Richards Fires Back at Parochialism in Sales Tax Debate

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The Southern California Transit Advocates' Kymberleigh Richards penned an op/ed for today's Daily News that punches a hole in the argument that Metro's sales tax proposal is unfair to some parts of the county because funds aren't distributed based on residential population.  To wit:

I do not disagree with Antonovich that the North County is a growth area. But I also see that the people who live there largely work "down under" ... downtown Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, Century City and the Westside.

This is already proven by the high demand for both Metrolink and commuter bus service to those areas from the North County. A rail line through the Sepulveda Pass, as proposed in the sales-tax measure, would connect the Metrolink service from the North County with the Westside, and provide real relief to the supervisor's constituents who are at present stuck on the 405, either in their cars or in those commuter buses.

Similar scenarios exist from the San Gabriel Valley and the Eastside. People who live in those regions and work downtown, in the Miracle Mile, or on the Westside are the real reason the subway extension is needed. Those people are already forced to choose between being stuck in traffic in their own cars or being stuck in traffic on a Metro Rapid bus on Wilshire.

Zev Yaroslavsky has tried to make this argument in the past, but his reliance on numbers he made up on the spot made his argument less than confusing.  In her piece today, Richards clearly makes the case that spending money equally in legislative districts makes a lot less sense than spending funds where people commute.  To read the rest of Richards' op/ed click here.