Ventura County officials say if Proposition 6 passes, Rice Avenue bridge plan collapses
Mike HarrisIn May, local officials lauded the authorization of $68.6 million in funding for a long-planned, high-priority bridge in Oxnard they said would have prevented a deadly train vs. truck collision there in 2015.
The California Transportation Commission green-lighted the money from state Senate Bill 1, last year's Road Repair and Accountability Act, which is funded in part by increased gas taxes and vehicle registration fees.
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A Nov. 6 ballot measure, Proposition 6, seeks to repeal SB 1.
If approved by a simple majority of voters, the proposition will kill the funding for the Rice Avenue bridge in Oxnard, as well as that for other transportation projects in Ventura County, said Darren Kettle, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission.
The state transportation commission's approval of the funding for the Rice Avenue project was contingent upon the money being available in 2021, Kettle said.
"And so, if the money goes away, you know, the money goes away," he said. "By repealing these gas tax and vehicle license revenues for transportation, it will have a substantial impact on our transportation system in Ventura County," he said.
'Cost of living relief'
Proposition 6 proponents are having none of it.
"Oh, the hostage-taking begins, wonderful," said Carl DeMaio, chairman of the Yes on Prop 6, Repeal the Gas Tax campaign, "It's outrageous that government officials are trying to bully the voters into keeping the tax increase in place."
DeMaio said an 18 cents per gallon statewide gas tax that was in place before Senate Bill 1's additional 12 cents per gallon gas tax provided "more than enough money to fund those projects."
"The facts are that the existing gas tax was one of the highest rates in the country prior to the latest increase with SB 1," said DeMaio, a former San Diego City Councilman and the host of a weekday radio talk show on KOGO-AM in San Diego. "So, the reality is we've already paid for those projects that they're threatening. And these people didn't fix the roads when we gave them the money."
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DeMaio said that if passed, Proposition 6 will be a financial boon to working families in Ventura County and the rest of the state.
"Proposition 6 provides working families with cost-of-living relief by repealing both the gas tax increase and the car tax that politicians imposed," he said.
If the measure passes, it will save the average California family $650-$800 a year depending on how much they drive, DeMaio said.
"Our assessment shows that families in Ventura County actually are a little bit above the national average for commute times," he said. "And so, they are going to be closer to the $800 figure rather than the $650 figure, And that's for a family with two cars."
SB 1 was narrowly passed in April 2017 by a two-thirds vote of the Democratic-dominated state Legislature.
"Without voter approval," DeMaio said.
And thus, besides repealing the increased gas taxes and vehicle registration fees, Proposition 6 would also require voter approval for California lawmakers to impose, increase, or extend such taxes or fees in the future.
Major supporters of the measure include the California Republican Party, Republican Party candidate for governor John Cox and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Major opponents include Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown, construction companies and labor unions.
Opponents are far out-raising supporters of the measure, according to the California Secretary of State's office. As of Oct. 1, opponents had raised nearly $31 million, while supporters had raised $4.6 million.
SB 1 is estimated to provide $52.4 billion in funding for transportation projects statewide over the next decade.
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Besides the gas tax increase, it generates revenue by increasing vehicle registrations fees by $25 to $175, depending on a car's value. It also raised diesel excise and sales taxes and imposes a $100 annual fee for zero-emission vehicles starting in 2020.
Transportation funding threatened
According to the Ventura County Transportation Commission, in addition to the funding for the Rice Avenue bridge, the state is committed to SB1 funding for other local transportation projects over the next five years:
- $120 million for the county and its 10 cities to better maintain streets and roads.
- $25 million for transit operations and maintenance.
- $3 million for active transportation (bicycle/pedestrian) projects.
Ventura County also will benefit from neighboring transportation projects that are committed for funding at least in part by SB 1, according to the commission. They include $104 million to widen Highway 101 through Carpinteria and Summerland in Santa Barbara County.
A repeal of SB 1 would hit Ventura County harder than some other counties because unlike them, it doesn't have a local transportation sales tax, Ventura County Transportation Commission officials say.
The latest attempt to establish such a tax, the commission-sponsored Measure AA, fell short of the needed two-thirds voter approval rate in 2016.
