State Senator Steve O’Ban (R-Tacoma) continued his pursuit of a directly-elected Sound Transit Board, grilling lobbyists defending the transit agency’s current governance during a public hearing on Senate Bill 6301 Wednesday. But now that a Democrat chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, it’s not likely the bill will even get a vote in that committee.
A similar bill, SB 5001, passed the Republican-led Senate in 2017, but the House Transportation Committee didn’t act on the legislation.
Sen. Steve Hobbs (D-Lake Stevens), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said he didn’t see the bill going anywhere. The public testimony did not convince him a directly-elected board was needed.
Currently, the 18-member Sound Transit Board is comprised of 17 locally-elected officials appointed by each county executive and subject to approval by the county council. The State’s Transportation Secretary also sits on the board but is a non-voting member. Ten of the board members must be from King County, four from Pierce County and three from Snohomish County.
SB 6301 would replace the current board with 11 members elected from single-member districts, with the first election held this November. To draw the lines for the 11 districts, the governor would appoint five members, who represent all five sub-areas, to a districting commission.
Districts would be required to have nearly identical populations and precincts couldn’t be divided. Any registered voter who had resided in that district for at least 30 days before the election would be eligible to run for the seat. Elected board members would be barred from holding any other public office. The State’s transportation secretary would remain as a non-voting member.
O’Ban said the bill was founded on a basic democratic principle: “If you are going to tax individuals, the taxing authority should be directly elected.”
“Given the open-ended authority that Sound Transit has,” O’Ban said during the Senate Transportation Committee meeting Wednesday, “at a minimum we would want them to be responsible to those they are taxing, to those they represent by a direct vote.”
In a letter to the Senate Transportation Committee, Dave Somers, ST Board Chair and Snohomish County Executive, wrote the bill “creates the opportunity for special interests to have undue influence.”
“The current structure of the Sound Transit Board is an asset to the people of the region. Local leaders are the eyes and ears of their communities. The perspectives and relationships gained from their local communities help in selecting the appropriate courses of action for the agency, including our paths for securing critical permits,” he wrote.
Somers added the bill would increase the cost to taxpayers, estimating each directly-elected board member would receive $10,000 in annual compensation.
Good. This is a distraction. While I have to agree with Joe that it would be nice to have a couple of knowledgeable board members from the pro-transit community, Rob Johnson seems to be filling that role of “in-house expert” for the Board. I wish he were a little more willing to confront staff — in a congenial way; they’re not the enemy even if they have too blinkered a vision — to get them to consider future expansion opportunities when decisions are made about geometries and station designs.
Being “penny-wise” today often leads to “billions foolish” tomorrow.
Well written Richard. I too would be a bit tough on staff, like ask why all these consultant contracts? []
I certainly think “my” guy Everett City Councilman Paul Roberts is also a good expert. Ditto Bruce Dammier, who I encouraged last Thursday to keep asking the tough questions.
TriMet does this type of planning for some things. Their board is appointed by the governor.
Portland area regional planning is handled by the elected Metro board. They are the ones that decided MAX should run mostly next to freeways and other areas where development potential is limited.
So, making someone elected doesn’t necessarily produce good results.
Portland’s regional board, like Sound Transit, covers a metropolitan area rather than a city, and I assume that its suburban population, like ours, is larger than its city population. So it’s keen on suburban access, which means lines to the edges. And it may be afflicted by old thinking which is common in the suburbs: freeway medians are better because they’re cheap and fast, and they may have a blind spot about Portland’s urban neighborhoods. If the suburban population is larger than the cities, then in a proportional democracy they would naturally get majority clout.
The problem is not the suburban majority per se but the delusional sprawl mindset that large-lot houses and single-use zones are the American dream, and everybody can afford this high-cost, high-land, high-energy lifestyle and there are no psychological impacts from it. People *could* afford it fifty years ago when the population was a quarter the size, there was massive greenfield development, and people had family wages and less income inequality. None of these factors exist any longer, but the assumptions of Futurama are ingrained.
In an alternate universe, growth would have been accommodated with more streetcar-suburb (compact, mixed-use neighborhoods) and satellite cities, emphasis on the “city”, like downtown Surrey BC and Metrotown.
There would also be no allergy to annexations, so Seattle could have extended to Shoreline, Burien, even Bellevue, as it does in Australian cities, and some city+burbs have consolidated like the four-city Toronto merger. The reason annexation stopped in the 1950s was to keep density away, keep integrated schools away, and the stereotype that all big-city governments are tax-and spend wasteful, incompetent, and corrupt.
