By Linda Taaffe

Los Altos would rather not see Bay Area Rapid Transit come to town than spend any more taxpayer money on what some have called a financially flawed plan.

The Los Altos City Council gave the Valley Transportation Authority a thumbs-down on a proposal to permanently raise sales taxes another half cent to cover project shortfalls. The council also recommended that funding already approved for BART through Measure A in 2000 be removed from the board’s Long-term Capital Investment Program until a feasible alternative is developed.

Mayor David Casas, who serves on the VTA board, said the half-cent increase would raise sales tax a second time for $4.2 billion worth of projects already promised to voters five years ago, including public transit, highway, bicycle and pedestrian improvements and a 16.3-mile BART extension from Fremont to Santa Clara. The BART extension would eat away about 60 percent of the revenues until 2015, deferring other projects until as long as 2030.

The proposed increase would push the sales tax in Santa Clara County from 8.25 percent to 8.75 percent - the highest in the state. Even then, there would be no guarantee that other government monies needed to complete the project would be available. Of the amount raised, 75 percent would be earmarked for the VTA and 25 percent would be given to the county’s 15 cities.

“There are significant uncertainties regarding the amount of federal and state grant funding that will be made available for the BART extension,” Casas said in a recommendation letter sent to the VTA. “Clearly the draft VTA Long-term Capital Investment Program is deficient.”

Councilman Ron Packard called the tax-increase proposal a boondoggle to get funding from the Federal Transit Administration, which didn’t recommend the project for grant money because of financial uncertainties over future operating costs. Higher tax revenues would mean more funding and a possible favorable recommendation by the transit administration in the future, according to the council.

During a financial management inquiry of the VTA board last May, the Civil Grand Jury concluded that the VTA should delay expenditures for BART and provide more complete funding for other transit options.

“The overriding financial problem facing VTA at present is that it cannot afford the cost to build and operate a BART system to San Jose.

Spending limited resources on BART could squander an opportunity to build, maintain and operate a far larger network of transit options throughout the county as enabled by voters approving the half cent Measure A sales tax in 2000,” according to the jury’s report.

New federal standards make it unlikely that the full BART extension will be part of the administration’s budget.

Members of the county’s prime lobbying organization, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said BART is a No. 1 priority among voters and should be funded first.

The VTA is scheduled to look at comments about its draft capital investment plan during a workshop Thursday.

Greg Perry, a Mountain View councilman and critic of the BART proposal, was removed from Thursday’s discussion panel last week. Ron Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute sponsoring the forum, allegedly replaced Perry with Sunnyvale Councilman Ron Swegles.

A two-thirds majority of Santa Clara County voters would need to approve a tax increase should the board choose to move forward with the proposal.

The measure would be set for November 2006.