set in an elections code cited by the Secretary of State.
RepealSMART has been collecting signatures since late September in an attempt to put a measure on the November ballot to overturn Measure Q, a quarter-cent sales tax passed by voters in November 2008.
After the Friday deadline to turn in petitions, the registrar of voters have 30 working days to validate the signatures.
The sales tax is the major source of funding for the planned commute trains between the two counties.
RepealSMART contends that SMART’s plan, which would open with trains running between Guerneville Road in Santa Rosa and downtown San Rafael in late 2015 or early 2016, is far short of what voters approved.
SMART initially planned to have trains running between Cloverdale and Larkspur in late 2014, but the project has been hampered by the weak economy and falling sales taxes, which cut into the money SMART has for construction.
The transit district still plans to extend the line towards Cloverdale and Larkspur as other funds become available.
RepealSMART has stepped up its efforts in the past month and began paying professional signature gatherers $1 per signature.
That spurred the SMART Riders Coalition, which supports SMART, to begin its own campaign three weeks ago, sending people out to distribute pro-SMART leaflets where the signatures were being gathered.
The coalition is made up of labor, business, transportation and conservation groups.
Mitchell said that the coalition members caused problems and hindered the anti-SMART campaign’s ability to collect signatures.
Dennis Rosatti of Sonoma County Conservation Action, a member of the coalition, said members passed out pro-SMART leaflets to people coming in and out of stores, but did not confront nor stand in front of those gathering the signatures.
“It has been pretty cordial, especially with the volunteer signature gatherers,” Rosatti said. “The paid folks, they are typically carrying multiple petitions for state initiatives, they are a bit more aggressive, from what we have discovered.”
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John Reed, thank you for your reply, but here is a sticking point: “will be”? I thought they had already hired some people and had started construction. So? Isn’t there anywhere to find the details about those jobs? Is everything still “will be” as far as the public is concerned? When will SMART be up-to-date and transparent about ongoing actions?
As far as your “advice” for RepealSMART, reading it shows me that you have not taken the time to understand our position. You make these statements as though you know what we were/are doing, but you obviously don’t. When you are willing to make the effort to study RepealSMART’s position, come back and we’ll talk. :)
The estimated 1,000 jobs will be for surveyors, track repair specialists, heavy equipment operators, laborers, electricians, etc. There is a good article in the North Bay Business Journal that goes into more detail.
I do hope that you and your allies will put your time and energy into helping the project come to completion as soon as possible, rather than to continue on a path of obstruction and added costs to the public. You’ve made your point, now show us that you are constructive individuals and not just ideological dead-enders who are opposed to any public project, just because it creates a tax revenue stream.
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/46956/smart-board-approves-first-construction-contract/
John Reed, can you asnwer this question? What are the details behind SMART’s claim of 900 jobs? Is there a list of the jobs that will be furnished? What kind of jobs? What will be their duration? How many will actually go to local people?
The repeal went down to the humiliating defeat that it deserved. They failed and the supporters of SMART will not let this crank campaign derail the progress of the project again. Give it up, you’re finished.
The truth will come out on MANY subjects this year.
If you were with the People during this period, future employment in public service will be much easier.
If Repeal SMART fails, all we can do is say ” I told you so ” 5 years from now.
The proponents have Utopian dream, the opponents have facts. The Cities are beyond broke, the County, the State, our Country, but let’s spend a Billion on a useless train..
Oh my. Give me one supporter that wants to live in a Railroad Square Condo above a pizza place or a Starbucks, and Ill show you Section 8 housing where that person commutes to the liquor store. And has 3 cars ! All old clunkers !
In other news, the implementation of SMART will have such a “huge” impact on car utilization that Hansel Auto Group is investing $21million in private money to expand their already huge dealership operations in Santa Rosa!
Good for you Hansel!
@Chris I never said it was my job, I just asked a simple question. But as per usual, anyone in support of this train to nowhere, can’t answer a direct question. You went straight to a PERSONAL attack. Why so defensive? YOU are the one who was spouting propaganda about all those great jobs. Get a grip Chris!
@Cheryl: why are you in charge of defining what jobs ‘count’ and what jobs don’t? Planning has begun, materials are in motion, don’t those jobs matter?
Check out: http://www.streetfilms.org In terms of Best Practices Video Documenting Moving beyond the Automobile, Multi- modal mass transporttion, Public Spaces , pedestrian & bike density/friendly & SMART INFILL GROWTH! Time to Depave the Asphault.
Sounds like the anti-SMART group won’t even have 15,000 signatures, the amount needed for a countywide campaign, and they’ve wishfully claimed this two county campaign would need. I look forward to their upcoming conspiracy theories about how a U.N.-following progressive machine illegally killed their campaign. On the other hand, it is time for an honest discussion about SMART. The initial SMART campaign got passage in part by giving low cost projections. This lead to low revenue projections. After the Great Recession hit, the already modest revenue projections could even be met. It is sad.
People advocating for the train/stack and pack housing projects seem to have a great deal of hostility and anger toward anyone exercising their rights as citizens.
