The protracted count is finally over, and it appears that Hannah-Beth Jackson’s outsize effort to defeat Phony Tony Strickland has come up just short.  With only a few hundred ballots left to count, Strickland currently maintains a 903 vote lead out of 414,587 ballots cast.  That margin is .2%: well within the margin necessary for a mandatory recount request by the Jackson campaign.  Unfortunately, as the pro-Strickland blog Policy Report correctly notes, such a recount effort would almost certainly be insufficient to net Hannah-Beth the votes she would need to overtake Strickland’s lead, even were the final votes to close the gap to 700 or 800:

According to some experts, a recount of all 400,000+ ballots might yield a variance of 150 votes in one direction or the other at great cost.  Gaining 800 votes in an election of this size is next to impossible.

Hannah-Beth has done the gracious thing and conceded the race:

With the latest totals showing Strickland hanging on to the lead by a little over 900 votes, Jackson said a victory was not mathematically possible.

“I’m disappointed, but I think that it’s pretty clear at this point in time, we’re not going to be able to catch up,” she said.

Strickland is due to be sworn in Monday in Sacramento. He will represent voters in most of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties as well as the northwest corner of Los Angeles County, including Santa Clarita and Stevenson Ranch.

The outcome has been in doubt since the Nov. 4 election, but by Wednesday both candidates agreed that Strickland had won.

Congratulations to Hannah-Beth Jackson and all her volunteers, supporters and staff who ran a courageous campaign against a less than honorable opponent, giving it everything they had to deliver quality representation to the people in SD-19.

This marks the end of two long and arduous races eked out by narrow margins in Ventura County by both Tony and Audra Strickland, who will be attempting to consolidate their power base.  Unfortunately for them, however, their electoral future does not look bright.  It was Ventura County that gave Strickland his victory, but that result is a relic of a Ventura whose demographics and electoral distribution are rapidly changing.   By 2012, there is little doubt that Ventura’s Democratic Majority will deliver a majority of votes for the Democrat.  As I said before, there are three chief reasons for this:

The first is that Ventura County flipped from red to blue earlier this year in terms of voter registrations–and those numbers have shifted even farther in our direction since. This is not just due to discontent with Bush and the Obama Effect: emigres from Los Angeles are swelling Ventura County’s ranks as more and more Angelenos come to appreciate this oft-overlooked area’s natural advantages. The path to victory for Republicans like Tony Strickland is only going to get steeper from here.

Second, Obama’s first term will likely end up going smoothly with good approval ratings, or very poorly with low approval ratings. Given the precarious, sour and moody state of the nation, we’re unlikely to see an apathetic, middling result. As a consequence, the next presidential election is unlikely to be a close contest one way or another. Our poor experiences in California this year will likely have taught us that we need to Stay for Change–especially if a Democratic Governor is elected in 2010, putting GOP legislators as the biggest remaining obstacle to real change in California.

But Tony’s third and biggest problem is that as an incumbent he will have 4-year voting record in the State Senate. Tony’s campaign this year was built entirely on lies; so much so, in fact, that I can say with all sincerity that he ran the most dishonest campaign I’ve personally had the misfortune of seeing up close. He will no longer be able to run as an “independent”, as all his yard signs and mailers deceitfully claimed. He will no longer be able to claim “green” credentials by posing as an alternative energy entrepreneur. He will simply be the incumbent: the Republican incumbent, and with a track record to boot.

So assuming that demography is destiny and the remaining ballots sort themselves out as poorly as we expect, it’s not the end of the road, but merely the beginning. The Stricklands will have earned themselves 2 to 4 years of respite through dishonest campaigning. More Democratic voters, increased intensity, and an unequivocal track record will see them on their way out of Sacramento in a few short years.