Single-member districts are terrible in any case; they’re an invitation to gerrymander.
If you ever have a directly elected board, it is absolutely imperative to elect it by some form of proportional representation.
At this point, the best thing is for this to be resolved via the initiative process. Period.
I don’t like Senator O’Ban’s bill. I want a better compensation package and we need the option to elect whomever we want on the Sound Transit Board – up to and including [].
Why elect a statewide rep? Due to the sheer # of souls who live outside of the ST district who pay sales tax and transit fare towards Sound Transit having ONE voice on the Board would be a good idea, methinks. I don’t want enough to crowd out those who are “all in”, but you get the idea. Helps when it took a divided State Legislature and Republican control of the State Senate for the last firing of a transportation secretary. I want all Board members to be hire-fire by the voters, all.
That said, I agree with Senator O’Ban, “If you are going to tax individuals, the taxing authority should be directly elected.” … “At a minimum we would want them to be responsible to those they are taxing, to those they represent by a direct vote.” If so, why isn’t Senator O’Ban at the least asking a colleague to make his Pierce Transit and the Island Transit, Skagit Transit and other such boards directly elected?
Getting really annoyed at all the picking on of Sound Transit. Which is what this reeks of, not about making transit governance more accountable to the people – a true need.
Also why is this Exec Somers letter not online? Just curious….
Does anyone care what a Skagit County resident thinks about Sound Transit? I sure don’t!
Huh? This is a regional taxing district. Having someone from outside the taxing district having a say on how our local tax dollars are spent is nothing less than un-democratic.
And your argument that people from outside the district come in and pay fares and taxes is total BS. A lot of Seattleites go to Skagit county too and pay taxes while there. Where is our seat at your table? When do we get to vote on how you spend your local tax dollars?
This is nonsense. Thank gawd the dems are in charge.
“Where is our seat at your table” – it’s at the state legislature. That’s why we have a state government – so we can all get together and decide things, like authorization a regional taxing district for transit.
As to;
Then have the WSDOT Secretary removed as a member from RCW 81.112.040 and I will sit down & shut up. Until then…
OK you’re kinda right. I would have that, just like the WSDOT Secretary is now as per RCW 81.112.040, “May have voting status with approval of a majority of the other members of the board”. I’d respect the Board’s decision on this.
You do kinda sorta get a vote on Skagit Transit priorities via the state legislature approving WSDOT mobility grants. Real easy to strike things out at the state legislature level, not so much with Sound Transit which as part of ST3 authorization was removed from competing for WSDOT grants.
Having one vote out of 18 or even 12 is not going to obstruct much of anything and only give a voice in the room. Right now public comment is bordering on a farce, and I will stop there.
Sound Transit is taking billions in transit fares and sales taxes from outside a district some to my right call “gerrymandered” and some like I want larger. There are consequences to this.
Oh do I have a response to that. From the former BART Board Chairwoman:
Some nonsense.
>That’s why we have a state government – so we can all get together and decide things, like authorization a regional taxing district for transit.
Why should the representatives of people from Spokane and Bellingham get to decide whether or not parts of King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties are allowed to levy a tax on themselves? Why is the state legislature involved at all?
Because the state government is the sovereign power, and all political subdivisions (county, municipal, port district, public utility district, regional transportation authority) derive their powers from it?
The state created Sound Transit and gives it the authority to levy taxes. However, that’s a very different thing from a “statewide-elected rep on the ST board”. Sound Transit exists as a special tax district to pursue activities benefitting that district. As such, the district’s residents vote on taxes and oversee the board through certain county/city officials that are on the board. What right does anybody outside the district have to be on the board or influence it in this way? Metro is responsible to King County residents. Community Transit is responsible to Community Transit Benefit District residents. They should interoperate at the portal between agencies, and they do. ST and CT serve Island County residents at the Mukilteo ferry terminal. ST, CT, and Everett Transit serve Skagit County residents at Everett Station. That doesn’t mean they should have a say in what the district residents do with their own tax dollars. It just requires industry-standard operational coordination between the agencies at the portal stations.
I don’t even understand what’s the problem that an external boardmember would solve. Is ST’s plan inadequate for Skagit-Everett transfers? If so, why? the 90X between Mt Vernon and Everett is Skagit Transit’s responsibility. The ST side of it has more trains and buses per day than the 90X can connect to. If you’re concerned about onward transit to Paine Field for aviation geeks, Link will address that as soon as it can be built out, and in the meantime it’s CT’s fault that Paine Field is so isolated..
