LAND USE , TRANSPORTATION , AND TAX/BOND AUTHORIZATION

By Nancy Jewell Cross

Here are full and true texts of Arguments filed on November 5, 2002 Election Measures: Bart BB, Seismic Retrofit Bond, in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties; and Alameda County A, which the Alameda County Registrar of Voters after filing in breach of state statute and his own Guidelines censored; and City of Oakland Measure II (two capital i's), on the same subject, which wasn't censored; and inside story of official election materials falsified and censored at the source.

The Bay Area's in urgent need of affordable quality
housing. We have an option here, by ballot choice, to
take a step, however remote to our personal situation,
toward the goal.

Reducing the gap between the rewards for labor and
cost of providing quality housing for everyone lies not
so much in gathering gargantuan sums to pay for land
inflated four times what it is in the rest of the country
in relation to compensation for labor, but in better
thinking, even rejecting a proffered "quick and easy" way
of fundraising--because in the long run it degrades us in
community, is inconsistent with respecting each other in
our human circumstance.

The Ordinance here proposed justifies taxing by
describing the "occupying of a room or rooms, or other
living space, in a hotel, inn, tourist home or house,
motel, or other lodging" for 30 days or less as a
"privilege". Is sleeping on the streets likewise
a privilege the county may tax? Is breathing, drinking
clean water, a privilege, to be sold, and taxed when
government agents want more?

Let's talk the talk of a human right to shelter, no less
because it is temporary, whether the person has a home
elsewhere or no home here or elsewhere. If we drive
away shelter by raising the price by taxing those
unlikely to have political voice here, we drive away the
presence of people, jobs to service them, and send a
message negating attainment of affordable quality housing
in particular.

Let's talk the talk of human dignity, human right to
shelter; and walk the talk by voting NO to specially tax--
raise the price of shelter, to those temporarily
sheltered in our community!

510) 792-8523

s/CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Regional & Interregional Developers
By: Nancy Jewell Cross
Chief Executive Officer

REBUTTAL TO ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF MEASURE A

Sheriff/coroner and District Attorney say inflating
hotel and motel prices "could help enhance public library
services" for Alameda County residents. The pickpocketed,
of course, have no library card; and no one with
authority argues for this measure!

Those who would bond or tax us need to show prudent
stewardship of all public property, real and personal,
before asking for more money. Neither Bart nor Alameda
County has. Each is profligate with real property.
For government economy and maximum individual autonomy,
proponents must unbundle what is government monopoly from
what is private use of public real property, and either
put the latter in private ownership or collect market
rate for the latter! People asked, chose, over 7:1, to
unbundle Bart prices.

Let's choose against extortion, being obliged from
government agents' self-interested perfidy, to pay
exorbitantly for essentials of housing and transportation!

Consider: Uncollected value on just one library's
lot at market rate for a year is twice the amount sought
by this tax! The value of a vehicle storage space at
Bart's municipal free parking lots--try on $425/month,
$14/day--is more than the cost for Bart travel---half the
ticket price. And the rental value at market rate of
Bart's 42,000 vehicle storage spaces in some 400 or so
acres is $214,175,000 annually, for 30 years
$6,425,250,000! No warrant here to tax and bond yoke!

Don't bite the bait of a fraud!

Exercise your sovereignty!

Move stereo quality into government!

Vote No on Measures A and BB!

CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Regional & Interregional Developers
By Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross
Chief Executive Officer

Endorsed, stamped:
Registrar of Voters
County of Alameda
02Aug 23 pm 4:18
Received/Filed
____________________

After the Rebuttal above had, on August 23, 2002, been examined, approved, and filed by his deputy on August 23, 2002, the Registrar, after such off-the-record consultations as he chose, censored out 114 words. Did he claim error in the filing? No. Did a judge sign an order after contested court trial based on admissible evidence that the 114 words represented facts falsely? No, the argument's signer and author were unnecessary parties to the decision to censor. Was it just that the Measure's proponents wanted those 114 words deleted? Yes! As a Superior Court judge put it in a court minute order, to them, "Constitutional issues are not legally cognizable".

Which 114 words? Specifically what information and ideas do the expurgators want the people not to know or consider? Here's a sample of the mangling: the second sentence in the second paragraph was changed from "Neither Bart nor Alameda County has." to "Alameda County has.", signifiying just the opposite of the author's intent! For the Rebuttal as expurgated, please refer to the election materials booklet mailed to persons registered to vote in Alameda County!

