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League of Women Voters of California
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Full Biography for Nancy Jewell Cross
Candidate for |
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QUESTIONS MAYBE YOU'RE THINKING, AND ANSWERS Question 1: How do you get around, living in Fremont? Do you use buses and trains, or rely on a
Yes, I recognize, summing all people in all circumstances, that it is uneconomical, impossible, or impractical, or all of these, in Bay Area suburbia, generally speaking, to have desired wide-ranging, independent mobility relying on buses, trains, and walking solely. --The possibility, economicality, and practicality, predictably varies for shorter and longer segments of a person's lifespan, and the particular locations of home and destinations of interest. At earliest age of eligibility therefor I acquired a vehicle driver's license, and I can renew it if I choose. I drove a car for decades, and until as owner I found it took my time and attention inordinately and, in Bay Area suburbia, I tried out for feasibility--it seemed to be an all or nothing proposition--getting around without.
The possibility and feasibility of attaining desired wide-ranging, independent mobility without a personal car and current driver's license, additionally, I found out from inception of the experiment, radically changes if you add, can add, driving a bicycle and hiring taxis to access trains with luggage en route to an airflight and in some other circumstances, and familiarize yourself with bus routes and schedules and other options for mobility. For many people at some times in their lives and circumstances--bicycle-linked car-free total trips lifestyle may be possible, practical, economical, efficient--albeit different; and desirable. It has been studied in London statistically, and determined the more so the more the vehicle congestion on the roads. At this time in my life it is so, or I have made it so--or a combination of it is and I have made--for some years. The endeavor and experience, in my view, contributes to peak performance by me as a transportation systems developer and public official in transportation!
To prospective voters: Consider: Would you have the "servants of the people" for their salaries burden your pocketbook and your ear and attention for their forever "trying to get (other) people to get out of their cars" to solve vehicular congestion, or, in lieu, you tell them, and choose among them for survival as your servant, in no uncertain terms to cut the cant and, instead, contribute to government transportation decision-making whatever it takes to produce, perform, get the job done! In order to move safe, efficient, economical, and pleasant car-free travel in a vehicles-congested urban environment, a transportation public officials needs TO FEEL AND THINK IN REAL TIME as if her or his job depended on identifying and achieving what needs to be done!
Expect a candidate worth voting for, for elective transportation office to give a good answer to "What would make real, parcels-burdened, multi-purpose, often multi-mode, time constraints-and contingencies-laden, car-free total trips--not just single, one origin-destination-pair trips for shortest route--practical for many more people (not to bother about all)?" Can the candidate imagine creatively, ways and means for addressing the gaps, and exchange ideas for their realization with other people?--Live the reality, help forge the solution? "Now that's your job if you're in transportation governance!", you tell them!
Question 2: What is CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS-- Regional and Interregional Developers?
Founding Mission Question: How do we get the people in all the habitable
C.A.T.S. has changed the face of Bay Area Transportation significantly. "How?" is available interactively. Maps, not available here, are needed to understand efficiently.
C.A.T.S. offers capability in transportation systems to the people where they are, listens to the people, using polls and other means including but not limited to public meetings, generates creative solutions, consults with the people on petitions, and gets the significance to decision-makers who may be sitting on government bodies or thepeople voting. However, communications can go awry, and this has happened to C.A.T.S. and its chief executive officer in its efforts to communicate with people registered to vote on several occasions. --Including at this election!
Alameda County election materials, can I rely
Readers expect writings in the public forum are authentic over a person's signature and decided fairly and regularly for inclusion in election booklets. They may not be! What is provided by a candidate or ballot measure argument submitted, may in fact after filing without consent of the candidate or submitter be censored to destroy, mislead, and defeat, for the purpose of supporting the position of someone from whom the Registrar of Voters takes directions in his interest in retaining his job! A court order is not evidence of truth or falsity, nor of due process notice and fair trial, or any, convenient as may be such inference. Was it Alice in Wonderland, or the Queen, who found it desirable to "imagine seven imposible things before breakfast"? Imagining what could be outside your ken in election processing may be useful in knowing what, in fact, goes on! Consider the following facts collectively.