But we can’t do it without your help.  Today we begin Strickland Watch: it will be our duty to shadow every move and every vote Tony and Audra Strickland make in Sacramento.  So far, the Stricklands have made their careers by pretending to be something other than the hard right, corporate sockpuppets they are.  The only antidote to such poison is sunlight and exposure, and a full accounting of every single vote and dollar taken by each of them over the course of the next two to four years.

For his part, Tony Strickland is mouthing the right words:

“We need to definitely do whatever we can to reach across party lines to fix the problems of the state,” he said.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard this from Strickland before.  How he and his wife actually vote is another matter.  If their history is any indication, their bipartisan rhetoric will be belied by a hardline ideological stance.  Democrats in Ventura County-myself included–did an inadequate job of informing  our friends, neighbors and community of the Stricklands’ extremist record.  It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen again, and to deliver to Ventura County the competent, progressive representation it has long deserved and been waiting for.

Also at Ventura County Democrats

(good part about this is that we’re under the mandatory recount window of .5% right now. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

There’s good news and bad news, and then some possibly good news again, and then some possibly bad news again.  The good news: latest vote counts have cut Strickland’s lead in half, down to just under 1,300 votes.  The bad news: the votes out of Santa Barbara County, Jackson’s strongest base, are pretty much all counted.  It’s all up to the provisionals coming out of Ventura County now; if they trend Strickland as the rest of Ventura’s votes have–or even just 50-50–Strickland will eke this one out.

The possibly good news: provisional ballots are usually new voters, and those are quite likely new Democratic voters who might be expected to trend our way contra the overall County trend.  The possibly bad news: those new Democratic voters often have a tendency to vote for the top of the ticket only, failing to vote for Democrats downballot.

What will end up happening?  It’s anybody’s guess.  The VC Star has more:

Elections officials in Ventura County began processing provisional ballots this week but are not expected to release the first results from those ballots until Monday.

In votes tallied thus far, Strickland has about a 5 percentage lead in the Ventura County portion of the district. Jackson would have to at least reverse that advantage among provisional ballots – perhaps unlikely, but something political observers say is possible given that many such ballots are cast by newly registered voters, who this year were predominantly Democrats.

With 401,864 votes now tabulated, Strickland leads by about one-third of a percentage point.

Looks like we’re in a for ride.  As painful as the wait is, though, it’s good to know that the democratic process is being respected.  Better to get the right result with a wait, than the wrong result too quickly.

(The impact has been joined. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

Yes, Ventura, there is a Progressive Left–and it came in force today for Join the Impact.  It’s a common joke here that we live in “Ventucky“, though our situation less resembles that of the deep South and more that of a clinging outpost of Red, stuck between the swaths of Blue that are Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.  We have the gag-worthy Gallegly as our representative, and even unprincipled liars like Tony Strickland somehow manage to attract over half the population here to vote for them.  True, the demographics have been changing with voter registrations to match, but that has translated neither into electoral gains nor significant grassroots activity in the Democratic and progressive community–though that is changing due to the tireless efforts of people like our new VCDP Communications Director Brian Leshon.

But today a sea of Blue washed up on the Ventura shores in front of the Old San Buenaventura Mission to let Ventura and all of California know that yes, we do exist.  And no, we’re not taking it lying down anymore.  Unfortunately, the pictures here don’t do the crowd justice; an amateur photographer is emailing me some pics that I’ll be putting up as soon as I get them.

The Join the Impact protestors began our march at noon in front of the Mission, walking through downtown, over the 101 Freeway overpass and back again, before regrouping on both sides of the street in front of the mission, with overflow into Mission Park.

