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The BART board will get a much-needed revamping this year. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely the turnover of five of the nine elected directors will tip the political balance toward fiscally responsible behavior.
Of the four seats with new directors in the East Bay, only one will have a competitive election on Nov. 5. That’s the race in District 7, where Dana Lang, a member of the BART Police Citizen Review Board and a former transportation analyst, is the best choice.
It’s disappointing that there isn’t more election competition, more serious debate about BART’s mangled finances and a greater likelihood of desperately needed change.
Board denial
The BART board is made up of representatives from San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The district also provides service into Santa Clara County under a contract with the Valley Transportation Authority.
For two years now, monthly BART ridership has remained at about 40%-43% of pre-pandemic levels. Indeed, the shift may be permanent as workers’ commute patterns, especially to downtown San Francisco, have changed radically and the region’s population growth is leveling off.
Yet, while declaring that the transit system is headed for a “fiscal cliff,” BART management and most district directors refuse to tap the brakes. Instead, they have recklessly continued to increase spending while pressing for legislative approval to place a tax increase before voters in 2026.
“Rather than take practical steps to resolve its huge operating deficits, BART prefers to simply beg taxpayers, both locally and across America, for billions more in funding to keep expanding the system far beyond rider demand,” wrote Director Debora Allen last month in a scathing — and accurate — critique of her board colleagues and district management.
Allen, a CPA by training who for nearly eight years has been a refreshing, and almost lone, voice on the board for fiscal responsibility, has had enough and opted not to seek reelection. Hers is one of the four East Bay seats turning over this year.
District 1
Allen will be replaced by Matt Rinn, who is finishing his second four-year term on the Pleasant Hill City Council. Rinn is unopposed in BART District 1, which stretches from Orinda northeast to part of Concord and southeast to part of San Ramon.
Matt Rinn (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group, file photo)
Rinn concurs with Allen that the district has been mismanaged for years. He says he will bring similar scrutiny to district operations but perhaps with a different style that he hopes can build a fiscally responsible coalition on the board.
District 3
Director Rebecca Saltzman announced last year that she would not seek reelection in a district stretching from Berkeley to Hercules and Rodeo. She said her full-time job and BART responsibilities did not leave her enough family time. Now she’s running for El Cerrito City Council.
Only one candidate, Barnali Ghosh, sought to fill the District 3 opening. Ghosh is a mayoral appointee to Berkeley’s Planning Commission and Transportation and Infrastructure Commission. She has the backing of key BART labor unions and five BART board members, including Saltzman, who have led the failed BART fiscal strategy. Ghosh did not return our calls.
District 5
After BART Director John McPartland abruptly resigned in April just months from the end of his fourth term, the board appointed Dublin Mayor Melissa Hernandez to replace him.
Melissa Hernandez (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
Hernandez is now running for a full four-year term representing a district that stretches from San Leandro and part of Hayward east to Livermore. We hope she will come better prepared and provide more thoughtful financial analysis than McPartland, who demonstrated a disappointing lack of knowledge of the labor contracts and budgets he approved.
Hernandez has no meaningful opposition. The other candidate on the ballot, Joseph Grcar, a retired mathematician who worked at Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is currently running for four different district boards simultaneously: BART, Chabot-Las Positas Community College District, Castro Valley Sanitary District and the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District.
If he were running for just one and building a meaningful campaign, we would take him more seriously.
District 7
Rather than seek reelection, Director Lateefah Simon is running for, and is the heavy favorite to win, the congressional seat of retiring Rep. Barbara Lee.
Dana Lang (Photo courtesy of Dana Lang)
Simon leaves behind a two-way race to succeed her on the BART board representing a district that includes North Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville, Alameda, Treasure Island and the Bayview District of San Francisco.
Of the two candidates, Dana Lang by far brings the stronger analytical, financial and transportation credentials. She has an MBA from UC Berkeley and has more than two decades working on government policy analysis and grants, much of it transportation focused. Her employers have included the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco MUNI and the San Francisco International Airport.
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She’s thoughtful about how to right-size BART service levels without further eroding demand, is willing to entertain an examination of some of the costly benefits in current BART labor contracts and recognizes that the transit district’s planning for another bay crossing is not a wise use of funds.
Her opponent, Victor Flores, whose work history is focused as much on political organizing as policy, wants BART to consider pursuing another bay crossing and to go even deeper into the development business — both misguided goals.
BART is having enough problems attracting riders for its existing system and handling its core function providing transit service that’s clean, safe, reliable and fiscally viable. The last things it should be doing are building a second crossing and becoming a development agency.
The choice in this one competitive East Bay race is clear: Elect Dana Lang in District 7.