Santa Clara County voters last year overwhelmingly approved a half-cent sales tax to invest more than $6 billion in transportation infrastructure. Measure B, a 30-year tax that began raking in revenue for the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) this year, promised to bring BART to downtown San Jose, upgrade Caltrain and highways, and bolster the region’s network of bicycle and pedestrian paths. Though the measure won more support than any transit tax in county history, one woman is on a mission to stop it. Litigation filed earlier this year by Cheriel Jensen, a retired urban planner from Saratoga who once sued Santa Clara County over its mosquito fogging, is holding Measure B hostage—all $40 million collected to date. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, vice chair of the VTA board, decried the lawsuit as an attempt by one person “to exploit the judicial process” against the will of the voting public. The crux of Jensen’s claim is that the measure’s language was too broad. In an interview with Fly, however, she said her real contention involves an “ancient aquifer” beneath the site of the planned BART station downtown. “They’ll start digging and they’ll find that the earth will start to collapse, and the water will be out of control, which means the cost of what they’re doing is going to skyrocket,” said Jensen, who used to work for the county and the city of San Jose, where she said she studied maps of the aquifer. “It’s never going to work,” she added. Though a judge dismissed her claim earlier this summer, she appealed to a higher court, which may drag things on for another year or more. VTA spokeswoman Linh Hoang said VTA will sock away all Measure B tax revenue in escrow until the court releases the funds. But the cost of the holdup is mind-boggling, she noted, and will only mount over time with the price of labor and materials. Hoang cited a Duke University estimate that every $1 billion invested in transportation creates roughly 22,000 jobs. By that count, Jensen is preventing the VTA from putting more than 108,000 people to work—an enormous boost to the local economy.

The lawsuit—available online here—withholds funding in 2017 dollars from all Measure B programs, namely the following:

BART Silicon Valley Phase II—$1.5 billion

Bicycle/Pedestrian Program—$250 million

Caltrain Corridor Capacity—$314 million

Caltrain Grade Separations—$700 million

County Expressways—$750 million

Highway Interchanges—$750 million

Local Street and Roads—$1.2 billion

State Route 85 Corridor—$350 million

Transit Operations—$500 million

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The Fly is a weekly column written by San Jose Inside staff that provides a behind-the-scenes look at local politics.