Exhibit A is a copy of the voter pamphlet from the November 2000 election, showing the ballot language, analysis, and all of the arguments in the voter pamphlet for and against.  It also includes a copy of the resolution that the VTA board passed to put the Measure A tax on the ballot in 2000 at the very last minute (in an 11th-hour meeting the day before the Registrar’s deadline–like what they did this year when Measure B suddenly appeared from behind closed doors, fully formed and shaped by SVLG, for a last-minute rush onto the ballot) .

Note that the resolution in Exhibit A refers (on p. 16 of the pdf) to “the Downtown/East Valley Light Rail line operations, which can commence in 2008″ and that other parts of the resolution describe various light rail projects, increased Caltrain service, zero emission buses, expanded fleet of 750 buses, etc. We highlighted the most relevant portions in the exhibit for easy reference.

It’s now 2008, and the Downtown East Valley (DTEV) line hasn’t been built yet, nor is it planned to open anytime soon. The fact sheet describing this project is on the VTA website.  We submitted it as Exhibit D.

This VTA newsletter from 2001 confirms the original 2008 timeline for DTEV to open. We submitted this document as Exhibit C.

What’s been happening is that some segments of the DTEV project have gradually been made to become bus projects instead of light rail. More recently, there’s been a question of whether even the remaining segment of the project, the extension to Eastridge mall from Alum Rock, will remain a rail project or be made a “rapid bus” also.

Exhibit E is the last “Expenditure Plan” that VTA approved in June 2006.  This expenditure plan relied on a new 1/4-cent tax or equivalent that has never been approved by voters, to make the numbers look like they would work out. The 2006 plan shows an expected completion date for DTEV of 2012.  It shows other segments of the DTEV project being delayed until 2021 and 2024. Again we highlighted the relevant portions in the exhibit for easy reference.

Exhibit G is an April 2008 article by the Mercury News on how VTA can’t build all the projects that they promised, and is trying to figure out what to cut. Note that the reporter Gary Richards writes in it, “But if BART moves ahead in any form, the light-rail extension to Eastridge is at great risk…Burns said it might be wise to think about scrapping the extension in favor of express buses.”

Exhibit F is item 32 of the VTA board packet on August 7, 2008, on the DTEV project. What’s wild about this exhibit is that VTA submitted the very same set of documents in their exhibits as “proof” that the DTEV project is still on track and wasn’t delayed. We highlighted the relevant portions in the documents so that the judge could pick out the real story, which you can see for yourself in Exhibit F.

Exhibit J consists of pages from the 2000 Measure A December 2007 Semi-Annual Report, the latest Measure A report available at the time of the lawsuit. It lists a “Year of Completion: TBD [To Be Determined]” for DTEV. The DTEV project schedule chart at the bottom of that page (p. 2 of the pdf) states that “Schedule for right-of-way, utility relocations and construction will be finalized after adoption of an updated 2000 Measure A Revenue and Expenditure Plan to be considered by the VTA Board later in 2008.”

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else, is that the DTEV policy advisory board (DTEV PAB) met on June 12, 2008 and had voted to ask that the full VTA board consider a resolution of support for the project. The DTEV PAB is partly a subset of the VTA board, comprised of Dave Cortese, Nora Campos, Sam Liccardo, Blanca Alvarado, and Pete McHugh. With so much city of San Jose firepower on this policy board, you’d think that staff would oblige and put the matter on the next VTA agenda. Mysteriously however, the matter failed to appear on the agenda for the VTA board meeting which took place over a month later in July (a meeting which lacked a quorum anyway). Cortese was incensed with staff, and asked, what does it take, exactly, to get a matter put on the board agenda? You can see the exchange as recorded in the minutes for the July 17 VTA board meeting

“5. ORDERS OF THE DAY

Alternate Board Member Cortese inquired about the referral of the Downtown East Valley Policy Advisory Board (DTEV PAB) to have an item agendized on the Board of Directors Committee of the Whole meeting. He requested that items of referral, as documented by the Downtown East Valley Policy Advisory Board on its June 12, 2008 meeting, be properly agendized on the next VTA Board of Directors meeting.
Michael T. Burns, General Manager, responded that the minutes of the June 12, 2008 DTEV PAB was not transcribed and the referral was not acted upon. He noted that the request would be agendized on the August 7, 2008 Board of Directors meeting.
Board Member Cortese requested that a memorandum describing the procedure to agendize items for the Board of Directors be distributed to the Board Members.
Kevin Allmand, Acting General Counsel, stated that the process of putting items on the Agenda is discussed in the Rules and Procedure for the Board which specifically states that the Agenda would contain any item that is requested by any particular Board Member.”

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It really raises a question as to what is going on with this agency, which is so staff-driven that board members have difficulty getting an item onto the agenda.  While Cortese is currently an alternate voting member on the VTA board (and so he doesn’t get to vote unless one of the other San Jose appointees is absent), he served on the VTA board as a main voting rep for at least six years. If the procedure for getting items agendized isn’t known to Cortese by now, well, you really have to wonder what’s up with that. You can imagine his frustration with the situation and the sarcastic nature of his request.

Thus far we’ve definitively proved using VTA’s own documents that DTEV has been delayed. What about the other projects that we mentioned in our statement that our opponents challenged, more Caltrain service and the Airport People Mover?

