Spring Break
BART measure succeeds in court challenge by opponents
Jason Le Miere
Issue date: 12/8/08 Section: News
Measure B, which would bring BART to San Jose, may have gotten the green light from voters, but a recent court battle temporarily threatened to derail the project.
The measure, which needed 66.67 percent of the votes to pay for the operations and maintenance costs of the extension by a one-eighth percent sales tax increase, passed with 66.78 percent approval.
"We're all very happy here," said Phil Yost, a spokesman for Measure B. "We worked very hard during the campaign and we think that this was an important improvement in the transportation network for Silicon Valley. So we're delighted that it's passed."
To some, though, this was not the end of the matter. The Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, a nonprofit environmental organization, sought to get a manual recount of 10 percent of the precincts in Santa Clara County.
"We believe that Silicon Valley deserves better than BART," said David Schonbrunn, president of the transportation fund. "BART is an obsolete technology that's slower, less flexible and completely incompatible with the rest of the world, making it more expensive. There's just no point building any further BART extensions."
The transportation fund's main grievance rested on the rule issued by Secretary of State Debra Bowen in October. The ruling states that a manual recount of 10 percent of precincts be conducted if the difference between yes and no votes is less than 0.5 percent, not the margin of victory.
"Unfortunately, the regulation regarding ballot measures was badly drafted," Schonbrunn said, "so as to not provide protection where the contest required a super majority. That's the whole issue here."
The supporters of the measure said the tight margin of victory influenced the opposition to try and stop the measure going through.
"The opponents were obviously looking at all their options to see if maybe something could happen that would turn the vote around," Yost said.
The measure, which needed 66.67 percent of the votes to pay for the operations and maintenance costs of the extension by a one-eighth percent sales tax increase, passed with 66.78 percent approval.
"We're all very happy here," said Phil Yost, a spokesman for Measure B. "We worked very hard during the campaign and we think that this was an important improvement in the transportation network for Silicon Valley. So we're delighted that it's passed."
To some, though, this was not the end of the matter. The Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, a nonprofit environmental organization, sought to get a manual recount of 10 percent of the precincts in Santa Clara County.
"We believe that Silicon Valley deserves better than BART," said David Schonbrunn, president of the transportation fund. "BART is an obsolete technology that's slower, less flexible and completely incompatible with the rest of the world, making it more expensive. There's just no point building any further BART extensions."
The transportation fund's main grievance rested on the rule issued by Secretary of State Debra Bowen in October. The ruling states that a manual recount of 10 percent of precincts be conducted if the difference between yes and no votes is less than 0.5 percent, not the margin of victory.
"Unfortunately, the regulation regarding ballot measures was badly drafted," Schonbrunn said, "so as to not provide protection where the contest required a super majority. That's the whole issue here."
The supporters of the measure said the tight margin of victory influenced the opposition to try and stop the measure going through.
"The opponents were obviously looking at all their options to see if maybe something could happen that would turn the vote around," Yost said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
taco
posted 12/08/08 @ 7:20 PM PST
i agree... compared to other countries especially europe and australia, bart litterally sucks; and its not just obsolete, its so goddamn old africa doesnt have them
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