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Bay Area legislators representing bigger cities are doing all they can to tap into an already out-of-balance state budget.
Two recent proposals:
- A South Bay official joined with one from Los Angeles to propose a special $2 billion allocation to cover mass transit costs associated with hosting the World Cup next year in both areas as well as the Super Bowl in Santa Clara next year. The 2028 Olympics loom in Los Angeles.
- San Francisco State Sen. Scott Wiener and fellow Democrat Jesse Arreguin (former Berkeley mayor) refloated the idea of a 30-year increase in the sales tax by ½-cent. It went nowhere last year.
Their bill would authorize a vote in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties to approve the tax next year. Proceeds would fund BART, MUNI in San Francisco, CalTrain along the Peninsula and AC Transit. Santa Clara could opt it if it wanted Valley Transportation included in the pot.
The bill is a classic case of the big city pols trying to tax people who would receive little or no benefit from the tax. AC Transit doesn’t come close to any community east of the hills—the same could be said for CalTrain. It was a bad idea when Wiener floated it last year and remains one.
I was saddened to read last week about the passing of Richard “Dick” Karn in Vacaville at the ripe of old age of 97. Dick and his late wife, Peggy, lived in a wonderful home on Pleasanton Ridge for decades that was ideally suited for entertaining with multiple decks with clear views over Pleasanton and beyond in the Livermore Valley.
I worked with both on community endeavors: Peggy as elders in our church and Dick as a fellow Rotarian and on non-profits.
We enjoyed great times there, but Dick left a far bigger legacy through his professional life as a civil engineer. After graduating from Cal, he was employed by Alameda County public works in its water division. Among those he was responsible for was Zone 7, now the Livermore Valley’s purveyor of wholesale water for municipal and agricultural uses.
Voters approved Zone 7 in 1957 and the agency formally joined the State Water Project, bringing imported Delta water to the valley in 1961. By that time, Dick was the principal engineer.
As important as Zone 7 is, his work in North Pleasanton was also critical. He left the county and formed Bissell and Karn with Don Bissell. Their firm did the civil engineering for Hacienda Business Park and other improvements that led to the business and residential developments we see there today more than 40 years later. Joe Callahan was the public face of the park, while Dick and other professionals did their work behind the scenes to take the entire area out of the flood plain with a series of new flood control channels that, combined with work at the Bernal Ave. bridge took homes in Val Vista out of the flood zone.
The water and road systems essentially were./ built from scratch, allowing such key links as Stoneridge Drive from Foothill Road to Livermore.
Services are at 11 a.m Saturday at Graham Hitch Mortuary followed by a reception at the Veteran’s Hall (Dick served in the Pacific Theater with the Navy in World War II).
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