Suzanne Doyle
Sonoma Group Conservation Committee

Transportation Tax

The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) has worked for years to put a measure on the November ballot raising sales tax money for passenger rail. When Marin decided to push forward with a road tax in 2004 and wait until 2006 to bring the train tax to a vote, public reaction in Sonoma County was strongly negative. Supervisor Paul Kelley then unveiled an alternative proposal for a Sonoma County 2004 transportation tax. This quarter cent sales tax would be divided as follows: 40% for Hwy 101 widening, 40% for other road improvements and freeway interchanges, 5% to keep the passenger train project moving forward, and 14% for buses, bikes, and pedestrians.

The Sonoma Group has been split on whether or not to support this tax measure. Some long-time transportation activists feel that keeping some funding for passenger rail is so important that they will accept the large amount spent on auto infrastructure as part of the package. This tax will also guarantee some funding for alternative transportations which usually have a hard time getting any public money at all. Another point of view feels that county taxpayers will not vote for many more sales tax increases, and that passing this auto-heavy transportation tax will harm sales tax proposals in 2006 to raise money for the train and for reauthorization of the Open Space District.

As the Redwood Needles went to press, the Sonoma Group ExCom had not yet decided what position to take on this issue; further discussion was planned for their meeting on September 13.

Salamanders and Salmon

designated critical habitat, as it is required to, in 21 of the 22 counties, but is holding off in Sonoma County until the work of the Santa Rosa Plain Conservation Strategy Team is finished in a few months. The Strategy Team consists of representatives from the government agencies involved in endangered species preservation, the cities, county, landowners, developers and the environmental community, including the Sonoma Group. The Team is attempting to come up with the outline of a plan that all the representatives can accept.

The Team is now in the final phase of its work. Conservation areas have been mapped out, and Fish & Wildlife is negotiating directly with the developers who are poised to transform southwest Santa Rosa. They are working out a mitigation formula so that destruction of tiger salamander habitat within the city limits will require preservation of habitat in a Conservation Area outside of the city. A peer review by independent scientists will then express an opinion on whether the plan will actually prevent the extinctions of the tiger salamander and three endangered vernal pool plants in the Santa Rosa Plain. Another public meeting will be held, maybe in November. If all parties agree, the plan will eventully be enacted by being written into city and county codes.