In legalese, the foregoing represents "prior restraint of speech" on a matter of public in a government-sponsored public forum statutorily required to advertise for opposition arguments to be published to people entitled to vote. The censorship was and is inconsistent with due process of law, liberty of speech, and petition for redress of grievances, in the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I of the California Constitution.

Exercise of free speech on an election issue in a government-sponsored public forum was quashed, moreover, by a person appointed by, and serving at the pleasure of, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors who put Measure A on the ballot!!! With the only judge in line who can prevent misprinting timely, a Superior Court judge--a person whose attorney in his office is appointed by the Board of Supervisors which put Measure A on the ballot and also appoints the county's Registrar of Voters, in a proceeding in which the latter, not the argument's author, is by statute the sole defendant! --Government collusive incest, if there is any such thing, against honest and fair elections!

Some people who might otherwise be moved to researching measures to be on the ballots and writing arguments to disseminate facts and ideas for people registered to vote presuming official regularity and fairness, reading this, may be chilled from the effort. Such individuals, few now, cannot change being caught in the web. The Court of the People, however, is the highest court of the land, and in California specifically by its Constitution, Article II, in Section 1, as follows:

California Constitution, Article II

Section 1. Purpose of Government

All political power is inherent in the people.
Government is instituted for their protection,
security, and benefit, and they have the right to
alter or reform it when the public good may require.

And the Question is, "Shall the Court, having considered existing law and the evidence, now and hereafter accept the fruit of election process from a tree known to be poisoned in the pulp?"

==================================================================

PRIMARY ARGUMENT AGAINST MEASURE BB

On State Ballot HOUSING AND EMERGENCY SHELTER TRUST
FUND $2,100,000,000 General Obligation Bond, and
on Local Ballot BART SEISMIC SAFETY BOND $1,050,000,000
30-Years G.O. Bond

Seismic safety, yes! But imposing on affordability of
shelter for people--owners directly and indirectly the
costs which can be paid from existing Bart resources
which aggravate housing unaffordability, no!

About 6%-7% of residents rides Bart. High "fares" are
deterrent. Fewer than half of ticket purchasers use
Bart's complimentary car storage. Employees of tenants
of big office buildings and other enterprises surrounding
rarely buy Bart tickets. ---But using Bart's parking lot
is another story! Bart fares are high because they
include the cost of not only what's needed for train
travel, but the cost, higher, of 42,000 vehicle parking
spaces in 400 or so acres.

What is the value of Bart's complimentary car park real
property? Try on: In lieu vehicle space to land
developers in Palo Alto to buy in 2002 is $50,994.
Rental value at 10% a year is $5,099.40, $425/month,
$14/day.

Nothing bars Bart from collecting for use of its lan
at the market rate, for vehicle storage. Using
carefully calculated current rate in Palo Alto, Bart
would net $214,175,000 annually and in the 30 years
anticipated for three bonds $6,425,250,000! This is
enough to cover $1,050,000,000 for seismic retrofit and
$2,100,000,000 for the Housing and Emergency Shelter
Trust Fund--with more than half remaining! Bart could
put the leftover in reserve for contingency of lessened
demand for parking at market rate. As for some of the
revenue going into housing and emergency shelter, the
transfer could be justified as mitigation for having
pursued policies intentionally to raise land value
predictably by scarcity contributing to the crisis in
California which the Trust Fund addresses.

(510) 792-8523

CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Regional & Interregional Developers
By Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross, Chief Executive Officer

Endorsed filed:
Registrar of Voters, County of Alameda
02Aug 16pm 5:18
RECEIVED/FILED
Deputy Registrar

_________________

The Deputy Registrar in charge at the Alameda County Registrar's office when on August 16, 2002 I presented the foregoing Primary Argument Against Measure BB, examined it, counted the words, and, finding everything satisfactory, approved and filed it. This was on the final day for submitting Primary Arguments on ballot measures. I inquired whether any other agrument had been filed against Measure BB. She said, "Yes". I asked to see it. She said that could not be, nor could she identify the signers. However, the signatures were of five individuals, no organization.

