The Valley Industry and Commerce Associations Board of Directors voted unanimously to support the fire-walling of Proposition 42 from future state borrowing. The initiative passed in 2002 to help pay for the cost of freeway and highway construction and repairs through a sales tax on gasoline, but allowed for the state to divert the money to the general fund in some cases. VICA is recommending a constitutional amendment to prevent further diversions, and, if the amendment passes, that the state repay $2.1 billion that has been borrowed in the past. “Treating fuel tax revenues like a home refinance loan is not the reason California citizens voted Proposition 42 into law,” says VICA Chairman Martin M. Cooper. “California motorists want and deserve much-needed transportation improvements and traffic relief. This ‘behind-the-back’ creative financing by the state is unconscionable, and it needs to end now.”
