[Quixote]

Originally Posted by saybanana

LA Metro and building of rail would not be possible without the taxes county wide. Would the people in the city of LA be able to afford to building the rail system within their own city borders with the sales tax? No. Actually, LA City uses the bulk of that money because it has to build most underground whereas most the out city projects can be done cheaply at grade or above grade, but not really tunnels. Thats why the gold line extension of 12 miles will cost $1.5 billion compared the 2 mile regional connector at $2 billion. or the 4 mile phase 1 of Purple line at 2.8 billion.

Instead of working within the constraints of the system, we should reconfigure the system altogether. It starts with the realization that anything needing the approval of the County Board of Supervisors must include pork.

This is our answer. How many signatures would be required to get it on the ballot?

Originally Posted by numble

Propositions A and C, which give a total of 1% to Metro required simple majorities to pass as they occurred before 1997.

In 1997, California voters passed Proposition 218 to requires local governments to get two-thirds approval to raise any local taxes. Most people thought Proposition 218 meant that any increase in local taxes proposed (from government or private citizens) requires two-thirds approval.

The California Supreme Court just ruled that the two-thirds rule only applies to government entities (Metro is still considered a government entity), and that private citizen initiatives, even involving a tax increase, can be passed by a simple majority:
http://legal-planet.org/2017/08/28/c...n-prop-13-218/

Originally Posted by SoCalKid

I was just coming here to post about this. This is HUGE and very under-reported. This opens up the possibility of someone placing a true urban transit measure on the ballot that doesn't fund any freeways or trains to the exurbs in an effort to get a 2/3rds vote.

It'd be great to see one that focuses exclusively on boosting bus service and building a high-quality BRT network on our major corridors, accelerating the most worthy Measure R/M projects (Vermont HRT, Crenshaw northern extension, Eco-rapid line, and Sepulveda HRT), and extending the Purple Line to Santa Monica. Maybe some money for grade separations thrown in there as well.

Only problem is that many LA county jurisdictions have now reached their maximum sales tax. A new measure would need to a different mechanism (parcel tax? income tax? gas tax??).