Introducing SHIFT-Bay Area
We're here to educate you on issues that matter to you
Let me tell you the SHIFT-Bay Area origin story:
It all started with “Regional Measure 4”.
In this divisive era of politics, Regional Measure 4 was that rare issue that could unite Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and “a pox on all their houses” voters by being so badly designed that it really didn’t matter what side of the aisle you were on, there was plenty about the bill to get upset about.
And lots of folks *did* get upset about it. A core group came together to form “20 Billion Reasons to Vote No on Regional Measure 4”. The group spanned the entire political spectrum, but what united them was the idea that a “$20 billion dollar” bill that actually would cost $48 billion with interest, spanning 53 years of payback, was a terrible way to address housing in the Bay Area.
The 20B Reasons group reached out to other groups in the 9-county Bay Area, built relationships with them, and got folks fired up. The polling looked weak, so the measure was vulnerable. And then came the straw that broke the camel’s back, in the form of Tom Rubin, a member of the 20B Reasons board.
Tom discovered that the MTC had made a basic math error in their public description of the bill, an error that meant the bill cost almost 50% more per year than the MTC was advertising. A lawsuit was filed, and in the end, the MTC was forced to retreat, and Regional Measure 4 was pulled from the ballot on the last possible day. It was a big win for fiscal sustainability.
Now, 2026 looms ahead, and already the next terrible ideas are being lined up. You can read about one of them here, just announced a couple days ago. This one is a $10 billion statewide bond, and although it’s half the size of Regional Measure 4, it looks like it will retain everything we loved to hate about Regional Measure 4. It turns out that the 2024 election was just round 1, and we need your help to keep fighting and winning the battle to have policies that are actually sustainable.
That’s why we formed SHIFT-Bay Area: to continue the fight for Sustainability in Housing, Infrastructure, Finance, and Transportation. Our legislature can’t escape its own internal politics, so we as public citizens have to change the political calculus for them. In the end, that’s how we’ll make progress.
We have a lot of challenges here in California, and if we defeat enough of these bad ideas while offering good ideas as an alternative, then over time we can solve those challenges in a sustainable way. That discussion will be happening right here in this substack, and elsewhere in the Bay Area.
So be on the lookout for more articles from SHIFT-Bay Area. We expect to be posting a couple times a week on SHIFT issues. We’ll keep you informed, educated, and focused on how to make this truly the Golden State.
Yours in service,
Gus Mattammal
President, SHIFT-Bay Area