Rhett Calkins: Measure L will provide only new taxes, no new roads

I have attended many StanCOG meetings in the last five years. Sparked by a flyer that appeared to display the Ebola virus, it was instead a diagram of Modesto’s 3-mile bypass of highway 132. Politicians have exhausted $6 million and held one public meeting. Measure L seeks to fund more tax-wasting road projects – even borrowing to speed the waste. There won’t be enough collected to completion any of the major projects.

Special interests love taxpayers funding tax-eating viruses. Citizens get larger and larger tax bills and must suffer life-draining traffic congestion. Let’s plan for real solutions, transportation choices, including ACE rail from our cities to the Bay Area. I look forward to meeting open-minded citizens at future StanCOG policy board meetings. Let’s start our own “Citizen Committee.” Open-minded politicians and public servants can and will be part of a real solution, part of an open transparent discussion to benefit all. We need real transportation solutions, not glossy paper promises produced and mailed out with our precious tax dollars. StanCOG failed. Stop wasting money.

This story was originally published November 3, 2016 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Rhett Calkins: Measure L will provide only new taxes, no new roads."