Alex,

It's still a mystery what I don't know about the proposed Santa Barbara service, in your bizarre diatribe about me?

Did the most recent study recommend that the morning and evening reverse Santa Barbara service be started as intercity service due to the operating rights issues, budget constraints, lack of local budgets for cars and locomotives? Didn't the study and the presentations in Ventura and Santa Barbara County to elected officials point out the difficulty of using the limited TDA resources? Didn't the report comment on the difficulty and costs associated with trying to get operating rights from UP as a commuter opertation, as opposed to working with Caltrans and Amtrak, with established rights as an intercity operation?

I'll probably be meeting with UP on Monday, too. So what, I've met with them lots of times and that still isn't giving anyone operating rights to a commuter line in Santa Barbara. They have a very nice PR staff and they meet lots of people on lots of things. I think that they've made their negotiating position on that quite clear on what they want for a Santa Barbara commuter operation, and that's not cheap.

So now back on earth where, in addition to proposing lots of things, advocates might actually want to be involved in how they can come about. I've met Dennis Story, and I've been very supportive of the project. But, as I said, taxpayer money doesn't grow on trees and dealing with elected officials (like your reluctant County Supervisors in north Santa Barbara County?) to get those resources is a critical job skill in advocacy.

So, now that you've maligned me, for apparently knowing a lot more about your Santa Barbara project, its current status, than you apparently do, what is it about my position of support and action to further the project that you have a problem with?

Some folks appear to have deliberately lied about the postion of TRAC's Board and indicated that they don't support Prop 1A. This is false. Further, I have been a member of RailPAC. But, it is exactly this type of ineffective and counterproductive behavior, from this set of individuals that has finally caused me not to waste money on further membership. I am not a member of TRAC, yet. I will renew my membership, along with 11,000 others on their list in California, in NARP, because it is effective.

You make base assertions on my other positions regarding support for rail passenger. And clearly you know nothing about that, either. Maybe you should do more reading. Do you have a problem with my support of Proposition 1A? Do you have a problem with my support for SB 53 to put rail passenger under a responsible Department of Rail? Do you have a problem with my support of SMART? Do you have a problem with my support for the reauthorization of Santa Barbara's transportation sales tax, vital to any new proposed service in Santa Barbara?

No nothingism, base allegations, and dubious assertions, but no real rebut of any of the facts I've laid out, and based my opinion, on the effectiveness of Paul's "Balkinization" editorial, and how that reflects on RailPAC's effectiveness?

I stand by what I said.

BOB2