Train advocates sue to force ballot language change

The Sonoma-Marin agency promoting commuter rail has fired the opening salvo in what is promising to be a bruising election-year fight, filing suit Wednesday in an attempt to disallow the opponents’ ballot arguments.

Those arguments are intentionally false and misleading, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit agency claims.

“We filed it because we believe it is in SMART’s interest and the taxpayers interest to have a fair election,” said Chris Coursey, a spokesman for the rail agency. “And the law says the arguments cannot have false statements in the ballot arguments.”

SMART has a quarter-cent sales tax on the November ballot, the second time it has proposed the tax to fund commuter train service between Sonoma and Marin counties.

The tax is Measure Q, and it would raise $890.7 million over its 20-year life, building a train system running from Cloverdale to Larkspur that would be in operation beginning in 2014.

Financial plans by SMART estimate the construction cost of the train at $450 million, another $90 million for a bicycle-hiking trail, and $462 million in operating costs.

In 2006, a quarter-cent sales tax measure was defeated, gaining a combined 65 percent in Sonoma and Marin counties, just short of the two-thirds needed to pass.

SMART says that, despite opponent’s arguments, there will be no 60-car passenger and freight trains running at all hours through Novato, Terra Linda and San Rafael, and no freight trains at all in Terra Linda or San Rafael.

SMART also disputes arguments that say SMART’s own studies say trains would not serve Marin transit needs, that a sales tax would not cover the costs and that commute trains facilitate gravel mining in the Eel River.

Opponents justify the arguments as being their opinions and their interpretation of SMART and the North Coast Rail Authority studies, claims and financial plans.

They also say the suit is a desperate attempt to silence SMART’s critics and believes the public will view it as bullying.

“It is apparent the SMART board thinks this may be their final chance to pass a tax to support a SMART project and at this point are willing to use taxpayers dollars as a thinly veiled attempt to try to suppress the opponents arguments,” said Mike Arnold of Novato, who was one of the drafters of the arguments.

Arnold is a member of Marin Citizens for Effective Transportation and Citizens Opposed to the SMART Train Tax, the group which is opposing the SMART proposal in Marin and Sonoma counties.

“The bar is high for rejecting a ballot measure by a judge,” Arnold said. “All the lawyers are saying the same thing, they all say you really have to do something egregious. Ballot arguments are statements of what people think, they have free speech in them.”

Opponents have until Sept. 3 to respond to the suit and a hearing has been set for Sept. 8, the deadline to submit arguments for the November ballot.