Politics & Government

RepealSMART Files Lawsuit Against Transportation Authority

Group claims open-meeting law violated as well as misuse of sales tax funds; TAM board meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday to iron out controversial vote on $8 million donation to SMART.

Opponents of a Marin transportation board’s decision to provide an $8 million bailout to Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the Marin County Superior Court accusing the board of violating open-meeting laws and misleading the public in regard to the use of sales tax revenues.

RepealSMART, an organization led by Novato resident John Parnell, claims that the Transportation Authority of Marin excluded the public from discussion on a June 23 meeting when it decided to after the most of public left.

After nearly three hours of discussion, the initial vote deadlocked 7-7, with Sandra Donnell absent. After a short break, the board reconvened and Joan Lundstrom of Larkspur switched, making the new vote 8-6 in favor of the $8 million boost to the controversial passenger rail project that faces a funding shortfall of about $150 million.

TAM will reconsider the vote at 7 p.m. tonight, July 7, in the Marin County Supervisors chambers (Room 330) at 3501 Civic Center Drive.

The motion passed June 23 on the condition that SMART agrees to negotiate a project that would include a pedestrian bridge over Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the Larkspur Ferry and to recognize that Marin’s share of a multi-use path in the initial construction is 33 percent.

The second vote took place without notification, so Parnell and his organization claims TAM violated the Brown Act, a government code that requires public boards and agencies to notify its citizens of meetings and allow participation.

The lawsuit accuses several TAM board members of “improperly concealing significant adverse financial information” to obtain money for SMART and says TAM would be violating the law by tapping Measure A transportation funds, passed as a half-cent sales tax increase by voters in 2004, for the SMART contribution.

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TAM board chair and Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey said he responded to the lawsuit via the group's lawyer on Thursday morning and said no Measure A funds were part of the funding.

"Both the instances will really go nowhere," he said.

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Carole Dillon-Knutson, who serves on the TAM board, the SMART board as well as the Novato City Council, called RepealSMART’s allegations unfounded.

“I don’t understand their Brown Act allegation,” she said. “A vote was taken at a noticed meeting. It was all done on a webcast. I don’t know how they can say something is a Brown Act violation when it’s all done out in the open. We certainly were not talking in private.”

The lawsuit also states that funds collected from a half-cent sales taxes approved in 2004, known as Measure A, were not meant to be used for rail transportation.

“The public has been misled regarding the use of our sales tax revenues. Also, there are apparent conflicts of interest by a number of members who serve on both boards,” Parnell wrote, referring to TAM commissioners Dillon-Knutson, Judy Arnold, Al Boro, Katherin Sears and Stephanie Moulton-Peters, who represent Marin on the SMART district.

The lawsuit requests that any decision acting on the June 23 8-6 vote or allocating $8 million for SMART be null and void.


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