Lack of accountability of COG's directors to the electorate and COG's lack of transparency continue to damage our county. Governance flaws of VTA identified by the Grand Jury's Report, June 23, 2004, have been spread to COG. The COG-VTA "mobility partnership" reveals the consequences of a tiny, impoverished, agricultural county going to bed with an 800-pound gorilla.
VTA was found to be the worst transit agency in the USA by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology study of all the nation's transit agencies. VTA and AMBAG ignorance and apathy have left Silicon Valley and Salinas Valley as the largest area on the North American continent without intermodal facilities. Governance flaws identified by the Grand Jury have subsequently been confirmed by VTA's own auditors. Santa Clara County voters said "NO" to VTA's last Measure A tax increase, as did the Monterey County voters to that county's Measure A tax increase proposal. VTA could have built an east-west connector between Highway 152 and Highway 101 years ago, but VTA's myopic leaders squandered billions on boondoggles like "lite rail" (heavy socialism) and BART-to-San Jose extension.
Our leaders divert motorists' gas taxes to unused mass transit fiascoes better suited to densely populated cities in socialist countries in Europe. Meanwhile, highway safety improvements are delayed or never built. Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage said (quoted in Gilroy Dispatch, October 2006) that neither Santa Clara County nor VTA would give any money to build highways in San Benito County. With Santa Clara County's annual budget deficit nearing $200 million, and the governor's ax about to fall, and with VTA short $5 billion (underestimated as is their customary practice to mislead their directors and the taxpayers) for their boondoggle with BART, and under current statutes governing payment responsibility for highway construction, it is folly to look to our northern neighbors to pay for the east-west connector (formerly 3-in-1). Tonnage flows into and out of these two valleys will continue to grow, while our leaders are bamboozled by unconstitutional MPOs (metropolitan planning organizations) like VTA, AMBAG, COG, TAMC, SCCRTC, etc. Until we correct our governance flaws, terminate redundant entities mishandling our transport policy, and return to our American roots of free enterprise transport, we will continue to see our county made unlivable by bad policy decisions.
A just government derives its power from the consent of the governed, and nobody elected COG (or VTA) directors. Unelected, unaccountable, untransparent COG should be terminated ASAP. Joe Thompson, Tres Pinos
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