Clash Emerges At Palo Alto City Hall Over Caltrain: Report

PALO ALTO, CA — Palo Alto Mayor Adrian Fine and Vice Mayor Tom DuBois are at odds over a letter Fine sent to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors earlier this week urging funding for Caltrain that DuBois said the mayor didn’t have the authority to send, Palo Alto Weekly reports.

The Palo Alto mayor’s letter urged San Francisco lawmakers to put a one-eighth-cent sales tax on the November ballot in support of Caltrain.

The beleaguered 155-year-old transit agency is facing a financial crisis amid plummeting revenues that could lead to a temporary shutdown later this year.

Caltrain was dealt a major blow last week when San Francisco’s supervisors declined to put a cent sales tax on the November ballot.

Caltrain relies on fare revenues that have fallen upwards of 90 percent by some estimates amid the COVID-19 crisis.

“Thousands of essential workers and transit-dependent riders continue to use the service. Former riders have indicated that they are prepared to return to the system when allowed to do so, and as the regional economy continues to struggle, we will likely see a growing number of transit-dependent riders throughout the Bay Area,” Fine’s letter read.

“Allowing Caltrain to fail will leave all of these riders without a transit option. We owe it to the communities we serve to do everything we can to prevent that from happening.”

Fine copied San Francisco Mayor London Breed, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, supervisors from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and the boards of transit agencies in three counties.

DuBois fired off a letter of his own according the report saying that Fine wasn’t within his authority to speak on behalf of the city.

"This is a more complicated issue than just funding Caltrain," DuBois told Palo Alto Weekly.

"There are a lot of governance questions that would need to be addressed before we'd commit to supporting a tax."

Read more at Palo Alto Weekly

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