She had not asked me for evidence to support the organization signature to the Primary Argument I had submitted and she had just filed, nor to show my auhority to speak for it. However, I knew that the Registrar's duties in the circumstances would include that. The Registrar of Voters was not around and was unavailable. I asked the Deputy Registrar whether she would like to see evidence I had with me specifically for that purpose and did not carry around every day. She responded, substantially, that the Registrar was not interested. He would receive the Primary Arguments filed, and in course would "select" one and notify the contacts of his decision, by letter. Notwithstanding her communication of the Registrar's rejection of evidence to the point of bona fide organization of an election argument with an organization signer, and of my authority to sign for the organization, I took a few minutes on that occasion to display to the Deputy Registrar original writings evidence that no fewer than hundreds of people associated themselves with CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS and that each had authorized me to speak on her or his behalf on the subject of the Primary Argument she had just filed. She observed, attentively, said nothing, and I left the office.

In circumstance of more than one primary argument filed for or against a measure, in jurisdictions in which county or city charter has not superseded general law on the matter(City and County of San Francisco by its charter permits many arguments of each "side"), the California Elections Code, Section 9503, among other things, says substantially, that an argument filed with signature of a bona fide organization, has absolute priority for publication in the official pre-election materials over any argument that has solely signatures of individuals, five being the maximum.

In 1986 two arguments were submitted in opposition to the first Measure B in Alameda County. One argument was signed by C.A.T.S.. I offered to Emmy J. Hil, Alameda County Registrar of Voters, evidence which she examined showing a bona fide organization and my authority. The other argument was signed by five individuals, who had typed below their names some identification. Period. The Registrar was obviously familiar with the law involved. With bearers of the arguments--a Hayward State University professor and myself, before her at the time of close of filing of arguments, the Registrar announced that she was going to check her application of the law with Alameda County Counsel and would let us know after.

Emmy J. Hill, Alameda County Register of Voters, decided the people should have in pre-election materials C.A.T.S.'s argument against Measure B (1986), because it was signed by a bona fide organization with statutory priority over the other argument signed by five individuals.

The college professor who submitted the other argument in opposition to Measure B, identified himself with the Hayward Area Planning Association. H.A.P.A. sued Emmy J. Hill as Registrar of Voters Alameda County Superior Court to upset her decision. Douglas Hickling, Assistant County Counsel, with only two days to prepare, successfully defended Emmy Hill with a grand 10 page Memorandum of Points and Authorities, filed September 4, 1986 in Alameda County Superior Court #616,263-4. The Superior Court ruled for Emmy J. Hill, Registrar of Voters.

In 2000 two arguments were submitted in opposition to the second Measure B on Alameda County. One argument was signed by C.A.T.S., with offer of evidence rejected by the present Registrar of Voters, and the other bore signatures of two men. Emmy J. Hill had retired, and her successor sent letters to the submitters announcing that he had "selected" the argument subscribed by the men. I wrote a formal letter of protest. To no avail. There was, and is, no clear, speedy, and adequate remedy, to prevent the Registrar's printing and mass mailing in a few weeks election materials breaching the statutes and constitutions.

Fairness and integrity in an election cannot rest upon a ballot argument author knowledgeable, suing a Registrar of Voters appointed and serving at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors whose county counsel likewise appointed and serving at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors, in a Superior court whose judges in their daily duties are serviced by the same county counsel! Doug Hickling had only two days to prepare. Objections to fast law, "rocket-docket" justice, absence of due process notice, opportunity for discovery, determination of contested facts from introduced admissible evidence, and decisions which for correctness require library research applied to facts determined from fair trial, are futile for effecting fair elections and moot after the election, as is also any possibility of achieving fair elections by application to a higher or federal court between the Registrar of Voters decisions for the printer and the printing!

You can prepare and file papers if you want, or employ someone else to collect and duplicate a record of already-filed papers and prepare more papers in many copies and pay court fees at court clerk offices to have them filed, but the likelihood of a new court even reading the papers, still less ordering before they are printed substitutions of arguments or decensoring of materials the Registrar has already proofed, before they are printed is--nil! Would be expurgators and Superior Court judges know that. Integrity of our elections rests upon our being informed, not presuming fairness and regularity, and in finding remedies in processes to make elections fair as they come on, not simplistically threatening fines and jail time if perpetrators are caught, and throwing out the election results for miscounting of ballots!

Possibly reflecting a twinge of conscience from in 2000 having "selected" for printing the Argument Against Measure B signed solely by individuals instead of that signed by an organization entitled by statute to priority, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters in 2002 election season for the first time put out a two page Guidelines for Argument Signers, how an organization signs an argument. Quoting therefrom,

"ARGUMENTS FROM GOVERNING BOARD

A governing board member who signs an argument must be authorized to do so by the governing board.

