SamTrans flap grows into big political spat SamTrans flap grows into big political spat (February 02, 2005)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

San Mateo County supervisors don't always agree, but they normally disagree with dignity. Until January 25, that is, when the spat over appointments to the SamTrans board erupted into sharp words.

Supervisor Rich Gordon said he was "appalled" at Supervisor Adrienne Tissier's charge of a secret meeting (tt wasn't). And Supervisor Mark Church expressed "outrage" when Supervisor Jerry Hill criticized him for being re-elected as chair of the Transit Authority for the third time.

Behind the squabble is the appointment of former Supervisor Mike Nevin as a public member on the board of directors of SamTrans, the county's bus agency, when he left the Board of Supervisors because of term limits.

Mr. Nevin, who has been a leader in transportation in the county throughout his 12 years as supervisor, needed the seat in order to continue serving on other county and regional transportation boards. He is now chair of the three-county Joint Powers Board that runs the Peninsula Caltrain service.

Thickening the political stew is Mr. Nevin's candidacy for the state Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Jackie Speier in 2006. Also running for the seat are San Francisco Assemblyman Leland Yee, and possibly former assemblyman and Nevin political enemy Lou Papan.

Newspapers throughout the county have picked up on the furor about Mr. Nevin's appointment, and the subsequent appointment by the Board of Supervisors -- on a 3 to 2 vote -- of new Supervisor Adrienne Tissier of Daly City to one of three supervisor's seats on the SamTrans board.

That leaves Daly City, the county's largest and northernmost city, holding four of nine seats on the SamTrans board, a near-majority it has held for a number of years.

Several things happened last Tuesday, January 25. The supervisors rejected, on a 3-2 vote, a proposal by supervisors Gordon and Church to ask the Legislature to require geographical balance on the SamTrans board, which now has two of three public members from Daly City. (The third public seat, by law, is from the Coastside.)

Supervisor Tissier argued to keep local control. Supervisor Jerry Hill, who also serves on the SamTrans board, argued that the Legislature couldn't be trusted to do the right thing. And Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson, the South County's representative, said she supported diversity of all kinds, not just geographical, throughout the whole county.

Afterward, the board forged a compromise resolution calling for an audit of all kinds of diversity on all county appointed boards and commissions, and asked the SamTrans board to review its process for appointments. A subcommittee of supervisors Hill and Jacobs Gibson will pursue the program. The motion passed 5-0.

Meanwhile, Citizens for Better Transit (CBT), an advocacy group that has been protesting the appointments, held a press conference in a courtyard near the supervisors' chambers. The group asked the grand jury to review the SamTrans appointment process.

Half a dozen critics, including Green Party Chair Pat Gray, Libertarian Party Chair Jack Hickey, and Lou Papan blasted the lopsided power structure of SamTrans, and its process for making appointments. "It has to be more equitable," Mr. Papan said.

Former Menlo Park Mayor Steve Schmidt, the only person there who had actually served on the SamTrans and Caltrain boards, said the Daly City dominance had been a problem on the boards for years and had warped county transportation policy. (Mr. Schmidt is on the board of the CBT advocacy group.)

The spat over appointments "is a symptom of how political power is wielded in the county," Mr. Schmidt told the Almanac. "If the Board of Supervisors and the SamTrans board hadn't abused the ability to appoint cronies, this wouldn't be an issue. But we continue to nurture a power center in the North County."

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