Saturday, May 16, 2009

How I'm voting for Transportation on May 19




5th District Council Race: David Vahedi

I've got nothing against Paul Koretz. In fact, there's only three of thirteen current Council Members I'd vote for ahead of him (Rosendahl, Garcetti and Reyes). He has a solid environmental record and has experience as a road cyclist himself. He's for Expo, against Pico-Olympic. All-in-all, he's a solid candidate for transportation.

That being said, I'm voting for Vahedi.

David Vahedi has a record of bike advocacy second to few in this city period. As a lawyer in Prokop vs. City of Los Angeles, he knows how maddeningly inconsistent the city's bike policies can be and has experience fighting for us. He's also good on transit and Pico-Olympic so there's little not to like. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll take Greuel's spot on the T Committee if he wins.

If not, Koretz will be solid. He's not the transformational choice, so Vahedi gets my vote but either way we'll be in better hands on 7/1 than we are now.

City Attorney: Carmen Trutanich

While Weiss was impressive in his Streetsblog questionnaire, he's been sufficiently unimpressive as a Councilman on transportation issues that I'll vote Tru for this one. I honestly don't know much about Trutanich that I haven't heard on television commercials. However, this is a case where I'm going with the Devil I Don't Know.

State Ballot Propositions: No

If these props would help save the stolen transit subsidy, I would vote for them. If Schwarzenegger wouldn't have announced a further transit raid this week, I might have voted for them. However, the state has screwed up my top issue so much I ain't voting for them to get squat until they find a way to fix it. Sorry public employees, but they didn't leave me any choice.

I'm even voting "no" on the pay hike hold, because it's such a pandering of a move that, well, screw them.