"ARGUMENTS FROM A BONA FIDE ORGANIZATION

Arguments from a bona fide organization must be signed by one of the principal officers as follows: Jarvis Taxpayers Association by (name of officer),(title of officer). The individual signing an argument on behlf

"ARGUMENTS SIGNED BY INDIVIDUALS

Individuals signing an argument must be registered voters eligible to vote on the measure. Individuals can sign arguments with the title of the position they hold in an organization such as (name of individual), President, Oakland League of Women Voters. However, if a person signs with a title, it implies that the organization has taken a position on the measure and, if that is the case, they must follow the signature guidelines for bona fide organizations.

"ORDER OF PRECEDENCE OF ARGUMENTS

If two or more arguments for or against a measure are filed, the election official chooses one based on order of precedence for choosing the arguments set forth in Elections Code 9503."

A person reading the Guidelines freely distributed at the Registrar of Voters Office, and intending to sign for an organization, if the person didn't otherwise know, could not fail to do so for lack of in your face easy how to instructions!

In 2002 two arguments were submitted in opposition to Bart's Measure BB in San Francisco, Contra Costa, and Alameda Counties. One argument was signed by C.A.T.S. with offer of evidence and proof rejected by the Registrar of Voters prior to his decision, the other, as you can see now from the Registrar's booklet mailed to all persons registered to vote on November 5, 2002, was, as defined by the Registrar's own Guidelines, signed by five individuals. In the days immediately following the close of filing Primary Arguments on ballot measures, the Registrar of Voters kept the Primary Argument Against Measure BB subscribed by only individuals close to his chest until on his own initiative he could negotiate with their contact off the record. That accomplished, he instructed his chief deputy to prepare and send letters to the contacts for the two Primary Arguments Against Measure BB, announcing his "selection" of the argument with only signatures of individuals.

This is not a reflection on the signers of the Primary Argument Against Measure BB and Rebuttal published in the Alameda County official election pamphlet for the November 5, 2002 election. From a different perspective than that of C.A.T.S. they ably argue and also recommend a NO vote on Measure BB. Would that we as voters have more than a sole Primary Argument and Rebuttal on each side! ==================================================================

CITY OF OAKLAND MEASURE II (two ii's capitalized), SYNOPSIS OF MEASURE II, SIGNERS OF THE PRIMARY ARGUMENT FOR MEASURE II, THE PRIMARY ARGUMENT AGAINST MEASURE II AS FILED, AN EXCERPT FROM THE PRIMARY ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF MEASURE II, AND REBUTTAL TO THE PRIMARY ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF MEASURE II AS FILED.

Measure II: Do you authorize the City of Oakland to increase its transient occupancy tax surcharge 3% for five years in addition to the current 11%, total 14%?

Signers of the Primary Argument in Favor of Measure II: Jerry Brown, Mayor of Oakland, Robert L. Jackson, Pastor of Acts Full Gospel Church, and Henry L. Gardner, Former Oakland City Manager.

PRIMARY ARGUMENT AGAINST MEASURE II

California state and local governments are trying to
raise money in times hard for many people. --To raise
billions, from us! Bonds offer the wealthy tax-
exemption,cost us 40% more. Prices shock us as
increasing fees and taxes insert themselves.

The price of a hotel or motel room commonly includes the
cost of vehicle storage, complimentarily. The cost is
not credited to a non-user. The land for a room and
car space is about equal, except that and 18-wheler may
take 10x as much space as a human sleeping room, with the
cost to provide put onto other tenants' bills!

If we are going to get human shelter for everyone, we
have to unbundle imposing complimentary vehicle storage
costs onto other people seeking shelter only for
themselves. We need to think carefully whether we want
to tax shelter in a hotel or motel because people may be
residents of another county, city, or country, or if of
this city, county, and country, unable by homeless status
to vote in the practicalities--easy scapegoats for city
burdens.

Also visitors who may not vote here may spend here,
and the higher from the tax, avoid coming. Loss of
tourist business may break businesses we cherish!
Churches' and police resources to help persons in
desperate circumstances with vouchers for a night or two
or a few weeks will dry sooner with this insensitive-to-
shelter as such tax.

Concept complimentary land use, if any,
priority for human shelter!

Vote No on this measure!

