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Displacement Policy At Risk In Power Struggle At ABAG & MTC - Part II
Two regional agencies battling over the future of Bay Area planning — with social justice in the balance.
Dismaying in its own right, MTC’s proposal to exclude crucial anti-displacement language from Plan Bay Area 2.0 becomes downright ominous in light of MTC’s apparent bid to take ABAG over.
I say “apparent,” because MTC officials deny any predatory motives with respect to their partner agency.
The facts, however, suggest otherwise.
Consider the proceedings of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s June 24 meeting, at which MTC voted 11-2 to extend the current MTC-ABAG memorandum of understanding and funding agreement for only six months (through December 31, 2015), in an amount not to exceed $1.9 million. Both San Francisco representatives on MTC, Wiener and Campos, voted Yes. Pierce and Scott Haggerty cast the two No votes.
The money will support ABAG’s research, planning, and implementation activities. Previously MTC has approved such funding for the full year referenced in the MOU. Heminger said that money for the second half of the fiscal year was in the MTC budget and would be released, depending on the outcome of a review in December.
ABAG President Julie Pierce, who also sits on MTC, was not appeased. She called the motion for the six-month funding, which had been made by MTC Chair and Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, “a slap in the face” that “shows a huge distrust of a partner agency.”
Indeed, the discussion about the funding was preceded by a report from two auditors from Price Waterhouse Cooper, whom MTC had hired to investigate ABAG’s use of funds awarded by MTC between July 1, 2012 and February 28, 2105. PWC “engagement partner” Joan Murphy reported that she and her colleagues “did not identify any abuse or misuse of MTC funds as part of our procedure.”
(Last week I asked MTC staff how much that investigation cost. The answer: $187,827.)
Of course, MTC has the right, not to say the responsibility, to make sure its allocations are being used responsibly.
But both the audit report and the six-month funding decision occurred in the course of a discussion that raised a far more consequential prospect: that MTC would absorb ABAG’s planning and research staff, if not most of the rest of the land-use and housing agency.
Turns out that for the past few months, an ad hoc committee of elected officials who have served on the boards of both agencies has been meeting with Pierce and Cortese to discuss, as Cortese carefully put it in his chair’s report, “whether a different structural relationship between the MTC and ABAG planning departments might result in a more coherent and efficiently planning process for developing Plan Bay Area 2040.”
That sounds fairly innocuous. We’re all for more coherent and efficient planning.
But here, as in so many other places, what’s called a quest for coherence and efficiency is really a pursuit of power.
It was MTC Commissioner and Solano County Supervisor Jim Spering who gave the game away:
I support the Chairman’s motion but, you know, the real issue that is before us, and it’s kind of the elephant in the room, nobody wants to talk about, is that we have two planning staffs, two executive directors, two processes there going that are in direct conflict. It is not working for the region, and it’s what led us into the lawsuit that we had with BIA. You know, as Chairman of the planning committee, I’m talking to our staff. It is dysfunctional. Our staff is being demoralized….And you have really two conflicting, I think, interests as you go forward…. one way or another this commission has to say, “Yes, this arrangement is acceptable,” or “No, it is not.”
Spering observed that the Bay Area is the only region in California where the planning duties of the state-required Metropolitan Planning Organization are split between two agencies.
But so what? If they can work together successfully, who cares?
The Solano County supervisor then outed another elephant in the room: the agencies are scheduled to move to their fancy new San Francisco headquarters at 375 Beale Street, at the end of December—exactly when MTC’s six-month funding of ABAG staff will come up for review.
Spering said that he didn’t want questions raised by the move to be
“masked by this contract or whether we are going to fund [ABAG] or not….[I]f we are going to consolidate the staff…, this is the right time to have that discussion, not after we get into the building and we are bringing all of these organizations together.”
That explained the timing of the attenuated funding agreement and clarified the babble about greater efficiency and coherence.
In fact, the costs of the move to the former post office building in San Francisco, a controversial project dreamed up by MTC, make a mockery of MTC’s professed concerns about efficiency. According to Chronicle columnists Matier and Ross, as of last November, the price tag for rehabbing the new building had ballooned to $155 million—more than double the original estimate.
