1. Band-aid fix is insufficient There are real problems with the way that "small city" representation is handled on the Valley Transportation Agency's board of directors.
The first problem is that VTA directors are not directly elected - the way that Santa Clara Valley Water District directors are - but instead are appointed by member agencies that include the city of San Jose, Santa Clara County, and several small cities in the VTA's service area.
The second problem is that small cities must share seats with other small cities. Cities are grouped together and votes are doled out according to population.
Currently, South County's two small cities - Morgan Hill and Gilroy - share a seat with Milpitas. Group Four, as the cities are known, share one vote. The seat is rotated between the cities every two years, meaning that each city is without representation on the VTA board two out of every three years. Councilman Greg Sellers is currently the Group Four representative.
2. Real solutions require legislature's cooperation Fixing either of those problems would require the approval of the state legislator and no one on the VTA board or staff is pressuring any of the South Bay's state legislators to carry such a bill. VTA officials did, however, lobby heavily for the state legislature to approve a bill that would allow the agency to pass 1/8-cent increment sales tax increases. Their effort, unfortunately, was successful.
But Morgan Hill City Councilman Greg Sellers convinced the VTA to adopt a change that addresses the length of time group board members hold their seats. With the change that takes effect in January, the VTA would "allow for and encourage" longer terms for group representatives. The argument in favor of this proposal is that it will allow directors to develop more expertise.
3. Downsides of longer terms are significant While this idea has been lauded as an "easy" fix with "no downside," we disagree. We foresee lots of problems with longer times between each city's representation disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. Just a quick look at the geography of Group Four through the BART prism shows the dissimilar interests forced upon this group. The BART-to-San Jose extension will directly benefit Milpitas, while it will not help and will likely ultimately harm South County.
We see very little upside with Sellers' proposal and huge downsides.
We acknowledge that reforming the VTA's board structure so board members are directly elected and so that small cities aren't disenfranchised two-thirds of the time is harder than Sellers' easy fix. But it is clearly the right thing to do. It's time the VTA got on with it.
Act now: Contact the VTA Board of Directors to let them know your feelings on the issue. (408) 321-5680 or via e-mail: board.secretary@vta.org.
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