Our argument that they have delayed “more Caltrain service” is true in two ways.  One is that their 2000 Measure A resolution in Exhibit A specifically defines (on p. 14 of the pdf) that Measure A monies will be used to “Increase Caltrain Service, specifically, Purchase new locomotive trains sets for increased Caltrain service in Santa Clara County from Gilroy to Palo Alto and provide additional facilities to support the increased service.” The VTA documents in Exhibit E from 2006 and Exhibit J from 2007 show initial completion of Caltrain service upgrades in 2015 and starting the 2nd phase of upgrades beginning in 2022.  An earlier document, VTA’s Feb 2005 Long-Term Transit Capital Investment Program which we submitted as Exhibit B shows Caltrain service upgrades first being completed in 2010 and the 2nd phase (for south county) beginning in 2017. Furthermore, VTA has never used 2000 Measure A funds to purchase new locomotives or train sets for Caltrain.

This post explains the exhibits we submitted that show that VTA cut Caltrain service, and also, that the new Caltrain baby bullet service did not actually constitute an increase in service.

The second way that we argued that VTA has delayed the provision of more Caltrain service, is that VTA has delayed Caltrain electrification, which  Caltrain needs to accomplish to be able to provide any significant increase in Caltrain service.

Exhibit O is an article published on August 20, 2008 in the Menlo Park Almanac which contains a quote from Caltrain’s spokeswoman that “the railroad cannot do much more to expand its capacity or the frequency of its service until it completes electrification of its system.”

Exhibit P is a September 2002 Caltrain board document that shows that Caltrain was on track to electrify Caltrain by 2008.  Note that at that time, VTA General Manager Mike Burns was a voting rep on the Caltrain board and was in attendance at that meeting. This was before Burns worked for VTA, when he was the head of the S.F. Public Transportation Commission (SF Muni).

Exhibit Q is a June 2003 VTA board memo discussing board members’ concerns about there not being any money to spare to increase Caltrain service, and VTA telling Caltrain to cut back, to reduce operations and capital expenses. It also includes a response from Caltrain which points out that VTA contributions toward operating costs had not increased in the previous 3 years, and that Caltrain had worked out a plan with VTA to use other (regional) monies so that VTA wouldn’t have to pay its capital contribution itself like it was supposed to. And even so, VTA was giving Caltrain a hard time about paying its bills.

Exhibit E, the June 2006 plan adopted by the VTA board, shows Caltrain electrification being scheduled for completion in 2018 for the SF to Tamien (San Jose) segment and 2036 for the Tamien to Gilroy segment.

What’s amazing is that VTA is actively holding up Caltrain electrification right now, at this very moment. In fact, they’ve underfunded their share of this year’s Caltrain capital budget costs by a measly $700,000 (see p. 65-66 of this link), even though their budget was nearly 3/4 of a Billion dollars last year. All the other Caltrain partner agencies have said that they’ll pay their full share of Caltrain capital costs this year. The memo also states that VTA’s funding for electrification, “will also be subject to future VTA board action.” No mention is made of any of the other funding partners having any potential hangups about paying for electrification. It’s incredible that VTA would boldly assert that our statement that VTA has delayed Caltrain electrification was false and misleading–and that they challenged that statement in our rebuttal!

We’d also said the Airport People Mover had been delayed. Our documentation on that is also crystal clear. Exhibit H contains pages from the VTP 2020 Implementation Plan presented at the VTA board workshop of February 2001. It states that the People Mover connection between the Airport and the Guadalupe light rail line was anticipated to be finished in 4-5 years, and states that the connection to the Caltrain/future BART station was anticipated to be completed in 8.5-10 years, so that would be in 2011. Five years later the VTA plan from 2006, Exhibit E, shows an “initial program scheduled finish date” of 2018 for the Mineta San Jose Airport People Mover. Page 5 of the pdf at Exhibit J also shows an anticipated year of completion of 2018 for the People Mover.

Exhibit R is a blog post from the blog, vtawatch.blogspot.com, detailing how VTA declared, leading up to their 2006 plan and by careful omission of words, that the first phase of the Airport People Mover was actually the existing #10 bus that goes between the airport and the Caltrain station now. The post also describes how SVLG pushed for delays to other projects like Caltrain electrification, DTEV, and the Airport People Mover in order to prioritize funding for the BART project. Exhibit DD, p. 11 of the pdf, is the actual VTA document with the weasel wording that is exposed in Exhibit R.

The projects that were cut entirely? Again, look at what was promised to voters in 2000 in Exhibit A with the Measure A program, and also see Exhibit H and Exhibit I. A huge expansion of the bus fleet, lots of zero-emission buses, and capital funding for at least two more light rail lines.  Instead, we see from Exhibit K that VTA shrunk their bus fleet by more than 10%. The promised zero emission buses that were to expand the fleet have not materialized either. Exhibit E shows that capital funding to build additional light rail lines has vanished. “New Rail Corridors” has morphed into “New Rail Corridors Study”. And, as we explained earlier, segments of the DTEV project have been chipped away almost to the point of DTEV not being a light rail project at all.

Finally, check out Exhibit Y, the minutes of the Sept. 2003 VTA board meeting, in which county staff tell VTA that their own analysis of the 2000 Measure A program indicates that there’s a $2-Billion deficit; was VTA aware of this? and noting that “a shortfall will result in some of the other projects or BART being delayed or not even done.”

That’s how we substantiated our assertion, to the judge’s satisfaction, that “Today, all of those projects have been delayed. Others have been cut entirely.”  If you’ve actually read this far and looked at the exhibits, I’m sure you’re as amazed as I am that VTA actually thought they could prevail on their challenge to this statement and to the other ones. And they might have, if I weren’t such a pack rat and so mad at VTA that I actually kept copies of these documents, as proof of their dastardly deeds, and had organized them enough that I could dig them up from my archives and get them into the right format for submission in the brief window of time that we had to present evidence to the judge, just barely.