Critics launch attempt to repeal SMART tax funding

Opponents of a Sonoma-Marin commute rail service and its growing costs took the first legal step Monday toward repealing its main funding source.

Legal notices posted in North Bay newspapers Monday and today

announced the group's plan to gather signatures in support of putting the 0.25 percent sales tax back before voters. Opponents had announced in June that they intended to launch the petition drive.

The tax provides a 20-year funding stream for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transportation district. SMART officials recently estimated the project will cost $45 million more than expected.

"Either there was negligence in people preparing numbers initially, or the voters were intentionally misled," said Clay Mitchell, a spokesman for the group, Repeal SMART.

The group has six months to collect 37,314 signatures from voters in Sonoma and Marin counties to qualify the repeal measure for the ballot. Mitchell said he hopes to place it before voters in June or November 2012.

More than two-thirds of voters in the two counties approved the rail plan and tax in 2008. At that point, the project was slated to be a 70-mile line from Larkspur to Cloverdale. However economic conditions forced SMART officials to announce plans to open the line in stages, starting with a 37-mile stretch from Railroad Square in Santa Rosa to downtown San Rafael.

SMART officials initially estimated the shorter line would cost $335 million. Cost estimates jumped to $380 million in July.

However, a projected rebound in sales tax revenue, coupled with delaying the opening of the line to 2015 and other cost-saving efforts should offset for the higher costs, said Marin Public Works Director Fahrad Mansourian, who is temporarily serving as SMART's interim executive director.

Delaying the start of rail service a year will save the project $12 million, officials said.

The reduction in service represents a totally different project than what voters approved in 2008, said Mitchell, who lives in Windsor, one of the cities eliminated from the initial phase.

"It's better to cut our losses at this point," said Mitchell.

Passage of the sales tax in 2008 required a two-third majority of voters. Repeal will require a simple majority.