I admit that I did not vote for the train tax the first, second or third time around.
I have known SMART-style bullies before and they continually prove that they are not competent or trustworthy.
They don’t deliver any of the promised goals on time or as stated.
In the free market business world, they would be searching for a job, and the little train that couldn’t would be a utopian hunk of scrap metal.
For the heavy handed, well funded SMART mob, insults replace honest debate and obfuscation trumps attention to taxpayers concerns.
Thanks, friends of SMART, for reminding us why we should never trust you, and never vote for or finance anything you are even remotely involved in.
I sent my petition in certified mail.
Can’t wait until this is silly repeal thing is finally put to bed tomorrow!
The Repeal SMART petition people are doing the good work that more people would do if they understood the true meaning of what the SMART social designers have in mind for the people living in Sonoma and Marin counties.
If you would like to live in a little box next to a train track SMART is your cup of tea. But the SMART reality is something else. It social planning on a massive scale. All of this is not new. It was dream of social planners years ago and taught in urban planning classes in universities. It never got off the ground and for a very good reason. People didn’t buy into living in little condos on top of each other. They wanted conventional houses with yards and privacy.
Now the SMART proponents believe they have solved this problem with their railroad. It is going to be a very hard sell. Who would move to Windsor to live in a little condo where children have no backyards to play and your residence is over a noisy restaurant or bar?
People need to speak out and elect polticans who question the direction these social planners are stearing the county.
Thanks to Repeal Smart for trying either way. If it goes forward, some day we will be looking back at a huge failure. Some of us get to say ‘I told you so’ but that is little consolation.
The repeal campaign deserves to go down to defeat. The anti-SMART forces have been filling the public airwaves with distortions, misrepresentations, phony math, and some outright lies. We have heard reports that the paid signature collectors would get people to sign on both sides of the debate. If you’re against SMART sign here. If you’re for SMART, sign here. Either way it’s a buck in their pocket.
This entire campaign has been an exercise in deception. The same characters who opposed SMART all along re-surfaced, claiming that they only wanted another vote because the project has changed roll-out dates. That doesn’t fly: they opposed it to begin with, and would oppose it in any configuration, because it is a public project rather than a private business venture. One of campaign leaders insists chastely that the repeal group is a broad-based nonpartisan effort, when in fact the volunteer base was drawn primarily from a small group of Tea Party Republican partisans in Novato and Windsor.
I hope that come Friday that the truth will be told, and the low levels of support in the general public are revealed by a deficient signature effort. Otherwise, this small group of anti-government activists will ending costing Marin and Sonoma Counties even more money than they already have.
I can’t wait to drive the train. If the Yahoos Against SMART have gathered enough signatures then they are up for a fight! I worked the past election to get 2/3 vote for SMART and I am not giving it up because a fraction of the voters have no vision. I don’t they the REPEALERS will succeed though because they spent more time posting lies and misinformation on these boards than they did gathering signatures. I’ll bet their failure to gather the requisite signatures shows them for what they are: All Talk and No Action!
Can someone tell me one job created, who got the job and what it is? The people paid more than the governor of California on the SMART board don’t count.
I love how these environmentalists love to throw around the word “unsustainable” yet they they are for this Heavyweight Gas guzzling diesel that NOBODY will ride for commuting purposes, which is the very definition of “unsustainable”
86,00 dollars per rider? Why doesnt SMART just save some money and buy ever rider 2 Chevy Volts. Its greener and Lord knows government owned GM needs the money.
@Chris, can you provide proof of those jobs? I don’t mean the ones that went to members of the board or their “staff”, but real jobs held by people from Sonoma county.
Repeal SMART has already done what they do best: case needless disruptions, confusion and delay by spreading lies and Tea Party Talking points against rail. If they don’t get the numbers they need I won’t be surprised, because actual work isn’t as easy as sitting behind an anonymous computer spewing lies about SMART. We needed a Train. We voted on a Train. We are getting a Train. Repealers: Please sell you snake oil somewhere else.
The reason anti-smart is a bust is obvious–the People have already spoken on the matter.
The RepealSMART group deserves generous praise no matter what the outcome. The odds they faced were always daunting. Neither Sonoma or Marin counties are known to welcome causes on behalf of fiscal prudence. Yet they were willing to do more than just gripe about one more White Elephant project.
Thank you.
You know what, I’m changing my position on this whole train idea. I say let it be built. I’m already weaseling to get my hands on a contract or two for various aspects of the project. The train will never be viable, never run without massive subsidies and will slowly degrade like the roads in the county, you know, the ones there isn’t money to maintain.
It will be a historic disaster, and with the ability to store massive amounts of data for basically nothing, there will be evidence of the government lies and exaggerations that conned the Sheeple into wasting the money on it. When trains were first the “future” of transportation (back in the 1800′s), there wasn’t the means to save the projections like today.
SMART…the future of Sonoma County transportation, 1800′s technology!
The SMART train and pathway project is already putting many local people to work. This is a great project that is and will be (for decades to come) a boon for the North Bay economy.