(510) 792-8523

CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Regional & Interregional Developers
By Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross, Chief Executive Officer

___________

The Primary Argument in Favor of Measure II near its conclusion says:
" . . .
Fighting crime, helping troubled youth, reducing domestic
violence and assisting returning parolees simply cannot
be done without more money. Having our visitors pay
little more on their hotel room bills is a small price to
pay for increased personal safety and public well-being.

"Please help keep Oakland on the move. Vote the revenue
needed to support our violence prevention programs. . ."

REBUTTAL TO ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF MEASURE II

OAKLAND ON THE MOVE, RIGHT ON!

Try on bicycles! Efficient, fun, practical. But pain
from theft, destruction. Of 300 reported to police,
stolen, ten recovered. Building guard, "Leave your
bicycle outside!" --Claptrap generated by a faceless
administrator holed up inside. "I want to read in the
library, shop, go other places without a car, be heard at
city hall, without jeopardizing my bicycle. If I can't,
I feel bad, rejected, stay home, watch TV, get a car,
maybe shoot, speed."

An alternative: Youth, adults construct

• Bicycles Inside Hitching Posts. See Caltrain's Bicycle Car, other city council chambers bicycle friendly inside: Palo Alto, Union City, Menlo Park, Newark, San Jose. Oakland's City Hall, too, can be green! Bicycles replace cars when bicycles can always be within owners' sight and ready reach.

• Automated Bicycle Garage! Compared with a vehicle garage: for the land/space $106 vs. $945, 1:9; and for the construction cost/space $1600 vs. $8514, 1:5.

• Local bus manufacturer for new buses federally funded 80% and local labor instead of shipping $61,000,000+ and XXXXX jobs to Belgium, 100% from local operating and maintenance funds--causing AC Transit deficit, fare hikes, and service cuts!

• Small, quiet, non-diesel buses, ¼$$ to buy, ½$$ to operate, and without diesel chemical toxins and noise-- 85 dB! Riders'-, neighborhoods'-,and taxpayers'-friendly.

Walk the talk, No on II and yes on the above!

CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Regional & Interregional Developers
By Dr. Nancy Jewell Cross, Chief Executive Officer

_________________________

City of Oakland Measure II Primary Argument Against and Rebuttal above were in the pre-election printed materials reproduced as filed except for garbling from the phrase, "Riders'-, neighborhoods'-, and taxpayers'-friendly" being inserted in the middle of the preceding sentence, and restructuring of the signature to put my name first, identified by position, followed by CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS, Regional & Interregional Developers. The Oakland City Clerk Deputy in charge said it was an organizational argument, notwithstanding the rearrangement, because the Primary Argument and Rebuttal would otherwise not have been filed.

When I brought C.A.T.S. Primary Argument Against Measure II to the Oakland City Hall, I presented to the Deputy Clerk in charge for examination the same evidence I had on the preceding Friday to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Deputy in charge. The City Clerk Deputy forthwith acknowledged the relevance thereof, examined the evidence I offered, and thereon determined C.A.T.S to be a bona fide organzation and that I had authority to sign for it an Argument on City of Oakland Measure II.

She was no less particular in deciding whether to accept other election arguments. A man introduced to the City Clerk Deputy in charge by no less than Mayor Jerry Brown, as Oakland Chamber of Commerce executive was in her office to subscribe an election argument in the chamber's name. ---But "Do you have something in writing to show your authority to sign the election argument for the Oakland Chamber of Commerce?" "No." --The mayor's introduction and presence was not sufficient. The deadline for filing Primary Arguments was imminent. Time was insufficient to return to the chamber offices to procure such writing. The City Clerk Deputy in charge that she would not accept his subscribing for the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, but he could sign the argument as an individual. He did.

On the last day, close to closing time, for filing of rebuttal arguments on the Oakland measure, Oakland's Deputy Clerk in charge of elections, I observed, challenged submitters of on Rebuttal argument for lack of releases from every signer of the Primary Argument to intended new signers of the Rebuttal! The people who came got some signature on the Rebuttal, but not all desired. CLEAN AIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS--at Oakland City Hall surely less known there than the Oakland Chamber of Commerce--and my authority to sign the Primary argument I presented in its name, on the other hand, passed muster of her discerning applicable law knowlegeable eye without question on first try! Public friendly, fairness, knowledgeability of the law, and integrity in elections processing radiated at Oakland's City Clerk's Office!