On the overpass…

I’ve been involved in many protests over the years, but I have to say without question that this was the most amazing, uplifting demonstration I’ve ever been a part of, for a few very important reasons:

• Focus.  The bane of the progressive protest march over the last few decades has been the lack of attention to message unity.  Markos Moulitsas discusses this problem at length in his book Crashing the Gate: activists such as those with A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition end up using the occasion to fight for causes ranging from freeing Mumia to impeaching Bush to end the wars in Iraq to acceptance of LGBT rights.  Here, there was but one message and one focus, reinforced by the ubiquitous chant: “What do we want?  Equal Rights!  When do we want it?  Now!”
• Diversity and Family-Friendliness.  All too often the word “diversity” has been seen especially by those on the Right as a politically correct code word for the disproportionately vocal influence of one or more specific minorities.  But for the actual crowd that attended, it might have been easy to dismiss this protest simply as the gay community venting its frustrations.  On the contrary: the couples that had gathered skewed more hetero than same-sex, and many had brought their families and small children along with them.  The visual impact of this phenomenon on the conservative and fence-sitting mind cannot be exaggerated.   Add to this the multi-racial, truly rainbow aspect of the event, and it was not only a joy to behold, but a consternation to those who would insult this movement as merely a special interest, rather than a truly broad-based fight for equal Civil Rights.
• The Support of the Community.  There were no counter-protesters anywhere in sight, and most of the cars that passed us were honking, even as their passengers rolled down their windows to flash a quick thumbs up or peace sign.  Sure, there were a few nuts in pickup trucks screaming some gibberish about eternal damnation and displaying a hateful middle finger here and there (one of them was so consumed with rage that he very nearly rear-ended the car in front of him), but they were themselves a distinct minority.  Downtown Ventura was truly supportive of our cause, and it felt truly righteous being a part of the next step for civil rights in America.  As one baby boomer activist said,
  

  “Man, this really is just like the 60s.   I haven’t seen a gathering with this kind of positive energy in a long, long time.  It’s amazing to see.”

I couldn’t agree more.  My girlfriend KK and I spent the final 45 minutes gathering signatures for the Courage Campaign’s Proposition 8 repeal.  On that form was a checkbox asking if the signatory would like to volunteer for the cause.  Nearly every single box was checked, and nearly every single zip code a Ventura resident.  These people were not here just to vent for a day: they were here to be a part of something bigger for the long term.

It was a beautiful sight to behold, and gives me hope for the long term not only for the future of civil rights in America, but for the future of progressive politics here in “Ventucky” as well.

(This is a big fight, but there are others across the state. Stay for Change! – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Over 14,000 new voters registered this year at UC Santa Barbara and Hannah-Beth Jackson came to rally them to support her today. Hannah-Beth Jackson is running for California State Senate against 6 million dollars worth of lies. That’s how much her opponent Tony Strickland is spending to try to win this Senate seat. Hannah Beth reminded students today of her commitment to education and the environment. The student vote is important in this race because Hannah-Beth Jackson’s opponent is running defamatory ads against Hannah-Beth as well as trying to convince voters that he is an environmentalist.  It makes you wonder, can six million dollars really convince voters that he is an environmentalist, when in reality Tony Strickland voted against every pro-environment bill every introduced into the Assembly?

Bettina Duval is the founder of CALIFORNIA LIST, a network to elect Democratic women to California state government.

Hannah-Beth speaks to supporters at UCSB

Sen. President Pro-Tempore Elect Darrell Steinberg and Sen. Sheila Keuhl

Me and Hannah-Beth

Senators Keuhl, Steinberg and me

Hannah-Beth with my son Bennett

At the volunteer table

There were two major debates held this month between Independent Green Republican Tony Strickland and Hannah-Beth Jackson: the first was put on by the right-wing Ventura County Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 3rd at Ventura College, and the second by the significantly more friendly Ventura County League of Women Voters on Oct. 10th at Cal Lutheran in Oxnard.

Both debates were supposed to have been shown live on local CAPS-TV here in Ventura County (and I was going to liveblog them), but were for technical reasons not broadcast or streamed live at the time.  The debates have finally been put in the can to air repeatedly here in Ventura County regularly until election day.  Fortunately, we live in the Internet age, and CAPS-TV has done us the service (finally!) of putting the debates on their website.

