Day Of Decision For CenterLine Vote Cometh

Oooooo – the big OCTA board vote on putting CenterLine on the ballot is a mere 4 days away!  Can you stand the anticipation?

Personally, I’m skeptical they’ll have the nerve to go to the voters. They’ll probably trot out a bunch of polls showing that Orange Countians already support CenterLine, so there’s no need to have a vote (a novel theory of democracy).  CenterLine is to OCTA what The One Ring is to Gollum. You can almost picture OCTA CEO Art Leahy caressing sleek artist renderings of his shiny trolly, whispering, “Precious, my Precious! The Precious belongs to us – and we won’t lets nasty voters takes it from us!!!!!!”

On the other hand, maybe they’ll go for it.  Presumably, it would be on the November general election ballot, meaning a larger turn-out of Democrat voters who one assumes would be more likely to vote for this boondoggle.

A November ballot works out to a three-and-half month campaign – not much time for CenterLine opponents to get organized and raise the money necessary to communicate with voters county wide.  Apparently Steve Sheldon of Sheldon PR and another local consultant has been working sub rosa for some time to put together an anti-CenterLine campaign – while simultaneously competing aggressively for OCTA outreach contracts! (You gotta hand it to Sheldon – he’s shamelessly bold, or boldly shameless – depending on your point of view).  Perhaps their machinations explain Jim Silva's sudden receptiveness to a county-wide vote.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much money in fighting CenterLine – just grass roots.

A pro-CenterLine PAC, on the other hand, should be able to tap into the veritable army of contractors and wanna-be contractors, and public affairs types to fund at least a few county-wide mailers.  OCTA might even try to mount a coincidentally-timed “informational campaign” (your Measure M dollars at work!), although that didn’t work out so well when they tried it in Irvine last year. 

So, a short campaign this fall might work to OCTA’s advantage.  If they pulled it off, CenterLine would be impossible to kill.  Leahy and Co. could simply waive the election returns anytime those pesky critics raised questions about the wisdom of building a Bristol Street Trolley so Santa Ana residents could get to South Coast Plaza faster than they can on an OCTA bus.

Whatever the outcome, it will be great entertainment (at least for those of us who, pathetically, find this sort of thing entertaining).