The following letter was submitted to the San Mateo Daily Journal by Thomas A. Rubin, a noted transportation consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area.
There are multiple proposals for State-wide bonds still working through to go/no go decisions at this late date in the legislative year. Given the fiscal situation of the State, it will not be very smart to put too many things on the same ballot. All the bond/new tax promoters are already considerable risk that a lot of people will render blanket no votes on ALL proposed taxes and bonds.
Also, remember, you can pass a State-wide bond with a 50+1 majority, but to put in a new tax to cover the debt service costs, you need two-thirds if ACA1 (or ACA10, or whatever that winds up being) doesn’t pass, 55% if it does – and this Constitutional amendment is far from a sure thing for passage.
So, it is very popular to present a bond WITHOUT A NEW TAX to the voters, which greatly increases the chances of it passing, but that means that it can be many years before there is enough excess revenues to allow any sales at all to be made. Even during the “good” economic times, it can take close to decade to get all the authorized bonds sold; in bad economic times – like the foreseeable future – who the Hell Knows?
In transportation planning, proposing the passage of a bond that can’t be sold for years is what we call the “Rocking Chair” approach – it produces a feeling of motion, as in politico’s bragging that they were able to get this wonderful new source of funding for this favorite program passed without raising taxes, but, because no bonds are actually issued until who-knows-when, it doesn’t really get you anywhere.
When we factor in all the bonds and taxes at the city/county/regional level, it will quite a list. The PowerPoint™ presentations on what the Bay Area voters will be asked to decide will have to have at the bottom, “continued on next slide … and the one after that.”