Hi all, Please see the quoted email below from transit activist Howard Strassner for more details. In addition to the MTA agenda item he highlights, the Board of Supervisors has also snuck authorizing this item as a resolution onto their 'Adoption Without Committee Reference' calendar for this Tuesday May 1st. (Board agenda item 49). This item sets San Francisco up for exactly the scenario that many have warned about; that Federal or other Central Subway funding will be cut and the MTA will then take up the slack from its own revenues, thereby inevitably raising fares and fees and/or cutting basic transit services to pay for this ridiculous billion dollar a mile boondoggle. NOTE: Sean Elsbernd has not yet co-sponsored this legislation, so it may be possible for us to ask that he send it to committee for a full hearing. Any of you with a friendly connection to Elsbernd please contact him and asked him to do so. Here is the Board item text: 49. [Supporting Assurance Funding for the Central Subway Project] Sponsors: Wiener; Chiu, Avalos, Mar, Campos, Olague, Cohen, Kim, Chu and Farrell Resolution supporting SFMTA's commitment to issue revenue bonds as assurance funding for the Central Subway Project in the event of any delay or other shortfall in the availability of funding. 04/25/2012; REFERRED FOR ADOPTION WITHOUT COMMITTEE REFERENCE AGENDA AT THE NEXT BOARD MEETING. Question: Shall this Resolution be ADOPTED? Eric B On 4/28/2012 10:31 AM, Howard Strassner wrote:
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MTA BOARD AGENDA, MAY 1, 2012:See link for Item 10.4 for details.
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/SFMTABoardMay12012agenda.htm <http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/SFMTABoardMay12012agenda.htm>
SaveMuni.com has asked that Item 10.4 be removed from the Consent Calendar .
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The MTA is quietly authorizing and incurring debt for $61 million in revenue bonds for the Central Subway.But the premises of Prop A 2007, which granted revenue bond authority to the MTA, have not been met. Despite increased funding from increased parking taxes/ fees/ fines/ enforcement, MTA has shifted those funds to work orders and bad projects like the Central Subway. Mandated citywide improvements from the Transit Effectiveness Program (TEP) have not been implemented---only service cuts, discontinued routes, shortened and curtailed lines.Revenue bonds are much more needed to address Muni’s $25.4 billion in existing capital needs.
PROP A CHARTER AMENDMENT, November 2007:See Page 39 and 115.
http://sfpl.org/pdf/main/gic/elections/November6_2007.pdf <http://sfpl.org/pdf/main/gic/elections/November6_2007.pdf>
The MTA calls the issuance of revenue bonds as assurance funding---in the event that State High Speed Rail Bond Funds are delayed.But Governor Jerry Brown has not supported the Central Subway Project for Proposition 1A High-Speed Rail funds---because /“the project appears unrelated to the high-speed rail project or a comprehensive statewide rail plan”./In fact, the Central Subway disconnects Muni from High-Speed Rail