Comments on: Metro Meeting Politics Derail L.A.’s Future

By: Streetsblog » Today’s Headlines

Streetsblog » Today’s Headlines — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:32:21 +0000

[...] BRU, and John Walsh (Pasadena Star-News) Media Unhappy with Metro Board’s Delay Strategy (MetBlogs, LA Weekly)Westsiders "Relieved" with Gold Line Stall (West LA Online)Laying Tracks for [...]

By: marshall

marshall — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:33:38 +0000

I saw we take the sales tax all the way to 10%. I say we do it statewide, thumb our nose at the Federal government’s lackluster investment in mass transit infrastructure, and take the Republic of California into the 20th century, like our economic rivals in Japan and Europe have done. We need to turn the whole state around, not just the City of LA.

By: David Markland

David Markland — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:40:50 +0000

Anything that pisses off the elitist NIMBYs in Cheviot Hills I’m a big fan of. They’ve know for years that a rail line may be passing through there. In fact, it may be a contributing factor to why they’ve been able to live there without property taxes going hire, or allowed them the ability to purchase homes over there.

By: bronte

bronte — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:36:40 +0000

http://westlaonline.com/wcnp_article.php?articleid=19

By: aughr

aughr — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:36:16 +0000

There’s one major issue with the proposal to make the sales tax increase a full penny:

Assemblymember Feuer’s bill only authorizes the MTA board a half-cent increase.

If you delay this by a year or two, you’d make the vote miss the November election when turnout will be highest. Also, I think it’s much better to get started as soon as possible and hopefully lock in some costs since they keep going up.

By: mummey

mummey — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:57:13 +0000

Thank you for the update Jason. I was going to whip up a background blog post a couple of days before the meeting, but then this week got busy. :p

I heard some of the results yesterday on KCRW. They tried to make it sound as optimistic as possible, but still it hurt.

The problem with the meetings is people go into them thinking they can make an impact on the decisions, when in fact the decisions have for the most part already been made and all that is left for the meeting is for the different groups to react.

By: frazgo

frazgo — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:07:27 +0000

Amen Jason. I gave you a map in a past post. I agree 100% we have to take this on a regional needs basis. Nice post, but a problem with a 1% sales tax how many people that can easily shop across the county line will do so? We have ample people here in the SGV who cross lines into the OC for shopping regularly as it is. I remember when I lived in the Valley a lot of people would run to TO and take advanted of Ventura's lower sales tax on big purchases. It happens and wonder how much business would be pushed to neighboring counties when that 1% becomes a chunk more than it cost for the gas to get there?