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"The rest of Southern California has local voter-approved transportation sales tax measures that may band-aid the problem for a while, but that funding stream simply does not exist for Ventura County's transportation system," Kettle said.
A number of City Councils in Ventura County have taken formal stands against Proposition 6, including Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai, Santa Paula and Oxnard, which stands to lose the funding for the Rice Avenue bridge.
"I look at the impact on my local community if SB 1 goes away in terms of a lot of projects that we have in the pipeline that will benefit the community," said Oxnard Councilman Bryan MacDonald, who sits on the county transportation commission board. "So, although I may not be happy with the way the state has dispersed money in the past, I think the repeal of SB 1 would do more damage than it would do good."
If Proposition 6 passes, the long-planned bridge "would go away and it may never come back," he said. "We don't know."
The county transportation commission board on Oct. 5 joined those cities opposed to the proposition, voting to formally take a stand against it.
"We're already a county that has refused to adopt a sales tax," said Steve Bennett, a commission board member and a Ventura County supervisor, arguing for the anti-Proposition 6 resolution. "And as a result, we need regional support for us to move forward. We need the help of the state legislature. And it's been hard to convince them to help us."
"It will be even harder to convince them to help us if we say, 'we won't even come out in opposition to this,'" Bennett said. ... "I certainly hope this regional body would unanimously support" the anti-Proposition 6 position.
It didn't. The vote was 11-2 in favor, with commissioners Peter Foy, a county supervisor, and Mike Judge, a Simi Valley Councilman, dissenting.
"The state of California taxes its citizens too much already," Judge, who is running for re-election, said in an interview after the commission's meeting. "We don't need another tax. It should never have been passed."
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In February, a Ventura County Board of Supervisors motion to oppose the threatened repeal of SB 1 failed to pass on a 2-2 tie vote. Bennett and Supervisor John Zaragoza voted for it, Foy and Supervisor Kelly Long voted against it and Supervisor Linda Parks abstained.
Parks, the current chair of the county transportation commission, said recently she doesn't yet know how she'll be voting on Proposition 6 come Nov. 6.
Steve Brown, general manager of the Oxnard-based Gold Coast Transit District — the largest bus operator in Ventura County — said he is against Proposition 6, although Gold Coast hasn't taken a formal position on the measure.
"We're in favor of retaining the gas tax and getting the work done on the streets and roads and all the infrastructure that it provides for," he said.
Better streets and roads mean less wear and tear on Gold Coast's buses and smoother trips for its riders, Brown said.
Republican get out the vote effort?
Tim Allison, a political science professor at CSU Channel Islands, said Proposition 6 is primarily a California Republican Party get-out-the-vote measure.
"I think it's an attempt to take a potentially politically popular issue, which is repealing SB 1, and put it to the voters and hopefully drive some turnout among fiscally conservative voters in California" to help Republican candidates, he said.
DeMaio called Allison's remarks "offensive."
"A million Californians signed the yes on Proposition 6 initiative to get it on the ballot," he said. "Half of those were Democrats and independents. and while (Allison) would like to make this about divisive partisan politics, this is about working families in California that can't afford to live here. They see this as a survival issue."
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The high-priority Oxnard bridge, technically known as a railroad grade separation, would lift South Rice Avenue over railroad tracks near East Fifth Street, which is also State Route 34.
The crossing is ranked the third most dangerous in the state, according to state Assembly member Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, who has championed the project.
Officials say a bridge would have prevented a number of train-vehicle crashes at the intersection over the years, including one early on the morning of Feb. 24, 2015.
It occurred after a truck driver from Yuma, Arizona, mistakenly turned from Rice Avenue onto the tracks instead of Fifth Street, which parallels the tracks several feet beyond.
Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez's truck, which was towing a trailer, got stuck on the rails, and he abandoned it.
About 12 minutes later, at 5:44 a.m., Metrolink commuter train 102, en route to downtown Los Angeles, slammed into the truck. The crash derailed the train, flipping three of its five cars onto their sides.
Thirty-three passengers and crew members were injured, including engineer Glenn Steele, 62, who died a week later.
Sanchez-Ramirez is charged with one count of vehicular manslaughter, a misdemeanor. A pre-trial hearing is set for Oct. 25.
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