Measure D: Another scam from Greenway, Inc.
Since its formation in 2017, Santa Cruz County Greenway, Inc., has waged a strategic, deep-pocketed, and deceptive campaign to block decades of hard-won progress on the development of both passenger rail service and a long-planned bicycle-pedestrian trail adjacent in the publicly owned Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line corridor.
Greenway, Inc.’s prolonged siege has divided our community—pitting friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, coworker against coworker—and is weakening our elected officials’ and public agencies’ ability to develop and implement effective transportation solutions for our county.
Stop the division. Stop the deception. Stop Greenway, Inc.
VOTE NO on Santa Cruz County Measure D (Greenway) in June 2022.
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Santa Cruz County Greenway, Inc.: A Brief History
A State of California business search reveals that Santa Cruz County Greenway, Inc. (aka “Greenway”), was incorporated in March 2017 as a 501(c)(4) mutual benefit corporation. “A mutual benefit corporation stands apart from the other types of nonprofits in that its mission is to serve its members and not the public.” [See footnote 1]
Greenway, Inc.’s founders, officers, and directors — its only “members” — are a small group of wealthy private investors with business interests in the tech sector (including personal e-transportation), big agriculture, and real estate. At least two of these individuals or their family-owned enterprises own rail-adjacent properties, as do a number of Greenway, Inc.’s most vocal surrogates. [See footnote 2]
As a 501(c)(4), Greenway, Inc. can solicit unlimited donations, which are not tax-deductible. The identities of donors to 501(c)(4)s are not required to be disclosed — hence the label “dark money” being applied to them. Greenway, Inc., was able to raise over $500,000 in its first two years, 2017 and 2018, with over $166,000 in reported Legal expenses, nearly $66,000 spent on Advertising and Promotion, and $21,500 for Lobbying. [See footnote 3]
Greenway, Inc. quickly put this substantial war chest to work initiating a strategic campaign to obstruct and negate more than two decades of steady progress toward bringing light passenger rail and an adjacent bicycle-pedestrian trail to our county (including strong county voter support for three rail-financing ballot measures — in 1984, 1990, and 2016). [See footnote 4]
Here’s a partial summary of Greenway, Inc.’s efforts, to date, to impede progress on the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail and eliminate any possibility of future passenger rail in Santa Cruz County:
July 2018: Greenway, Inc., sued the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) in an attempt to block the agency’s decision to enter into a 10-year Administration, Coordination and License Agreement (ACL) with St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, LLC (a subsidiary of Progressive Rail Incorporated) to run freight service on the rail line. The suit claimed that the RTC’s commitment to complete FEMA-funded repairs on the line as part of the ACL was not categorically exempt from environmental review pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Greenway, Inc., lost its case in court, with the judge finding that Greenway failed to establish “that the exemptions do not apply.” The intent of the lawsuit was undoubtedly to influence Progressive Rail, Inc., to file for abandonment of the rail line, which could then be railbanked.
[See footnote 5]
November 2018: Continuing its aggressive efforts to thwart SCCRTC rail-with-trail planning, Greenway, Inc. — in a campaign run by its executive director, Manu Koenig — succeeded in gathering enough signatures to place an initiative, Measure L, on the ballot in the City of Capitola. At great expense ($37,000 — dwarfing the opposition’s $14,000), and in spite of the City of Capitola suing to keep the initiative off the ballot, Measure L, which directed city officials to restrict use of the 19th-century Capitola trestle for use only as a bicycle-pedestrian trail and bar any city investment in bike lanes or other infrastructure that would facilitate movement of pedestrians and bicyclists onto city streets or sidewalks, passed by 206 votes. After Measure L passed, the California Fair Political Practices Commission informed Greenway Capitola that it was being investigated for a number of campaign filing inconsistencies; the case is still pending. [See footnote 6]
November 2020: In a well-funded campaign, Greenway, Inc.-backed candidate Manu Koenig — former executive director of Greenway, Inc., and Capitola Measure L campaign manager — succeeded in unseating 1st District Santa Cruz County Supervisor and RTC board chair John Leopold, a 12-year incumbent and steadfast champion of rail and trail. Koenig currently serves as vice chair of the RTC, which owns the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line corridor and right-of-way (ROW) and is the lead agency for both rail and trail planning and implementation in the corridor [See footnote 7]
April 2021: In a 6–6 vote, the RTC deadlocked on approving a business plan for the design, construction and operation of electric passenger light rail service along the 32-mile rail corridor from Davenport to Pajaro — and directing commission staff to seek $17.1 million is state funding for an environmental review and preliminary engineering work. Votes taken by the commission to move rail plans forward, prior to the election of County Supervisor Manu Koenig and his appointment as an RTC commissioner, had been either unanimously (12–0) or decisively (9–3) in favor. [See footnote 8]
June 2022: After its success with one voter initiative, Measure L in Capitola in 2020, Greenway, Inc. cooked up countywide Measure D (Greenway) in 2022 and — with the simple promise of delivering a deluxe, 26-foot-wide, four-lane, paved trail that would separate pedestrians from bicyclists (a vision that has now been reduced to a much narrower “interim” path that does NOT divide peds from cyclists but would still necessitate track removal) — collected enough signatures to get it on the June 2022 ballot. In reality, all Measure D will do, if it passes, is make draconian changes to the Circulation element of Santa Cruz County’s General Plan that will eliminate passenger rail from any further planning consideration by the county and hamstring county planners to consider nothing BUT a Greenway in those sections of the rail corridor that lie within unincorporated areas of the county. These changes to the general plan will be irreversible without another election — even if railbanking, required to construct a “Greenway,” proves to be impossible to accomplish. [See footnote 9]
Footnotes:
- https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-is-a-california-nonprofit-mutual-benefit-corporation.html
- Santa Cruz County Greenway, Inc., IRS Form 990, 2017, p. 7. (https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/821286815_201712_990O_2018042515271898.pdf)
- https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/detailsPage?ein=821286815&name=SANTA%20CRUZ%20COUNTY%20GREENWAY%20INC&city=SANTA%20CRUZ&state=CA&countryAbbr
- Measure A, 1984 (https://www.santacruzpl.org/ballot_measures/1984nov06/); Proposition 116, 1990 (https://catc.ca.gov/programs/proposition-116-clean-air-transportation-improvement-act-1990); Measure D, 2016 (https://www.votescount.us/Home/PastElections/November8,2016PresidentialGeneralElection/LocalMeasuresontheballot/MeasureDCountyTransportationTaxMeasure/FulltextofMeasureD.aspx)
- https://sccrtc.org/judge-rules-in-favor-of-rtc-in-santa-cruz-county-greenway-lawsuit/
- https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2018/10/01/election-2018-potential-impacts-of-capitolas-greenway-initiative-muddy/; https://pajaronian.com/measure-l-backers-face-investigation/
- https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2020/11/03/political-newcomer-koenig-takes-early-lead-in-district-1-board-race/
- https://santacruzlocal.org/2021/04/02/santa-cruz-county-transportation-leaders-deadlock-on-passenger-rail-plan/; https://web.santacruzchamber.org/news/newsarticledisplay.aspx?ArticleID=1900
- https://www.votescount.us/Home/Elections/June2022CaliforniaPrimaryElection/LocalMeasuresJune2022/D-CountyGreenway/D-CountyGreenwayAnalysis622.aspx
