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MTC
Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments Merger Study
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission ("MTC") has just released one of the most important documents in recent years, its Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments Merger Study Options Analysis and Recommendation Report
In 2015, MTC, didn't renew ABAG's budget. The goal was to combine ABAG's land use planning function under MTC's umbrella. MTC holds the purse strings for local agencies, like the Transportation Authority of Marin , who depend on MTC to get projects funded.
If MTC also gets control over RHNA, Regional Housing Needs Allocation numbers and rules regarding PDA's, Priority Development Areas then MTC has unlimited power to redesign the Bay Area in Steve Heminger's image.
This is a coup that is so powerful its hard to believe that Governor Brown has paid no attention to newspaper articles critiquing Heminger's spending or Assemblyman Levine's pleas for a revised transportation planning agency that is accountable to both tax payers and the communities it serves.
This report isn't easily accessible via MTC or ABAG's main websites. Instead you have to search through layers of information until you arrive at a page of the Agenda Packet from ABAG's upcoming special joint meeting on April 22, 2016.
The way the report is structured there is no single page that organizes the comparison of information to allow you to determine which process will be vetted by officials outside of Heminger's and MTC's control and which plan is overall more cost effective to tax payers.
The salary and benefit information at the end of the report indicates ABAG's salaries and benefits are significantly below MTC's and ABAG pays directly into Social Security while MTC does not.
When MTC first denied ABAG funding for its yearly budget it didn't pass the taxpayer "smell" test of honest and transparent government. The way in which this plan will be interpreted and the decisions made moving forward with regard to which agencies will participate in the decision making process that determines both RHNA allotments and the rules of designating PDA's strike at the very heart of local control and planning.
I wouldn't trust Heminger with any piece of this process after watching him use tax payer money to purchase and rehabilitate the old post office building in SF for hundreds of millions of dollars because he didn't want MTC and Regional Agency headquarters to be housed in Oakland anymore. Using transit money derived from taxes to pay for a building rather than upgrade disintegrating infrastructure is the height of hubris.
Read the Contra Costa Times editorial: Metropolitan Transportation Commission should fire its prima donna director to understand why Heminger needs to be replaced immediately.
The first step to analyze this report is condensing the many pages of information into a format that can be easily read. There are five categories of analysis criteria that measure each of the seven plan options and MTC resolution 4210 which consolidates most of the planning functions to MTC.
They include:
- Operational Effectiveness and Accountability
- Transparency in Policy Decision Making
- Core Service Delivery and Financial Sustainability
- Ease of Implementation
- Implementation Support
The seven plan options are:
- No Structural Change
- Hire an Independent Planning Director
- Establish a New Joint Powers Authority
- Create a New Regional Agency and Governance Model
- Create a New Comprehensive Regional Agency and Governance Model
- Execute a Contract Between MTC and ABAG to Consolidate Planning Functions within MTC and enter into a new MOU to create a New Regional Agency and Governance Model
- Enter into a Contract Between ABAG and MTC to Consolidate Staff Functions Under a New Executive Director and Enter into a New MOU to Pursue New Governance Options (Functional Consolidation)
If Heminger getting control of ABAG means counties like Marin are under the thumb of the head of one regional agency then our Board of Supervisors needs to join together with other counties to take a stand. Heminger controls the transit dollar purse strings which means most elected officials will not challenge his decisions. This is government at its most unhealthy.
Just knowing that costs are significantly lower for ABAG employees as well as ABAG being made up of elected officials from each community begs the question of why we are even here to begin with.