At CoCoTax, we’re obviously biased toward what we see as the taxpayers’ interest in Contra Costa County. You can take or reject our ballot recommendations accordingly. But other organizations sharing their thoughts this campaign season have less transparent agendas.

SPUR

We might thing of the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) as an unbiased source of local policy wisdom, but As Debora Allen recently wrote in the Voice of San Francisco:

SPUR’s new apocalyptic Bumper to Bumper report warns that without RTM [the Regional Transit Measure] and a separate San Francisco transit tax, service cuts “would likely spell the end of transit in the Bay Area.” Its traffic forecasts fed alarming headlines predicting a transit “death spiral” and Bay Bridge delays more than doubling. ABC7 News even described the report as “independent,” though its publisher is a sponsor of the measure it promotes.

SPUR, a tax-exempt nonprofit actively working to pass the tax, acknowledges that it sponsored RTM. Its annual report describes its work developing SB 63, joining the campaign committee and supporting signature gathering. Its transportation policy director, the report’s author, identified herself as a principal officer of that political action committee. SPUR’s president and CEO also serves as treasurer of the Yes on RTM campaign and signed its latest campaign finance disclosure.

Campaign disclosures add another connection: SPUR contributed more than $53,000 in staff time and event support to the Yes on RTM campaign so far. Several transit agencies themselves also appear among SPUR’s donors or business members.

The firm credited with analysis in Bumper to Bumper is no independent bystander. Jacobs and its affiliates have more than $120 million in identified, currently authorized contracts with BART, MTC, SFMTA, SamTrans, Golden Gate, and Caltrain — public bodies that stand to receive or administer RTM funding. Jacobs contributed $150,000 to the Yes on RTM campaign, appears in SPUR’s $5,000–$9,999 business donor tier, and has an executive serving as a Bay Area Council policy committee cochair. The firm helping forecast the consequences of rejecting the tax is also financing its passage and doing substantial business with its prospective beneficiaries.

Jacobs’ BART history adds another reason for scrutiny. It served as construction manager on the Transbay Tube retrofit, where an inspector general investigation found inadequately verified billings, leading to $1.7 million in settlements with the construction and management firms. The inspector general did not characterize the conduct as corruption or make a legal finding of wrongdoing. But voters weighing the firm’s research should also know its record, its agency contracts and its financial commitment to passing the tax.

Jacobs modeled the traffic apocalypse using service-cut projections supplied by the transit agencies seeking the tax money, but the report presents no independent financial analysis establishing that those cuts are necessary. Voters are being sold the consequences of the agencies’ proposed choices — with analytical support from a major agency contractor and campaign donor.

The report does not disclose Jacobs’ SPUR contribution, its $150,000 in contributions to the Yes on RTM campaign or its agency contracts. Nor does it explain whether Jacobs was paid for the analysis or identify an independent review of its projections. Yet its forecasts help sell a stark choice: pay more or face gridlock.

These connections began before the campaign: leaders of SPUR, the Bay Area Council and Seamless Bay Area held seats on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s 2024 Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee, helping shape the funding proposal alongside transit labor representatives, while a companion group brought together leaders of the transit agencies seeking funding.

League of Women Voters

Many think of the League of Women Voters as an unbiased source of voter information. But, in the Bay Area at least, nothing could be further from the truth. LWV Bay Area has received funding from local transit agencies and is earning that support by campaigning on behalf of their $17 billion transit sales tax.

Nationally, LWV represents itself as “a nonpartisan, grassroots nonprofit dedicated to empowering everyone to fully participate in our democracy. [W]e engage in advocacy, education, litigation, and organizing to protect every American’s freedom to vote.”

But in the Bay Area, LWV signed a contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in 2018, under which MTC, BART, AC Transit, and other agencies paid it up to $75,000 to continue publishing its bi-monthly newsletter, Bay Area Monitor.

The Monitor, which no longer appears to be publishing, ran a favorable story on transit-oriented development (TOD) while the contract was in force. Other articles addressed regional planning and climate change, popular topics for sponsoring agencies.

While MTC and its partner agencies no longer fund the Monitor, LWV Bay Area remains closely aligned. This month, ballot guides reaching mailboxes in all five Measure RTM counties featured arguments for the tax signed by “League of Women Voters Bay Area, Louise Rothman-Reimer, Co-President”.

It is unfortunate that an organization with a century-long legacy of promoting itself as a neutral arbiter for political debate would take sides on an important debate about the Bay Area’s future.

Local Newspapers

News reporting on tax measures this season has been mostly biased toward the “YES” position. If a CoCoTax member is quoted at all, it tends to be late in the story and the reporter finds a “responsible” person to rebut our quote. Rarely do we see balanced coverage that gives both sides a full hearing.

But we were pleased to see some very good newspaper coverage of RTM, albeit from the Editorial Page of The East Bay Times. As the editors said: "Opposing the initiative is not a vote against public transit. It's a demand for responsible financial management. ...until BART begins to transparently right-size its operation and VTA demonstrates a need for new funding, neither deserves more money."

Hopefully, news reporters will read the editorial and consider the points made by the Editorial Board.

Upcoming Event

CoCoTax Lunch, October 23: November Tax Ballot Measures with Rob Gutierrez, CalTax
Friday, October 23, 2026 | 11:45am – 1:15pm PDT | Denny's, 1313 Willow Pass Road, Concord