Features

SACRAMENTO — The author of Proposition 51, the traffic congestion measure that failed passage this election, has resigned as executive director of the Planning and Conservation League. 

Gerald Meral said his departure has nothing to do with heavy criticism that Proposition 51 was a “pay for play” initiative designed to benefit developers and Indian tribes. 

Meral said he resigned because his wife, who’s a schoolteacher, is retiring and they plan to move to the Northern California coast. He said he will work part-time to raise money for an endowment for the Planning and Conservation League Foundation. 

Meral denied any pressure to step down, although Senate President Pro Tem John Burton wrote a letter to the league’s board of directors in September, calling the group’s approach to Proposition 51 “shortsighted, simplistic and heartless.” Burton also accused the group of “becoming a whore for the self-aggrandizement of Jerry Meral instead of being an organization committed to saving the environment.” 

Proposition 51 was one of only two state initiatives to lose Tuesday. Meral blamed newspaper coverage and legislative hearings for swaying voters. 

The initiative would have shifted about $900 million generated from vehicle sales tax revenue toward funding for more than 40 different projects. Though the league called the initiative a “traffic congestion relief and safe school bus act,” the projects ranged from construction of a railroad museum in Sacramento.