The second meeting of the Ad Hoc Board Composition and Voting Structure Subcommittee was held Monday, January 31. I attended, but on a small device and with intermittent Internet connectivity, but caught what I could. There were no public comments. The agenda and presentation are here:

• Agenda: https://star-transit.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/sacrt_boardcomposition_2022-01-31_agenda.pdf
• Presentation: https://star-transit.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/sacrt_boardcomposition_2022-01-31-presentation.pdf

Some good things happened, and some bad. The subcommittee selected option 1 for board structure: “Add one seat to the County of Sacramento and add one seat to the City of Elk Grove (total of 13 seats).” This was the simplest of the options. The subcommittee rejected basing board representation on transit expenditures, due to the complexity it provides, and instead selected population.

Katie Valenzuela, the subcommittee member from the City of Sacramento stated that though she understood that population was the simplest, she wanted the subcommittee and board to recognize that the city has the most SacRT infrastructure, both benefiting and impacting particularly the central city, which she represents.

A long discussion about how often to revisit the population-based allocation ensued, and the subcommittee never really agreed. Katie has first suggested every 10 years, based on the census, and then compromised to no less than every 10 years. Four and five year periods were also mentioned. There was resistance to anything but yearly re-allocation, from the fast growing cities (mostly Folsom, partly Rancho Cordova and Elk Grove). Kerri Howell kept claiming the federal census was wrong, and allocation should be based on the Department of Finance figures instead, but didn’t provide any proof for this. It is not clear to me what the final recommendation was.

Staff presented on the history of non-elected officials on the board. SacRT has always seen this as possible, and it occurred up through 1992, but has not since. It is the interpretation of SacRT legal counsel that the enabling PUC ordinance allows non-elected members, if they are appointed by city council or board of supervisors. The staff recommended that this be clarified in legislation. Katie and Linda Bunch supported the idea of non-electeds on the board, citing the expertise and perspective that might make available. However, the idea was attacked by Kerri Howell, who claimed that members of the public could never have the understanding necessary to serve on the board. Which is ironic, since Kerri is probably the least knowledgable and least unbiased elected in the region. Again, discussion and modification of the motion on the floor was so confused that I am not sure what the recommendation was, but I think it was that this possibility be removed from ordinance.

The recommendations of the subcommittee will likely be on the agenda for the February 14 board meeting. If so, and if the recommendation to prohibit non-electeds on the board is brought forward, we hope that every transit advocacy organization will oppose any change to board composition and voting until this anti-democratic idea is removed.

• SacRT