In Alameda County, the Registrar of Voters is a county employee serving at the pleasure of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors puts measures on the ballot, and its members routinely support or oppose measures put on the ballot by others, say Bart or AC Transit. Also the Registrar of Voters, Board of Supervisors, and Superior Court judges have the same attorney: the County Counsel, who, like the Registrar of Voters, serves at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors. A Superior Court judge can order censorship without even due notice to, or appearance of, the person or organization whose writing is stricken or censored, or any admissible evidence to justify prior restraint of expression on a public matter, or even a Complaint verified by a real party in interest, or her or his appearance in court--of which is a straw plaintiff! All it takes to censor, delete, or change election materials over others' signatures without due process of law as generally understood, is mere agreement of the county counsel's clients--covertly, unidentified! In California, there is no clear, speedy, and adequate remedy in right of access to any higher court (other than the People), for timely redress before the election from county government agents' concerted constitutional and civil rights violations of the United States Constitution, First Amendment read with the Fourteenth Amendment, and the California Constitution, Article I, Section 2. --This notwithstanding California Code of Civil Procedure, Section 425.16 particularly specifying a cause of action against prior restraint of public expression on a public issue.
And so it happened Alameda County Registrar of Voters examined my nominating signatures for AC Transit (none is required for Bart) submitted in twice the number required, and found them sufficient, and on August 9, 2002 examined and filed on Declaration of Candidacy forms my choice of occupational designation to appear on the ballots for Bart and AC Transit, my Oath of Allegiance for both, my Candidate's Statement for AC Transit--limited to 200 words, and a check to AC Transit for $400 for its printing and distribution to persons registered to vote. The Registrar of Voters subsequently examined and filed, timely, C.A.T.S.'-signed Primary Argument Against, and Rebuttal to, Alameda County Measure A (Board of Supervisors' measure to raise the hotel and lodging tax) and a Primary Argument Against Alameda County Measure BB (Bart Seismic Safety General Obligation Bond).
Thereafter, AC Transit's Oakland-residing, San Jose-employed Board President, in concert with the AC Transit board member living in San Lorenzo, Ward 4, both of whom the other candidate for AC Transit Ward 5 (comprised of Fremont, Newark, and Hayward west of I#880) includes on his a list of endorsers, without so much as being a party in a court action caused the Registrar of Voters to delete my occupation on the November 5, 2002 general election ballots for both AC Transit Ward 5 and Bart Ward 6 and to white-out what offended him in my Candidate's Statement for the AC Transit Board Member for Ward 5!
Another alien force--alien to fair and honest elections, covertly altered after its filing by the Registrar of Voters, CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS' Rebuttal to the Primary Argument in Favor of Measure A, subscribed by me as its Chief Executive Officer. Measure A is the Alameda County Board of Supervisors' Measure to raise the hotel and motel tax in Alameda County unincorporated area. City of Oakland City also has on the November 5, 2002 General Election Ballot Measure II (two capital iis) seeking voter' approval to raise Oakland's hotel and motel tax, for which C.A.T.S. also filed a Primary Argument Against, and Rebuttal. The Rebuttal published for the City of Oakland measure is not fully true to the original but only by what one may see as likely inadvertent scrambling of a short subsequent sentence encapsuled in the preceeding sentence.
C.A.T.S. submitted timely, and the Alameda County Registrar of Voters filed, a Primary Argument Against Measure BB, Bart's Seismic Safety Bond Measure. As shown by events disclosed below, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters wanted the public or people registered to vote, not to see it. Another Primary Argument Against Measure BB was submitted, timely, bearing signatures of five individuals. By state statute, the position of, and filed memorandum to, the Superior Court by esteemed former Alameda County Counsel on behalf of the recent Registrar of Voters, and decision of the Alameda County Superior Court, with Guidelines from the present Alameda County Registrar of Voters consistent, priority in publication in materials for people registered to vote goes to the argument subscribed by the organization as distinguished from an argument subscribed by individuals, limited to five, without discretion in the Registrar of Voters "to select". So without allowing the public after filing of the two primary arguments against Measure BB, the Registrar upon examining the signatures and finding statute precluded his determining to print any but an organization argument if available--and C.A.T.S.'s was the only one, contacted the representative of the five individual signers and negotiated their argument to be included in mailing to persons registered to vote instead of the one priority by state statute, C.A.T.S's.
