LA County Sales Tax Clears Appropriations Committee

Another follow up on the transportation tax from the Bottleneck Blog. Assembly Bill 2321 has cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee. In order to make it to the ballot officially it has to get the past the Governor's Desk.

Here is the scoop from the bottleneck blog:

With almost no prior warning, the state Senate's Appropriations Committee quickly convened this afternoon and approved AB 2321, the state bill that would allow a proposal for a half-cent sales tax increase in Los Angeles County to be placed on the Nov. 4 ballot.

UPDATE: The vote was 14 to 0, with one absence. Among the supporters were state Sen. Jenny Oropeza and state Sen. Gil Cedillo, both of whom had issues with the bill before it was updated.

I just got off the phone with Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), the sponsor of the bill. He said the amendments included so-called "intent language" that clarified that some of the sales tax revenues should be spent on several projects, including a Green Line Extension to LAX, fixes at traffic hotspots along the 605 freeway, the Gold Line extension and 710 Freeway improvements.