They’ve been encoded as WMV files, and thus cannot be embedded here.  If you’re interested in watching, please click on the following links:

Ventura Chamber of Commerce, Oct. 3rd

Ventura County League of Women Voters, Oct. 10th

I haven’t heard anything earth-shattering so far in listening to the debates, but I highly recommend that anyone interested in the race listen and highlight anything newsworthy they may see now that the debates are finally available to all.

In the meantime, I’ll have a photodiary up within a few days about canvassing this last Sunday for Hannah-Beth in Thousand Oaks.  Pretty good results, and there’s good reason to feel confident about this race.

(Another piece from blogger thereisnospoon, who lives in the district and is serving as our Ventura County correspondent. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

The Strickland campaign is really outdoing itself at this point, and reinforcing Hannah-Beth Jackson’s arguments against him all at the same time.  No sooner does Hannah-Beth’s latest mailer (a copy of which I got in my mailbox yesterday) come out attacking Strickland for his big money contributors in the oil, tobacco, pharmaceutical and other industries, than Tony tries to pull off yet another fraud on voters with the hidden help of those same industries in whose pocket he resides.

Apparently, voters all across the 19th District started receiving mysterious robocalls from a group called “Californians for Jobs & Education“.  The calls, of which there are as yet no transcripts available, are in support of Tony Strickland.  Below is what a quick google search of this outfit brings up, via Election Track:

$50,000 from Farmers Employees & Agents Pac (Mill Valley, CA) on 04/22/2008

$10,000 from Personal Insurance Federation Of California Pac (Sacramento, CA) on 04/16/2008

$50,000 from Chevron Corporation (Sacramento, CA) on 09/07/2007

$25,000 from Fair Public Policy Coalition (Sacramento, CA)  on 09/10/2007

Another $25,000 from Chevron Corporation (Sacramento, CA) on 12/13/2007

$12,500 from California Hospital Association Pac (Sacramento, CA) on 08/29/2007

$5,961 from California Senior Advocates League Pac (Los Angeles, CA) on 03/06/2007

Wait a minute…the California Senior Advocates League Pac?  Who the heck?  Let’s take a little trip to the Secretary of State’s page for these folks.  What do we see?  Why, the very first listing is:

$25,000 from “EL DORADO ENTERPRISES DBA HUSTLER CASINO”

Nice.  I’m not sure what these seniors are advocating for, or who is doing the advocating for them, but I strongly suspect Bob Dole and his little blue pills may be involved.  Other savory contributions for these wonderful people include $50,000 from Farmer’s Insurance, $25,000 from 21st Century Insurance, $10,000 from “Los Angeles Casinos Pac” (score again!), and a whopping quarter million from a couple of real estate PACs.  Real nice…

Great group of friends Tony has there in the “Californians for Jobs & Education”.  Because nobody’s more interested in jobs and education big insurance companies, hospital owners, and Chevron.  A quick check of the Secretary of State’s page on the group also shows another nifty $5,000 contribution from “INSURANCE BROKERS AND AGENTS ISSUES PAC, SPONSORED BY IBA WEST, INC.”  These, of course, are just more Californians interested in jobs and education, fighting to give everyone’s favorite environmentalist Tony Strickland a chance to fight for the people!

But that’s not all.  Whom did these upstanding Californians for Jobs and Education hire to conduct the robocall campaign?  A firm based in San Diego called TaxpayersAdvocate, whose website apparently hasn’t been updated in almost a year and a half.  TaxpayerAdvocate is a one-man show headed by longtime GOP San Diego activist Scott Barnett, whose own bio mentions that:

From December 2001 to June 2003 Mr. Barnett served as President/CEO of the Lincoln Club, a GOP donor group.

You might think Tony Strickland might have tried fighting for the district by, say, at least using a contractor who’s not a real estate obsessed GOP operative from San Diego.