It cannot be said by the writer that this comprehends all departures from fairness and accuracy even in Alameda County in materials for the General Election on November 5, 2002. The foregoing are only what I know. In the nature of irregularities, they tend to be cover.
For more on the foregoing, including authentic texts of my Candidate's Statement and arguments and rebuttals on measures on the ballot at the November 5, 2002 General Election, please see in AC Transit, Ward 5 this candidate's Political Philosophy, and in Bart, Ward 6, the Position Paper I: "Land Use, Transportation, and Tax/Bond Authorization".
HOW DO YOU KNOW TRANSPORTATION IN THE BAY AREA?
I know Bay Area transportation besides by experiencing it, by reading in specialized transportation libraries--particularly the MTC-ABAG Library at 101 8th Street at the Lake Merritt Bart Station, and U. C., Berkeley, Institute of Transportation Studies whose Friday afternoon seminars I have attended intermittently over the years; by attending and participating in meetings of diverse city councils, county boards of supervisors and congestion management agencies, the air quality, land use, and transportation agencies comprised of county supervisors and city council members, and the California Transportation Commission; attending hundreds of conferences and ad hoc events on transportation; listening to, and discussing with, the people transportation alternatives, and pursuing research projects in transportation characteristically with writings, graphics, and audiovisual presentations of the results at public meetings. SPECIAL STUDIES AND MEMORANDA BY NANCY JEWELL CROSS INCLUDE 1. Tracking Capital Costs and Personal Car Parking Facilities As An Element Thereof in the Dublin/Pleasanton Bart Extension Project? (1995) 2. Do the Fairbox Ratio and Operating Ratio of Bart Change If Personal Car Parking at Stations' Capital and Operating Costs Are Included? (1995) 3. How Green Is Your Bart Station? -- 49 Bart Station Profiles by City, Bart Train Patronage, Mode of Leaving Home for Bart, and Land Use and Transportation Planning Context. (2002) 4. Should Multimodal Transportation Systems Analysis Precede Project Design Alternatives Analysis?--San Francisco Bay Bridge (May 14, 1997) 5. Comparison of Multistory Bicycle and Vehicle Garages. Models at Kasukabe City, Japan, and San Francisco International Airport. Environmental Impacts, User Charges, Costs for Land and Construction, Parking Efficiencies and Capacity Efficiencies. Documents in Japanese translated and measurements converted. The comparison is shown in spreadsheet form. (1997). 6. Big Challenge, Big Payoffs: Bicycle-Linked Car-Free Total Trips (2000) 7. Focussing on Transportation Systems Solutions. Rail-Based Solutions for Freeway Overloads (l998) 8. Untaped Opportunities for Mobile Source Emissions Reductions in Central California Bay Area. (2001) 9. "Customer Service", Memorandum to AC Transit NJC #02-012. (January 13, 2002) Message: AC Transit, listen to customers and for raise Small Buses from 4% in AC Transit's bus fleet to at least 40%! 10. Shall City of Fremont's Main Library Be Car-Free Access Friendly? (2000) 11. Route #84 Realignment Project, to Caltrans and Alameda County Transportation Authority: Comments Related to the Final Environmental Impact Statement & Process (April 8, 2002) 12. Comments on Initial Study/Environmental Assessment for 85/101 Interchange Project, to Caltrans, the Federal Highway Administration, and Valley Transportation Authority. (November 11, 2001) 13. A Mile Around Transportation Poll, Fremont and Union City. (May & August 2000) 14. Transportation Deficiency Puts Bay Area Bid for 2012 Summer Olympics in Jeopardy--Clean Air Transport Systems' Olympics Package Can Rescue It! (April 24, 2002) 15. A New Direction! Flex Resources Available for Outdated Highway Projects Whose Construction Would Aggravate Road Congestion and Make the Air More Toxic Into Use, Instead for a Comprehensive Cart-Free Travel Network in Central and Southern Alameda County for Time-Efficient, Pleasurable, and Economical Travel and Quality Air! (October 9, 2001) 16. Maxims of Transport Prudence (2001) 17. Two Years 1999-2000 Revising of Fremont-Newark AC Transit Service (2002)See AC Transit GM Memo #02-047, for meeting date 2/21/02, "Results of District 2 Ridership Survey", on total revision in District 2 in December 2000. 18. Contract for European Buses and RFP, AC Transit Memo #NJC 01-359, 12/5/01. $61,000,000 to Belgium, near where the mother of the AC Transit Board President lives, in France. --A sole source procurement waiving 83% federal funding for compliance with "Buy American" federal funding requirement, on funds taken from source otherwise for AC Transit bus operations, with sequelae AC Transit big budget deficit for years, higher fares, cuts in service, and parcel tax measure on the ballot in the northern part of the District.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFELONG EDUCATION?