Ditto for the extravagance of Heminger’s international conference-hopping: last December, Bloomberg Business reported that between January 2012 and December 2014, the Bay Area’s transportation planning director had spent $45,000 of taxpayer money on business-class flights, including $13,000 for a trip to Sydney—eight times the cost of a coach ticket.
In any case, the dysfunctionality between MTC and ABAG involves more than cost-accounting and logistics.
For there was a third elephant in attendance, one to which Spering alluded, when he said that the two-agency arrangement was “what led us into the lawsuit we had with BIA”: the ideological conflict between the MTC and ABAG, soon to be evinced by the fight over the performance targets in PBA 2.0.
Other than Spering’s allusion, that conflict went unremarked at the June 24 meeting of MTC. It got plenty of attention at the July 16 meeting of the ABAG Executive Board.
Item 9 on the July 16 agenda was a memo from Pierce and Rapport entitled “Report on ABAG Budget Discussion at Metropolitan Transportation Commission Meeting on June 24, 2015.” It ran to 50 pages and included a 19-page transcript of the MTC commissioners’ discussion.
Pierce and Rapport said that what was currently under consideration was not a merger of the two agencies, but the transfer of ABAG’s Planning and Research department to MTC. If that shift occurs, they warned, “regional land use planning decisions related to Plan Bay Area will, accordingly, be removed from the ABAG Executive Board.”
That removal would not be simple. “Under State law”—including SB 375—
ABAG is responsible for regional land use and housing planning, and MTC is responsible for comprehensive regional transportation planning. To effectuate such a transfer, (1) the ABAG Executive Board would have to voluntarily cede land use responsibility to MTC; or (2) state statutes governing regional land use planning and transportation planning would have to be amended by the Legislature.
Pierce and Rapport recommended a different course of action: pursue “thoughtful conversation” about “how land use and transportation planning should take place in the Bay Area and how we can improve collaboration, efficiency and outcomes moving forward.”
That conversation is likely to take longer than six months and hence “should not be inhibited by a budget deadline.” Meanwhile, he said, a full year’s budget should be appropriated for ABAG; and a small committee of ABAG and MTC elected officials should discuss how to improve “work program, collaboration, structure, budget, or financial accounting.”
Pierce told the Executive Board that the small, ad hoc committee had been meeting for three months. But those meetings had nor forestalled MTC’s decision to fund ABAG for only the next six months—an action that the memo duly reported. And though the memo urged a full year’s appropriation, it did not suggest how that might be accomplished.
The memo explained that while state law designates the division of regional planning labor between MTC and ABAG, it does not require MTC to fund ABAG, “although in ABAG’s view, the commitment has been long-term and left to fair dealing between the parties.” Clearly, fair dealing had failed.
Moreover, Pierce and Rapport conceded that “Plan Bay Area 2013 had its share of interagency problems.”
But they also claimed collaboration between the two agencies had improved. Their staffs had gotten together and designed “a joint Plan Bay Area 2040 work program and schedule” for the upcoming SCS update. An attachment detailed the numerous tasks and named the teams from each agency that have been assigned to work on them.
Plan Bay Area aside, the memo noted many other examples of MTC-ABAG collaboration. The planning directors meet weekly.
Key decisions and board agendas are brought to monthly executive director meetings to ensure proper coordination. If and when both agencies disagree, both executive directors propose the framing of the issues for resolution at the joint meetings of the ABAG Administrative and MTC Planning Committees.
Not a word about the dispute over the performance targets for Plan Bay Area 2.0. True, the memo from Pierce and Rapport was dated July 2—two weeks before the joint committee meeting where that disagreement became public. But surely they were aware of the disagreement, which originated in the the two agencies’ differing responses to the BIA lawsuit.
Pierce and Rapport chose to put on a happy face: “ABAG,” they maintained, Pierce and “does not accept the premises that the two planning departments are in conflict or dysfunctional, or that the proposed transfer increases efficiency.”
At the same time, they tried to rally their troops: the memo’s final section surveyed the negative implications of transferring ABAG’s planning and research department to MTC, and argued that the change would complicate and indeed damage land use decisions, finances, and labor relations.
The labor issues are easy to grasp: The departmental transfer “would create substantial staff instability.” Plus, ABAG works with union labor (its employees are represented by SEIU Local 1021); MTC does not.
As for land use decisions: Pierce and Rapport contended that what’s at stake is the local voice in regional policy.