But then, taking money from insurance companies, Hustler casinos and Chevron to pay a San Diego operative to make fraudulent calls is just the name of the game for Tony Strickland and his crew.

Fortunately, the voters of SD19 can do better.  

(A backgrounder… – promoted by David Dayen)

As David Dayen noted on the frontpage, Hannah-Beth Jackson has a new ad on the air discussing her role in protecting schoolchildren from toxic pesticides; I live in downtown Ventura and have seen the aid on my TV several times already.  It’s an excellent piece of political communication, showing her bipartisan credentials in a race where both candidates are desperately vying for the middle ground, and illustrating the contrast between her concern for everyday families and Tony Strickland’s evident lack thereof.

But the ad, good as it is, doesn’t tell the whole story.  For a little background, let’s go way back in the time machine to the year 2000, when a group of children were blithely making their way onto school grounds for a day of classes at Mound Elementary School in Ventura, naively under the assumption that they could trust the air they breathe.  Because surely there must have been a law preventing toxic chemicals from being spewed into the air right next to a school, right?  Boy, were they wrong:

Ventura, CA  – As children were arriving to Mound Elementary School early this morning, a commonly used insecticide was applied to adjacent fields.  The chemical, Lorsban, drifted over the children and towards the school as they arrived for their classes.  Chlorpyrifos, the chemical name for Lorsban, is known to affect the nervous system by inhibiting an enzyme that is important to the transmission of nerve impulses.  The immediate affects of exposure include dizziness, headaches, nausea and other symptoms commonly associated with the common flu.

At this time, two children from Mound are confirmed as being sent home with symptoms of exposure to this pesticide.  In addition, some members of the staff have complained of headaches throughout the day, while five students from Balboa Elementary (a neighboring school) were confirmed as being sent home with symptoms of exposure.

“It is alarming to think, and now witness firsthand, that toxic chemicals can be applied next to a school when children are present.” said Richard Kirby, principal of Mound Elementary.  “This incident highlights the need for extraordinary precaution when using dangerous pesticides around schools.”

Members of Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning (CCAAPP) were alerted to this morning’s incident when a school official at Mound noticed the application taking place and saw the chemical wafting into the air.  School officials immediately contacted CCAAPP, who in turn called the County Agricultural Commissioner.

“CCAAPP has been working in the community to prevent this type of incident from taking place,” said Lynda Uvari, member of CCAAPP and parent of a Mound student.  “Unfortunately, these incidents continue to occur with no end in sight.”

No end in sight.  One parent of a Mound Elementary student recalls the incident in a passionate anti-Strickland piece from two days ago:

IT WAS A TYPICAL frantic morning at my house. My daughter, always a sleepyhead, was running late once again. We grabbed her backpack and dashed out the door to our car for the ride to Mound Elementary School in Ventura where she was a fifth grader.

Pulling up to the school we found our car enveloped by a thick fog which I had assumed was weather related. My daughter got out in the middle of it and waved goodbye. I drove home, pulled in the garage and noticed something very odd about my vehicle: it was completely covered in a sticky film.

Hours later I had a sick child holding a note from her principal.

What I had mistaken for fog was actually a cloud of Lorsban, a powerful pesticide which had been banned by the EPA for use in homes because of its neurological effects on children. The citrus operation next to the school had used a speed sprayer during school hours and sent a cloud over the campus. Dozens of children and adults were sickened that day. Testing showed it was all over playground equipment, outdoor eating areas and inside classrooms.

To our horror we discovered there was little we could do to prevent it from happening again to our children or anyone else’s. We needed help.

The farmer spraying the noxious chemical had not technically run afoul of the law, since the neurotoxin was not at that time on the “restricted” list of pesticides.  Thus, even lawsuits against the farmer in question (which were eventually successful) would have done and did do nothing to prevent further instances of toxic pesticides being sprayed next to schools during the time at which students would be in or near the school.

