Bud Colligan and others fund this.
It's unclear what motive exists other than the potential for development of land and various schemes that rail service would prevent.
As to the ad and the study and the poll:
Online polls have marginal validity and are notoriously prone to abuse. One person can easily write 10, 20, or more replies with a different identity. Any legitimate signatures may have been swayed by the remarkably biased Nelson Nygaard report, which is so flawed that the leading national trails group, the Rails to Trails Conservancy, sent a letter to the RTC. [
s4.postimg.org]
Nelson Nygaard used faulty data and biased assumptions, the RTC knows it.
My letter to the RTC is among several including theirs, available here:
[drive.google.com]