From what I have read about the Clovis Chamber position, it looks like the Fresno Bee editorial board are the whiners. You make general comments, attack groups and individuals who dare have another point of view, and you are afraid to publish and debate the details of the proposed Measure C plan. When are you going to do that??

I commend the Clovis Chamber for being willing to look at the details. No money for Herndon and Shaw? No money to fix the problems on Freeway 41 and Herndon, but $240 million for 180 east and west that handles one-sixth the traffic of Herndon on a daily basis? 39 million for people movers? 20 million for developers? 420 million for buses, farm worker vans and free taxi rides that very few ride?

You need to stop misleading people that the new measure C creates $1.7 billion in construction projects. It does not. It takes $1.7 billion of our money out of the economy and redistributes it to low priority special interest projects and does very little, if anything, to solve our transportation problems, improve our air quality and fix traffic congestion for the vast majority of Fresno County residents.

The only way for this Measure to pass is for you to never publish details of the plan and hope voters never go to www.fresnocog.org and read the plan. Because if they do, they will vote against it and let the special interests know that the people of our county want a plan that solves problems --not a plan that rewards pie-in-the-sky hopes that don't deal with reality.

Where do I start?

Mr. Steitz seems to have a poor decision-making process if he believes what he's written. Measure C affects and helps everyone in Fresno County.

It seems to me that Mr. Steitz was a city councilman and just maybe if he had done his job we wouldn't so desperately need Measure C. I suppose there are those who are against everything.

John,
I did my job as a councilman. We spent money for the synchroniztion of Herndon 8 years ago. Why hasn't that been done?

The real issue has been for the last 20 years we have had to tax ourselves because the unions and state legislators have moved monies that should have come to the Valley for roads and have sent it to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego instead.

What other reasons are there for us to be one of two or three counties that tax ourselves to get just basic road work done?

Ken, how many federal tax dollars did we get from the transportation bill? Looks to me like the 19th District congressman didn't do his job.

We can't, as a community, not support Measure C because of spite for situations that may or may not be correct. I believe our community is taking care of itself with Measure C, and the need for it can't be denied.

John,
I agree with you that legislators at both the state and federal level haven't been able to deliver transportation money for Fresno County. I also agree with you that we need Measure C.

This plan doesn't meet our current needs, let alone 20 years from now. We already have a list of priority projects for our County based on need. These priority projects are not in the proposed plan. Put those on the ballot and I guaranteee it would pass!!

John, I think the 20th District congressman didn't do his job any better than the one from the 19th.

Of course most of the funds in the federal transportation bill aren't allocated based on "pork" projects. They are based on formulas that routinely short California, which California routinely complains about. And then those funds are allocated in a formula from the State to the local governments, and we routinely complain that we don't get our fair share here in Fresno.

It's funny that now, when Fresno's "leadership" proposes to underfund the urban community's transportation needs, when they propose to do the urban part of our community what the Feds do to California and what the we say California does to our County, when concerned citizens then raise concerns about underfunding congestion relief in the urban region, our leaders then claim that we shouldn't discuss the equities of the funding allocations. Concerned citizens are told to sit down and shut up.

If you want the urban area to be a vibrant economic engine for our community, good paying jobs for workers and a diversified economy, then ongoing investment in key transportation cooridors are critical. And it shouldn't be a sin to question the wisdom of investments that this Measure makes because it is the bulk of all our transportation funds over the next 20 years and it's too important to get it drastically wrong.

Much is said about the Measure C committee's efforts and its compromise and collaboration. But never in any of the meetings was there ever any significant debate about the relative allocation freeway funds to the urban versus rural area, or any debate about the mix of the freeway projects that were to be funded. That was kicked to a subcommittee.

And after putting the issue off for several meetings, when those debates were finally to be held, the subcommittee chair cancelled the meeting. And when the issues were to be raised at the full committee level, that same invidual led the effort to call the question. The committee therefore cut off any debate on the matter before it ever began. That's what now described and collaboration and compromise.

For the record, Mr. Steitz is incorrect in saying that The Bee has not covered the details of Measure C. The measure has been covered extensively in The Bee. We also plan to devote the Sept. 17 Vision section to the issue. The special expanded section will have commentaries, charts, graphs and photos explaining how the new Measure C will work and what we got from the current Measure C.