Your article about Orinda and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and its involvement in dictating local land use raises many serious issues. There is much more going on with MTC than meets the eye and is never accounted for by politicians in regards to the reckless behavior of this bureaucracy. Most taxpayers are not aware that MTC, by raising bridge tolls and collecting fees from HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes on freeways; is financing their own agenda to move taxpayer funds from legitimate transportation needs (painting the Golden Gate Bridge) to land use and central planning.
Like most bureaucracies the MTC is set on expanding to incorporate areas it was never chartered to control. See information below concerning just a small bit of research providing data on the MTC’s aggressive actions.
Most of the 113 Bay Area cities are not yet aware that their local streets and roads monies are controlled by MTC. MTC will put the cities on notice that if they do not comply with the new plan (transit centers, high density/low income housing) they will not get their funds for local streets and roads repairs. Residents need to understand that once these funds go away they must find alternate sources for local pothole fixes – cut local spending or raise local taxes.
The MTC has collection authority from the State of California for Seven bridges:
Richmond-San Rafael
San Mateo-Hayward
San Francisco- Oakland Bay
Dumbarton
Antioch
Benicia-Martinez
Carquinez
Proposed bridge toll increases:
Source: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/pdf/Toll_Schedule_July_2010.pdf
The MTC has complete authority to raise bridge tolls as a source of income for their empire building. Even with this magical source of revenue, the MTC is trying to figure how to increase their revenue further. See this article:
MTC to poll Bay Area voters on possible gas tax ballot measure (Dennis Cuff Contra Costa Times)
Regional transportation officials are commissioning a poll to gauge voter support for raising gas taxes in the Bay Area by up to 10 cents per gallon to pay for roads, freeways and public transit. EMC Research of Oakland will be paid $150,000 to conduct a poll of voters in the nine Bay Area counties, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s administration committee decided Wednesday. Commission advisers has discussed the possibility of going to the ballot as early as November 2012 with a gas tax increase that would require two-thirds approval of voters in the region.
Where does it stop? What will be enough for the MTC?
Now we learn that enabling politicians like State Senator Mark DeSaulnier are “aghast” at the now out-of-control MTC making its own decisions about building cathedrals for itself using tax dollars. What did he think he was creating as he traipsed around the county and state yipping about smart growth and “regional planning”? All we got was yet another out of control megalomaniacal bureaucracy out to conquer the world with our tax dollars instead of maintaining Bay Area Bridges.
Appraently MTC now thinks it is in charge of practically every area of land use in the nine county Bay Area. When did the people give its approval for such a monstrous example of mission creep?
We never did. Failed leadership from DeSaulnier and others (AB-32 which further enables mega-bureacracies and creeping mission like the MTC) have paved this road and now play the “shocked” ingenue.
Bill Gram-Reefer is Editor & Publisher of Halfway To Concord, founded in 2004. Halfway To Concord is the leading online source for community-driven political news, events, and opinion for Contra Costa County and the San Francisco East Bay.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Bob, great analysis of the MTC problem from the peoples’ point of view.
This agency along with BAAQD and ABAG need to be either abolished or made totally elected boards subject to the voters every 2 years. They should all be shut down ASAP and their staffs sent packing, until we can get elected entities to replace them – if need be. As they stand they are children of UN Agenda 21 and ICLEI (in spirit if not in fact). There is nothing they are doing that cannot wait 4 or 5 years for us to get them organized right, except for the work forces doing bridge painting and road maintenance, which requires no cathedral.
As for DeSaulinier, lets see what he comes up with. We do not want all these agencies under a single unelected council (a “soviet”). If that is his solution, it is a non-starter.
Bob, you’re completely right.
The fact that officials are not directly elected to regional bodies, such as MTC, is part of the reason they’re so powerful. They’re practically invisible to taxpayers, thus they operate with little public accountability. People know what a mayor is, or a school board member — but an appointee to MTC, or BAAQMD or ABAG or LAFCO? The average resident says: What in the *&$@* is that?
Mission creep doesn’t quite cover it, though I’m at a loss to find a term that really says it. It’s more like the monster in The Blob.
May MTC suffer the full fury and wrath of taxpayers should they decide to pursue a tax increase at the ballot box.
And I can’t wait to hear DeSaulnier’s proposal regarding consolidation of regional government, which he has publicly referenced but not yet unveiled. If he’s true to form, it will take the situation from bad to worse — for the public, that is. DeSaulnier is always angling for his next Big Government “win” — which is the only scorecard he keeps.