[C]ollaboration with local jurisdictions on land use issues, relies on close coordination with the ABAG Executive Board. ABAG planning staff works very closely with local planning staff and planning directors. In addition, the discussion and decisions at the ABAG Regional Planning Committee and Executive Board are essential to develop consensus among the diverse cities, towns and counties across the region. The engagement of the ABAG Delegates [to ABAG’s General Assembly, which includes representatives from every city and county in the Bay Area] has also been instrumental in implementing Plan Bay Area in particular.
The memo made a special appeal to its immediate audience:
Eliminating the Executive Board with respect to land use planning and the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process will seriously jeopardize the progress made to date regarding ABAG’s respect for local control of land use authority while advocating for regional objectives.
When I read the foregoing citations, I had to swallow hard: The claims about ABAG’s respect for local control of land use authority do not jibe with my decades-long observations of the agency. In my experience, ABAG’s solicitude for local officials does not extend to those officials’ constituents, who, as I recently reported, are mostly in the dark about actions taken at the MetroCenter.
But as I stated at the outset, the fight over displacement and affordable housing policy for Plan Bay Area 2.0 has made me realize that any hope for democratizing regional governance lies with ABAG, not MTC.
That realization was bolstered by the ABAG Executive Board’s spirited response to Pierce and Rapport’s memo.
“After reading it,” said Novato Mayor Pro Tem Pat Eklund, “I was really shocked….I do not support even exploring integrating ABAG under MTC.” Eklund emphasized the structural differences between the two agencies: “ABAG is a membership organization; every county and city has a vote….MTC has a lot of supervisors on their board, but not cities.”
In like manner, San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar said, “It is a shock that [the proposed staff transfer] is moving forward….My hope is that before September meeting, we’ve worked this out, so that it’s not a power grab, like it really seems.”
“We were hammered in the last Plan Bay Area,” said Pacifica Councilmember Mary Ann Nihart,
“for not having enough electeds, for not being elected [to the ABAG Executive Board by the public], for not having enough transparency. How is it possible to think that fewer electeds making the decisions is a good answer? How is that even remotely in anyone’s head?”
Marin County Supervisor Damon Connollly agreed: “I also oppose the move to merge or consolidate.” Given “the concerns about regionalism” that came forward during Plan Bay Area 2013, such a move “would be perceived as a further erosion of local control.” It also seemed like “mission creep by MT, even going beyond their mandate.” He described the “six-month decision hanging over our heads” as “almost a blackmail situation.”
Newly elected San Jose Councilmember Raul Peralez noted that this was only his third meeting of the Executive Board. “I’m barely becoming an expert on issues in my own district in San Jose, let alone the region,” but “I’m not very comfortable with this,” which “seems like a bit of a power grab” that would “minimize the input from elected officials that we get at ABAG.” As for funding, “it should be plain and simply [for] a year,” while “we continue to discuss better collaboration and efficiency.”
The six-month funding agreement “does put an ax to our necks,” said Napa County Supervisor Mark Luce. Stating his regard for “the diversity of ABAG,” Luce said that in Plan Bay Area 2013, all the cities and counties “had a voice.” The process was “messy,” but “we got a great product that no other Council of Government in California has.”
The next speaker, Santa Clara County Cindy Chavez, said she wanted “to understand what sort of governance…creates opportunities for the broadest part of the community.” Chavez is not only a politician; she’s also a labor activist who’s worked for the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council and who formerly directed Working Partnerships USA.
Hayward Mayor Barbara Halliday echoed Eklund and then went even further. Avowing that “you’re not going to achieve the goals of [Plan Bay Area], if you do not have the population behind you,” Halliday asked: “If you’re going to have one agency take control, why is not ABAG?”
The idea of merger was supported by a few members of the Executive Board, including Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty. At the June 24 meeting of MTC, Haggerty said he was voting against the six-month funding agreement, because it seemed like “bullying.” He also said he “[didn’t] have a problem looking at consolidating both agencies.” On July 16, he elaborated on that position. He noted that the two-agency regional planning arrangement is “an anomaly in California.” But Haggerty’s main point is that conslidation would “save taxpayers money.
But would it?
