< 8 Three votes and the truth faced a serious challenge, which the Metropolitan Transportation Commission helped the rail agency navigate. The transportation commission would contribute $32 million to help plug the funding gap if SMART agreed to run trains to an initial southern terminus in San Rafael. (An earlier plan called for a terminus at the Civic Center.) Further, its contribution would be contingent on SMART having a balanced (and vetted) funding plan. And the commission said TAM and its counterpart in Sonoma County must agree to chip in their contributions. Sonoma County already had contributed $11 million; under the agreement, Sonoma would kick in another $3 million. Marin’s contribution would be $8 million. This is where the trip gets a little strange: In June, the TAM board held a meeting to vote on whether to transfer Marin’s $8-million share of the shortfall. The vote deadlocked 7-7, leaving SMART on the track with no financial fuel from Marin to build the first phase of the rail line. Afterward, Larkspur City Councilwoman Joan Lundstrom, who serves on the TAM board, asked for a reconsideration of the vote. Even though the rail line will not go into Larkspur in the first phase, the city has a stake in the initial segment and funding for it, because Larkspur has long wanted to connect the Cal Park Hill Tunnel with a multi-use pedestrian and bike bridge that would go over Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal. The bridge would allow pedestrians and bicyclists to travel traffic-free from San Rafael all the way to the terminal. The 2001 Marin County Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan identified the project as one of the top 25 most important projects because of its nexus in an alternative-transportation system. Larkspur raised a concern that if TAM failed to contribute to the budget shortfall, and SMART then abandoned its first-phase plans, the bridge connection project could be thrown into limbo because SMART owns the right of way. After considering the permutations, Lundstrom switched her vote and tipped the balance to transfer the funds to SMART. The proposal passed on an 8-6 vote. But by the time that second vote concluded, most of those who had attended the meeting were gone, thinking the measure to transfer the funds ended in the deadlock. Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who serves as the chair of the TAM board, called a special meeting at which the board could revisit the issue in full public view and could rescind the 8-6 vote. There was no rescission. On July 7, the board voted to reaffirm the 8-6 vote to transfer the funds to SMART. Larkspur City Councilman Larry Chu cast one of the votes in favor of rescission. He attended the meeting as a substitute for Lundstrom, who was out of town. Earlier that day, the Lark10 PACIFIC SUN JULY 15 - JULY 21, 2011
spur council met to fashion a directive for its representative (Chu) at the TAM meeting. Lundstrom participated in the council meeting via a teleconferencing setup. The Larkspur meeting was just one of several that took place in Marin towns that day. The Larkspur council voted 4-1 to call for rescinding the June vote that granted the $8-million transfer. Councilwoman Kathy Hartzell was opposed. But what seems like an outright smackdown in Larkspur actually is more complicated—because of the ferry connector project. When TAM voted in June, it placed conditions on the $8-million transfer. One of those calls for SMART to agree “to negotiate an agreement that allows” the ferry connector “to proceed without any cost to SMART for design, construction or maintenance.” In other words, Larkspur wanted assurances that SMART would grant use of its right of way. “We wanted to make sure that if [TAM] was going to give them $8 million, they [SMART] would not do anything to impede the project,” says Chu. In addition, the Larkspur council wanted the $8 million put in escrow until all the conditions were met. Larkspur also wanted TAM to rescind the June vote, resume discussion and possibly place even stricter conditions on the $8 million. Other conditions TAM placed on the transfer include an agreement that SMART will use “no funds that were specifically assigned” to Marin projects as part of a regional transportation plan, and no local projects “currently programmed” would lose “their ability to proceed.” That stems from a promise SMART made to Marin that it would not seek to siphon local transportation money to help pay for SMART at the expense of local projects. The conditions also call for SMART to “keep a risk register that defines risk and manages them accordingly.” The register “shall be made available to the public on a semi-annual basis.” Those conditions are too loose for critics, some of whom have opposed SMART with an almost religious ferocity because they dislike train transportation and others who simply are frustrated by continual rejiggering of SMART revenue and cost projections. But, say proponents, projects as big as SMART, especially in the transportation field, have many moving parts. Farhad Mansourian, the county head of public works, is on loan to SMART while the train agency searches for a new chief executive. Mansourian is working on an assessment of revenue and costs that he will present to the SMART board in August. It is the latest in a long list of assessments and reassessments conducted since voters approved Measure Q. As a project like SMART proceeds, financial projections sharpen. The SMART system has completed about 30 percent of its design phase, according to Mansourian, and as that design process continues, it’s possible the rail agency can find cost sav-
< 8 Newsgrams The San Rafael Chamber of Commerce has now joined the city’s Park and Recreation Commission in support of a plan for a group called Centerfield Partnership to launch a new North American League ball club at San Rafael’s Albert Park in May of 2012. Several residents of the Gerstle Park neighborhood have cried foul over possible parking, noise and drunkard problems that they say inevitably accompany sporting activities at this level. Stay tuned. The City Council steps up to the plate at its July 18 meeting.