YES! During my first term as an AC Transit Board Member from Southern Alameda County and from 2000 on:
BUT CAN YOU CAN PUT IT ALL TOGETHER?
"Well, Dr. Cross, you really do know the transit that's available in the Bay Area, and we appreciate the comments that you made today, and I think we can forward those to the respective agencies as thoughts for them to think about for the future. So I want to thank you for being here today. I think there's no one who knows more about public transit in the Bay Area than you do. Thank you very much!"
--Dianne McKenna, Chair, California Transportation Commission, on April 4, 2002, following a presentation by me to the California Transportation Commission. DO YOU LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE IN TRANSPORTATION INTERESTS AND INITIATE AND RESPOND ACTIVELY TO ADDRESS NEEDS?
YES, TRY ON THIS SAMPLER: I. SERVING THE PUBLIC: HAS ANYBODY ASKED THE CUSTOMER?
At the Institute of Transportation Engineers' International Conference at La Jolla, California, whose title was "The Environment: Changing Our Transportation Priorities", my choice and content of paper submitted for presentation, led to my presenting on a panel titled, "Serving the Public: Has Anybody Asked the Customer?" II. RAIL HUB AT UNION CITY: INFORMATION TOOLS FOR DESIGN Following relevant contacts at a meeting of the California Transportation Commission in Sacramento I asked the Director of the Union City Planning and Development Department to, and his department and Union City Transit did, lend city facilities and co-sponsor at Union City Council Chambers an all day conference titled, "Rail Hub at Union City: Information Tools for Design". It was held at Union City Council Chambers on June 5, 1999 with diverse speakers and attendees.
At the Altamont Commuter Express First Anniversary Celebration at the Centerville Station in Fremont on October 16, 1999 I distributed to hundreds of people--train riders and others present, flyers honoring the occasion, noticing the possibility of hubbing ACE with Bart at Union City, and inviting people to let the State Director of Transportation know their interest, with address and telephone number provided on the flyers. The Governor of California shortly thereafter announced with great press fanfare his decision to invest his special traffic congestion relief money including funds for a grade separation at Decoto Road needed for a rail hub at Union City! Would the publicity and interest generated by the Rail Hub at Union City Conference and the flyers at the First Anniversary Celebration and related other work by me have generated general public awareness and elsewhere of "rail hub" and rail network concepts for addressing freeway overloads have given the Governor's the justification and political support he needed to invest in grade separation for rail hubbing at Union City? III. "HOW WILL YOU GO TOMORROW?" TRANSPORTATION CLASS AT FREMONT MAIN LIBRARY On March 4, 2000 I conducted at Fremont Main Library, a 2-hour, one-session Transportation Class, "How Will You Go?", to prepare people for the then upcoming public hearing on AC Transit's Fremont-Newark proposed bus plan changes which at that was up for public review.Should we have: A bus stop at the front entrance to Fremont Main Library? Small buses with greater frequencies? A new regional bus route, Eastbay Winds along Hesperian, Union City, Ardenwood, and Newark Boulevards, and from there to Fremont Boulevard, Stevenson Boulevard, and Lake Elizabeth? Should taxpayers pay $550/day for taking 23 employees paying $67.50/day in fares to Newark and Fremont industrial parks in the Dumbarton Corridor using AC Transit big buses, and what are the alternatives? Should the Dumbarton Express have evening and weekend service and stop at the Toll Plaza, with roads and trails developed to connect? IV. MEETING WITH PEOPLE IN IRVINGTON TO ADDRESS PEOPLE'S CONCERNS FROM AC TRANSIT'S 2000 WITHDRAWAL OF ROUTES 23 AND 30 IN FAVOR OF MORE LIMITED SERVICE ON GRIMMER AND FREMONT BOULEVARDS ARTERIALS
