By Steve Hymon, February 21, 2014
The
bill was introduced by Assemblyman Chris Holden, whose district
includes Pasadena, Altadena and other parts of the northern San Gabriel
Valley. The bill proposes adding two voting members to the Metro Board
of Directors, bringing the total to 15 -- and those two members would be
appointed respectively by the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate
Rules Committee.
That's
a radical departure from the current practice with every Board member
either being someone who was elected by voters in parts of Los Angeles
County or appointed by someone who was elected by voters in our area. In
other words, the bill (as written now) could allow elected officials
from outside Southern California to choose who sits on the Metro Board.
By
law, the Metro Board is comprised of each of the five County
Supervisors, the Mayor of Los Angeles and his three appointees and one
City Council member or Mayor from four subregions in the county.
So
what's this really about? The very same issue discussed in the above
item about tensions between core urban areas and suburbs when it comes
to transit service and where to build projects. An example: the proposed
Gold Line extension to Montclair that is in Metro's long-range plan and
is currently unfunded (along with other projects), which some in the
San Gabriel Valley have alleged is the result of the the Board being too
L.A.-centric.
Is
it? The city of L.A. has its four members on the Board in addition to
representation from the five County Supervisors who all have part of the
city of L.A. in their districts. Each of the five supervisors also has
other cities in their districts, meaning they have to consider a lot of
different and often competing interests.
City
of Los Angeles officials have long countered that the current
arrangement makes sense, given that Los Angeles tends to have the
heaviest population densities and transit use in L.A. County. Others
counter back that the city has about 38.5 percent of the county's
population, meaning 62.5 percent of Los Angeles County residents are not
living in the nation's second-largest city but are helping pay for
transit service there.
We'll
see if the bill gets any traction and whether the Metro Board takes a
position on it. I'm guessing the bill will also attract the interest of
other transit agencies who have a view one way or the other whether the
Legislature should be involved in selecting their Board members. One
thing to keep in mind is that transit agency boards don't just make
decisions involving what gets built transit-wise -- they also choose
contractors and approve of labor contracts and under state law, the
Assembly and Senate could potentially gain a say in those matters.