The treacherous transit hub Marin County officials are hoping to shine a light on a spate of Marin City bus stop robberies—literally. In the wake of a string of thefts at the Donahue Street bus hub over the past month, a $525,000 redesign to add lighting and cameras has been scheduled for September in order to improve the safety at a dimly lit Golden Gate Transit stop that has been plagued with crime for years. Five robberies have taken place in that bus area recently: On July 2 a pair of hoodied men stole a bus passenger’s cell phone at gunpoint; on June 29, two males attacked a man and robbed him of his wallet and cell phone under the 101 overpass; on June 26 a rider was beaten, and his smart phone stolen; and on June 16 a passenger successfully fended off an attack by multiple men. The latest incident occurred Monday when a Marin City senior citizen was robbed by an armed man. The Marin County Sheriff’s Department has even released an official warning for passengers to stay in groups and walk in well-lighted areas; sheriff’s patrols in the area have been increased as well. Meat fork melee at Marin City barbecue Attendees of a Marin City memorial barbecue got more than tasty baby backs this weekend, when a woman allegedly attempted to assault her husband with a cookout utensil. Typically a tool for turning over grilled meats and testing them for desired tenderness, a pronged barbecue fork became a “deadly weapon,” according to a sheriff’s report, when Carla Wade, 42, allegedly tried to settle an argument with her 57-year-old husband with the tri tip trident. The Cole Drive incident took place after 1am and the alleged victim reportedly emerged unscathed. Wade was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Third time’s a charm—TAM votes to give SMART $8 mil Vote late and vote often seems to be the strategy for the Transportation Authority of Marin when it comes to funding the SMART train. In its third vote in only two meetings over the last two weeks, the Transportation Authority of Marin voted yesterday to uphold its second vote of June 23, which broke the deadlock of the early vote it took that day. At stake was whether TAM would give $8 million to help balance the books of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit project, which still has an over $20 million budget shortfall—even after shortening its initial scope, from Cloverdale to Larkspur, down to a shorter rollout from Santa Rosa to central San Rafael. The regional transportation body—the Metropolitan Transportation Commission—has pledged $10 million to fill the gap, if TAM would match up to $8 million (the remainder matched by Sonoma County). But at the June 23 meeting the TAM vote was originally a draw—at 7-7—whether to float SMART the $8 million. But later in the meeting, after most public attendees had left, TAM board member and Larkspur Councilwoman Joan Lundstrom had a change of heart and asked to switch her vote—the second vote, then, was 8-6 in favor of supplying the $8 million. TAM members then scheduled the July 7 meeting to vote a third and hopefully final time, with members of the public present. Voting in favor of giving SMART the funds were Alice Fredericks of Tiburon, Scot Hunter of Ross, Al Boro of San Rafael, Stephanie MoultonPeters of Mill Valley, Mike Kelly of Sausalito, and supervisors Steve Kinsey, Judy Arnold and Kate Sears. Voting against were Ford Greene of San Anselmo, Larry Chu of Larkspur, Diane Furst of Corte Madera and Larry Bragman of Fairfax. A lawsuit alleging TAM was in violation of the Brown Act open-meetings law when it voted a second time on June 23 has been filed by the group RepealSMART. Adams declares candidacy for Congress Marin Supervisor Susan Adams has officially thrown her hat—or nurse practitioner’s cap, as it were—into the ring to run for Congress. Adams joins state Assemblyman Jared Huffman and Inverness social activist Norman Solomon as declared candidates to replace retiring Lynn Woolsey as the 6th District representative in the House. In declaring her candidacy last Wednesday, Adams—a grandmother, registered nurse practitioner and currently the county supervisor for the San Rafael area—said she’ll bring her “healthcare expertise to Congress to keep patients, nurses and doctors in charge of healthcare decisions, not insurance company bureaucrats.” Adams lists her supervisorial accomplishments as including helping create “the first Community Choice Clean Energy Authority in the state,” providing services for chronically homeless veterans, alleviating recidivism in prisons by 85 percent through mentally-ill-offenders’ programs, establishing a