Supervisors don’t reject the budget (but may seek more power over MTA)
From N Judah Chronicles on Twitter: the proposal to reject the budget failed, with only five Supervisors (Avalos, Campos, Daly, Mar, and Mirkarimi) voting to reject. (We had urged rejection due to the inflated work orders causing excessive service cuts.)
Meanwhile some Supervisors are promoting yet another charter amendment, this time to give the Supervisors control of three of the MTA board appointees, and make one elected. We opposed an amendment like this the last time it went before the voters.
Update: The Chronicle covers the story.
The approved MTA budget was clearly a hatchet job, orchestrated by SPUR, City Hall (especially Gruesome Newsom), Nat Ford, the MTA Commission, and members of the Board of Supervisors. The immense work orders that could have been cancelled would have freed up money to retain service routes and keep the preent fares. The elderly, critically ill, and physically handicapped will suffer from walking painful distances. (One long block is a painful distance for someone who is frail.) The MTA took proposals from the Transit Effectiveness Project which favors heavily used runs over the least used to the detriment of those who desperately need these community buses. These are the physically vulnerable individuals referred to above. People will spend more time transferring and walking to bus stops. Sadly, too many groups including the Bicycle Coalition and the Citizens Action Committeeapproved the Transit Effectiveness Project which would add no new buses but reshuffle the existing supply to the detriment of those who need them. Now, everyone loses with more fares and less service.
This cannot be blamed solely on MTA who are the hired guns of Downtown and the Mayor’s Office. They did as they were told and came up with ahideous proposals.
Where will Rescue MUNI be on July 1, 2009 when all hell breaks loose? Will they be cheering Nat Ford and the MTA or will they be protesting and advocating for riders harmed by these recent developments?
I can call Michael Burns “The Wrecker.” But Nat Ford is now “Wrecker II.”
It is time to call MTA to account and bring it to heel. It is running amok as a loose cannon, and will probably make more terrible proposals before the end of the day.