Something had to be done.  Fortunately, the parents of Mound Elementary students had an advocate in then-Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, who immediately got to work on no-nonsense legislation correcting this unacceptable situation.

But it wasn’t that easy.  Despite having a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature, the bill took a full two years to be considered and voted on.  At times, the bill seemed to be on life support, and was rescued from near death only by Hannah-Beth’s ability to marshal a broad coalition of support that wouldn’t let it go under:

“It was a team effort,” Jackson said of the two-year push to get her bill signed into law. “We all came together to do what was best for our children.”

Jackson announced the governor’s signature during a news conference at Mound Elementary School in east Ventura, where a pesticide drift occurred in the fall of 2000.

The incident prompted Jackson’s legislative effort, an endeavor she said appeared to be on life support at times, but was ultimately held together by a broad coalition of farming and environmental interests.

It took a heroic effort on Hannah-Beth’s part to make this no-brainer legislation a reality.  Tony Strickland, meanwhile, voted against the bill.  Yes, against the bill preventing toxic chemicals from being sprayed next to school grounds.  Sure, we all know that Strickland is a fraud, describing himself as a strong environmentalist while receiving a zero percent lifetime rating from the California League of Conservation Voters and voting 119 times out of 121 against environmental regulations during his six years in the Assembly.  We all know that Strickland is running a greenwashing campaign, posing as Vice-President of front company “Greenwave Solutions”, a company that apparently has no website despite being Strickland’s claim to environmentalist fame and justification for his preposterous ballot designation “Alternative Energy Executive“–despite not having put up even the basic front money his conservative friends did to create the facade:

Stricklands’s ballot designation is “Alternative Energy Executive”. Here’s what the Ventura County Star had to say about that: Strickland, “who has spent his entire adult life either working in the legislature or running for political office, has decided to present himself to voters this year wearing the mantle of a newfound vocation: ‘Alternative Energy Executive.'” To do so, he formed a new wave energy company with four political friends, but didn’t even put up the $5,000 the others had pledged to start the company”….

This putative Alternative Energy Executive voted against every alternative energy bill that came his way. He even voted against requirements for renewable energy generation (SB 1078-Byron Sher) that would have benefitted his own company.

But protecting schoolchildren from toxic chemicals isn’t an environmental issue.  It’s a human issue.  It’s an issue of basic decency.  Hannah-Beth Jackson used her credibility as not just an environmental advocate, but a decent human being to bring together farming and environmental interests to get this legislation passed, in spite of the almost unfathomable reticence of the Sacramento establishment.

Tony Strickland has no decency.  He voted against the bill apparently for no other reason than to oppose any and all laws that might constrain the “freedom” of certain farmers to poison children.  This “Renewable Energy Executive” voted not just against an environmental law: he voted against a basic law-and-order regulation designed to prevent the poisoning of children at school.

But what else should we expect from the Grand Old Party of Child Molesters?  

Abel Maldonado is one of the most vulnerable of the Senate Republicans facing reelection this year. Democrats hold a 40-37 edge in registrations in SD-15 and the district was given a D+7.8 rating in cali_girl_in_texas’ latest rankings. And he has a long, conservative voting record – including a 20% lifetime rating from the California Labor Federation (as of 2006). Maldonado’s moderate reputation should be put to its strictest test yet in 2008, with a very Democratic turnout in November and a Republican Party having to defend a record of economic crisis and budgetary disaster.

So why is it that NO Democrat filed to run for the SD-15 seat?! Is Maldonado being given a free pass?

When the filing deadline came and went on March 7, I was curious to see who was going to be the Democratic opponent in SD-15. As I called the registrar’s offices in the five counties that make up this long district (Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara) I discovered that apparently nobody had filed. The CDP’s online organizers helped investigate, and ultimately concluded that there was no Democratic candidate, as the candidate filing status at the Secretary of State’s website confirms. Although former Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn (who had represented AD-24, Santa Clara County, from 2000 to 2006) had expressed interest in a campaign for the SD-15 seat, no actual candidacy materialized.