A resident of Victoria Gardens Senior Apartments in Irvingon District of Fremont, contacted me over transportation pains caused by AC Transit's December 2000 changes in Fremont and Newark area, particularly the termination of former routes #23 and #30. Residents of Victoria Gardens and vicinity in Irvington in order to catch a bus residents now had to walk longer distances and by unsafe accesses to unsheltered stops on the arterial, Grimmer Boulevard, to catch the new AC Transit #218, or to #212 on a distant other arterial, Fremont Boulevard. A male resident of Victoria Gardens Senior Apartments telephoned to ask me to try to get the new AC #218 to diverge from the Grimmer Boulevard arterial to be more accessible, safely, to Irvington residents. Later a woman who lived on Grimmer reported being driven out of her health and home by the 2000 changes in bus routing in Fremont and Newark routing which put AC Transit Route #218 big, noisy and polluting diesel on her street with a stop in front of her house. . I offered to meet at Victoria Gardens with all people interested. I developed flyers which were posted and distributed at Victoria Gardens and delivered one to the Argus, whose publication brought participants from elsewhere to the event on June 15, 2001. Following the meeting I prepared a spread of bus maps of AC Transit service showing before and after the wholesale changes December 2000 and developed several plans to meet concerns, mailed a folio to each of the participants, and I telephoned to get their reactions and further thoughts.
A. AC Transit Changes Needed in Irvington;
B. Safety in Access to Bus Stops in Hayward, Fremont, and Newark;
C. Service to the Front Door of Fremont Main Library and Other Stops On (not just the bus running on) Stevenson Boulevard A Mile Around the Bart station;
D. More Small Buses Needed in AC Transit's Bus Fleet, and
E. The Dumbarton Corridor. V. ROUTE 84 REALIGNMENT AND THE DUMBARTON CORRIDOR, A NEW OPTION Fremont and Union City Councils are at loggerheads on a Caltrans-originated highway project in the Dumbarton Corridor dating from the 1960's with land purchased in a particular alignment with significant new housing particularly built around it since then. Long-enduring intransigent differences are commonly the result of insistence on Yes or No to a proposal which is not the best possible. What to do? I developed A Mile Around Transportation Poll with seven proposals or questions for reactions. One of which called for creative response, and six for choice, "For", "Against", or "Pass". A person who felt her or himself insufficiently informed to decide would say, "Pass". Respondents were 21 Union City residents and 42 Fremont residents. Their enthusiasm for one proposal, particularly, led me to develop a petition implementing the proposal generating the enthusiasm to "solve" the Dumbarton Corridor, in the sense of an option in the Dumbarton Corridor respectful the environment of residents of both cities, with a business plan not requiring any more than currently available and anticipated resources. I tried the "solution" door-to-door in Fremont, Union City, and Newark residential area. I did not ask other people to attend meetings to save my time at their expense. I spoke with 400 or so people. Of those who put their minds on the subject to the point of deciding among alternatives, 90% elected the new scenario proposed by the Petition. At the time I had prepared and sent written comments on Caltrans' final environmental document on Route 84 Realignment, to which I attached a copy of the Petition, number of people on the Petition who authorized me to speak for them was 243. I presented the Petition to the City Council of Union City, offered presentations of the Petition at their city council meetings to the Mayors of Newark and Fremont, and made a 20-minutes audio-visual presentation on agenda of the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency at its meeting in Oakland on December 19, 2001.
I CARE ABOUT YOUR CONCERNS RELATING TO TRANSPORTATION! I PUT MY MIND AND SKILLS TO WORK HOWEVER I SEE AN OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE YOUR TRANSPORTATION DREAMS INTO REALITY, WITH YOU!
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Created from information supplied by the candidate: November 3, 2002 13:16
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