Get out of your car and support SMART

The criticism of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system is myopic and ignorant. Since the 1950s, society has spent uncounted billions of dollars on building and maintaining roads and freeways, on drilling and refining oil as well as transporting it to thousands of cars often containing only one person. Society has focused on building and buying homes with two-car garages in sprawling suburbs, on dealing with the air pollution caused largely by car exhaust fumes, on maintaining parking lots and on dumps containing rusty hulks of crushed cars.

The car has seen its day. Let’s not just continue the same, complaining while wasting precious time and resources. Let’s invest in the future. Trains will fill up as more people get tired of sitting in traffic. Old habits die hard.

— Kevin Cushing, Novato

SMART train tax: Vote no on Measure I

The biggest negative for the SMART proposition isn’t the quarter-cent tax. No, the biggest drawback is that it wants the new tax to run for 30 years in addition to the 9 years remaining on the original 20-year vote. If passed, this means that a child born today would spend almost half its lifetime paying this tax without a single chance to have a say on it. No government special district should be allowed to run unchecked by the taxpayers for almost 40 years. One can only speculate that organizers want it this long so that they can spend taxpayer money for almost 40 years without any taxpayer say-so.

SMART administrators have two main reasons for Measure I. First, they says they will be able to reduce current interest payments by refinancing, though the reality is that they would just be spreading out the interest payments over more time, thereby making the total payments significantly more. Secondly, they plead that they are still in their infancy so voters should not look at their current ridership or the current cost of the fare subsidy of about $100 per round trip.

My proposed compromise is to vote no and ask SMART to come back in November with a request for only a 10-year extension. This will give them almost 19 years more to prove that the current situation is indeed solely due to their infancy and not due to the fact that SMART will never be a viable form of public transportation. The 19 years would be only one year less than their original request for a 20-year tax. The 19 years will also allow them to refinance and grow out of their infancy.

So to the SMART board and its backers, why are you afraid of simply extending the tax for 10 more years now?

— Ron Arlas, Larkspur

San Anselmo mayor’s actions unacceptable

San Anselmo Mayor Ford Greene’s actions in public office, kneeling for the national anthem and refusal to state the Pledge of Allegiance, are unacceptable. No one that serves in public office should be allowed to disrespect the office and our country. Both are parts of our foundation. One shouldn’t serve that only serves himself.

— Thomas J. Harbinson, Ross

San Geronimo golf: Vote yes on Measure D

Gary Giacomini and Dietrich Stroeh must be spinning in their graves reading the fanciful Marin Voice written by Jean Berensmeier (“Consider history of San Geronimo Valley, vote no on Measure D,” Jan21). Neither of them would be supporting her misleading account of how the countywide plan came to designate golf as the primary use of the 157 acres in the San Geronimo Valley.

Berensmeier must be counting on her being the only one left from the days the San Geronimo community plan was written. Surprise, I was there as a member of the original Valley Planning Group and we did not write the words “future uses should be limited that support the primary use as a golf course” in a careless manner. Please note that Berensmeier confirms this point in the 1997 update of the community plan saying that “We protected ourselves by saying existing golf was preferred.”

The San Geronimo Advocates are not claiming that golf is required by the wording of the community plan, but let’s all admit that it was purposely designated as the preferred use.

By the way, in answer to the continued claim that this should not be a countywide vote but restricted to the San Geronimo Valley, the county elections office says:

”The Valley is in the unincorporated portion of Marin County. The law demands that this measure be on a countywide ballot.”

The opponent’s know that (especially former planning commission members). Evidently nothing is sacred in the attempt to obfuscate the issue.

Protect the countywide plan and end the waste of taxpayer dollars. Vote yes on D.

— Joe Walsh, Lagunitas

blog comments powered by Disqus