As one of the most winnable Senate seats on this year’s ballot, not having a candidate is a pretty big failure. And it obviously begs the question why this failure happened. Since it is the leader of the chamber that is responsible for candidate recruitment – in this case, Don Perata – this quote from last summer, from an August 2007 George Skelton column (now in the LA Times pay-only archives), is worth remembering:

If the Senate’s top Democrat — President Pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland — has anything to do with it, Maldonado will survive. “I’d be happy to go down to Santa Maria any time and knock on doors and say what a solid guy he is,” Perata says. “I just admire him. I was just blown away by what he did, by his courageous stand on principle.”

This refers to Maldonado’s break with the Senate Republicans – including Jeff Denham – and voting for the Democratic budget during last summer’s standoff. As I explained at the time, however, this vote should not have been construed as overriding his long right-wing voting record. Maldonado voted against AB 32, and supported the Democratic budget only after Arnold promised to line-item $700 million in health care spending out of the final budget.

One quote alone from August 2007 does not prove Perata gave Maldonado a pass, but it is also cause for serious concern. Were Democratic candidates discouraged from taking on Maldonado? Was this a case of the failure of the local netroots, or a failure of Senate Democratic leaders, or a failure of a party system that centralizes candidate recruitment when this is perhaps better handled by local Democrats?

As we await these answers, it is worth keeping in mind the possibility of a write-in campaign to put someone on the June ballot – and give Maldonado the Democratic challenger he so richly deserves. According to the SoS website a write-in candidate would need 3,689 votes in June to be placed on the November ballot. Surely there is someone in this district, from Los Gatos on down to Santa Maria, who is interested in taking on this task.

Back in November I wrote about Santa Cruz County’s “wrong way” proposal to pass a tax measure to spend $600 million on widening the Highway 1 freeway but would have delivered virtually nothing for local passenger rail, despite the fact that the infrastructure to provide rail already exists.

Happily, wiser heads appear to have prevailed. The county’s Regional Transportation Commission voted to kill the plan yesterday, meaning it won’t go to the ballot in November as originally intended. Erosion of public support was cited as the reason for the decision. The county’s Business Council withdrew its support and, more importantly, its promise to fund the plan’s campaign; bicycle and transit supporters objected to the inadequate rail funding; the Sierra Club criticized the road’s effect on climate change; and local Republicans demanded that the freeway widening alone be funded.

I predicted that the plan would have failed at the ballot box, and I’m not surprised that it didn’t even make it that far. The tide is beginning to turn against using freeways to solve our transportation problems. Last November Seattle voters rejected a plan that would have added 160 miles of new freeway lanes, even though they have some of the nation’s worst traffic (outside of California, of course). And this week the Coastal Commission rejected a toll road through San Onofre State Beach, rightly choosing to protect the environment over continuing our outdated reliance on highway transportation.

Awareness is growing that climate change means we need to move away from global warming emissions that highway projects produce. Combined with peak oil and high gas prices, Californians are beginning to realize that alternatives are necessary for a 21st century transportation system – Amtrak California continues to set ridership records every month.

By refusing to waste precious tax dollars on freeway lanes, Santa Cruz County has taken the first step toward solving its transportation issues in a sustainable and responsible way. This gives county leaders and activists time to educate the public about the need for passenger rail, and come back to voters in a few years with a plan that will actually provide for the county’s needs, instead of foolishly trying to pretend that the methods of the 20th century can continue.

Hopefully we in Monterey County will follow Santa Cruz’ lead – transportation officials here are proposing a similar roads-focused tax plan, having stripped $90 million to bring Caltrain to Salinas. Public hearings are going on next week, so if you’re in Monterey County, speak out in favor of sustainable transportation, and against sticking our heads in the sand on climate change and peak oil!