Two advisers for Mayor Eric Garcetti have been tapped to help run the campaign that will push for passage of Metro’s sales tax measure aimed at raising money to build and maintain public transit in Los Angeles County.

Garcetti’s campaign adviser and political strategist, Bill Carrick, will be running the “Yes on the Los Angeles County Traffic Improvement Plan” campaign.

Carrick said he will be working with Garcetti’s deputy chief of staff, Rick Jacobs, who is taking a nine-month leave to work on “political campaigns and civic activities,” according to the mayor’s office.

If the November ballot measure is approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for placement on the November ballot, voters will be asked to increase the county’s sales tax by another half-cent, and continue the existing Measure R half-cent tax indefinitely. The plan is expected to raise about $120 billion over 40 years.

The permanent total one-cent sales tax for transit would create a sustained funding source for construction and operation, and would allow the acceleration of nine projects, including a five-year acceleration in planned improvements on the Orange Line, an eight-year acceleration of the northern extension of the Crenshaw/LAX rail line to Hollywood and a five-year acceleration of the Green Line extension to the Norwalk Metrolink station.

The Metro board of directors, which signed off on the measure last month, also approved an amendment that earmarks funding for a bus rapid transit project in the San Fernando Valley.

–City News Service 

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