Luce questioned the efficiency argument. ABAG’s planning and research staff, he said, has
“a budget of a little over $4 million a year. The idea that [consolidation] is going to have some huge efficiency is silly. There’s not enough money on the table; nobody’s going to lose their job. MTC hands out hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s not what we do. The idea that we would lose our voice for a few dollars makes no sense.”
I agree.
Unfortunately, the ABAG Executive Board took did nothing to allay fears about losing that voice. The budget discussion appeared on the agenda as an information item, precluding any action on the matter. That was a tactical mistake, given the gravity of the situation.
In fact, by the end of the meeting, the threat to ABAG’s integrity and independence actually got worse, as MTC Chair Dave Cortese presented a memo dated July 16 that he had sent to MTC.
The gist of Cortese’s missive was that Pierce and Rapport’s July 2 memo to the ABAG Executive Board broke good faith with the work of the ad hoc committee. “During the last ad hoc meeting in June,” Cortese wrote,
the group agreed to direct Ezra Rapport and Steve Heminger to provide a joint analysis of 1) How to improve planning integration without any structural consolidation of functions; and 2) How consolidation of planning functions under a single director or entity might be organized and how reporting to the MTC and ABAG would work under this kind of systemic change. We fully expected that this might result in continued disagreement as to how to proceed, nevertheless we were all in agreement that the comparison needs to be done. This analysis was intended to be conjunctive, not either/or.
In light of the Pierce/Rapport memo, Cortese said he was abandoning the the ad hoc group. Their memo, he wrote, “seems to advocate delay and continued dialogue uninformed by formal analysis.” It “also appears to signal that ABAG’s leadership is only interested in the status quo” with respect to
structuring a more coherent and efficient planning process for Plan Bay Area 2040. Ironically the next step for our ad group was supposed to have been a comparison of the planning integration analysis once received from the two directors.
Now that ABAG essentially has laid out the case for non-structural solutions, I have requested that MTC’s executive director outline how a consolidated planning department might better serve both the MTC commission and ABAG executive board. He should continue to invite input from ABAG and emphasize our desire to collaborate.
In this way we will have both organizational possibilities and arguments before us to evaluate, not one without the other.
Cortese listed the options he asked Heminger to consider:
- A single planning departament of MTC and ABAG consolidated within the MTC organization
- An organizational chart that would have the MTC planning director oversee the consolidated planning department while continuing to report to MTC’s executive director
- A funding relationship between ABAG and MTC that would have MTC retain the bulk of the $4 million in federal and state planning funds that it currently transfers annually to ABAG to be used to pay for the cost of the larger scaled single planning staff and functions.
- A retention policy that would require MTC to offer employment opportunities to ABAG planning staff at commensurate salaries and benefits.
- A reporting and approval structure to elected policy makers that would continue to require the work product of the consolidated planning department to be approved by the joint MTC Planning/ABAG Administrative committees and, as per past pracctice or legal requirement, by the MTC commission and ABAG executive board.
The existing statutory authority of the MTC commission and ABAG executive board would be respected and maintained.
Cortese concluded by saying that he intended to place the discussion of a single planning department on the MTC’s September 23 agenda.
How should ABAG respond?
Forget the ad hoc group; it’s history—and its bad history. What was really shocking to me, is that that group had been meeting for three months, and yet the Executive Board had no idea that it existed, or, more to the point, that MTC was preparing to cut off the funding for ABAG’s planning and research staff, much less that the transportation agency was contemplating a merger of the two agencies. Instead of secretly forming the small committee, Pierce and Rapport should have gone to their board three months ago, briefed them about MTC’s proposals, and asked for direction. For all the talk about ABAG’s democratic values, it appears that the organization run with a heavy executive hand.
Now, however, is the moment for the board to walk that democratic talk and mobilize support among the cities and counties in the region. The only suggestions along that line that emerged at the July 16 meeting came from Eklund, and they were good ones:
Convene the ABAG Delegates in your county, let them know what’s going on, and ask them to act in support of ABAG.
Bring the ABAG/MTC relationship to ABAG’s General Assembly.
Start working with the state legislature to get ABAG funded directly by the state. “That’s the only way that ABAG’s not going to be held hostage” by MTC.
She’s right. As Spering told me last week, “If the commission [MTC] decides not to give ABAG the funds, there’s nothing that ABAG can do.”
Time for separate bank accounts.