“I don’t even understand what’s the problem that an external boardmember would solve” []
“Is ST’s plan inadequate for Skagit-Everett transfers? If so, why?”
As of 1/2018, no. It’s a good plan that works well on the Sound Transit side. The Skagit Transit side, not so much because of Skagit Transit integration issues in the Skagit Transit district…
“The ST side of it has more trains and buses per day than the 90X can connect to. If you’re concerned about onward transit to Paine Field for aviation geeks, Link will address that as soon as it can be built out, and in the meantime it’s CT’s fault that Paine Field is so isolated..”
Agreed. Far from the only reason I want a seat on the Sound Transit Board. Try I also want Sound Transit to get a move on delivering projects, to reduce its consultant dependency, and to make tough decisions on fares. I’m just getting warmed up…
You’re going to love me on Sound Transit Board boys and girls. I’m going to be the Doug Baldwin the Sound Transit staff so richly deserves.
“I don’t even understand what’s the problem that an external boardmember would solve.”
Try represent the state’s interests and in my view, a token “GO SOUND TRANSIT” roar to represent the fare payers & sales tax payers & fans stuck outside of the increasingly unaffordable Sound Transit District.
Joe, I’m sorry to pop your bubble, but even IF Senator Ban’s bill were to pass and you were to run for the statewide representative, your chance of being elected is 0.0000000000000000%. IOW “None at all.”
How much money do you have to invest in your campaign, Joe? It had better be at least $200 to $300 K, because the concrete companies are going to be fighting with the Koch Brothers’ very well-funded “Shut It Down And Build Highways” nominee and the candidate from the Christianist mob that thinks everyone who rides transit is a depraved ‘mosex’l.
You wouldn’t stand a chance.
“to reduce its consultant dependency”
Wnat’s wrong with consultants?
“[To] represent the state’s interests”
The WSDOT member represents the state’s interest. The legislature represents the state’s interest.
>Sound Transit is taking billions in transit fares and sales taxes from outside a district some to my right call “gerrymandered” and some like I want larger. There are consequences to this.
>billions
Do you actually believe this? LOL. Let’s see you back that up.
If there were no fares or taxes there would be no transit to take. The only tax you’re paying us sales tax on purchases inside the ST district, and the ST portion is really small, a couple pennies on the dollar. You don’t have to purchase expensive cars in the ST district, you can purchase inexpensive hamburgers. And the reason exurbanites/ruralites end up paying taxes in cities is that they And their regions depend on cities rather than the other way around; the city is what’s making their quality of life possible and employing people (I’m thinking of Everett and the Everett Industrial Center, not just Seattle). Cities intrinsically subsidize their surrounding area, and that’s the benefit you get for your urban and ST sales taxes.
Billions in transit fares?
OK, I stand corrected Sound Transit in 2018 budgets $93,449,000 in fares.
SOURCE: Page 11 of PDF at https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/sound-transit-proposed-2018-budget.pdf
My apologies.
http://www.steilacoomhistoricalphotos.com/From_Steilacoom_to_Tacoma.pdf
First thing about an elected board here and now: Steilacoom, in his district, had a streetcar line to Tacoma in 1890. Which gives Senator O’Ban some History St. cred.in addition to relations with other people’s LINK activities.
Would not take much effort to get the locals, who are obviously proud of their Historic District, and also the Republican Caucus of the Senate, to do a Golden Spike moment when their first passenger transfers to Tacoma Link at MLK and Sixth.
Or, being an ex-Senator, Steve can bully T-LINK into letting historic cars train into the MLK track all the way to Tacoma Dome. And since he’ll now be on the Sound Transit Board…Northgate…Lynnwood…Redmond…Do I make my point, Joe?
Now, I really apologize for this next link, but doubt I’d find anything more accurate about the possible sudden responsibilities of a transit governing board. Maybe too much or too little credit. But I think both an appointee and the official that did it are better “hardened” to the possibility of occurrences like this one than a direct electee.
http://www.historylink.org/File/7477
And to your main point, Joe. Since ST Board Members keep their elected jobs as well, would be a lot of people in his district who hate anybody else’s rail to get Senator O’Ban directly and permanently elected.
Mark Dublin
RCW 81.112.040
Board appointments—Voting—Expenses.
(1) The regional transit authority shall be governed by a board consisting of representatives appointed by the county executive and confirmed by the council or other legislative authority of each member county. Membership shall be based on population from that portion of each county which lies within the service area. Board members shall be appointed initially on the basis of one for each one hundred forty-five thousand population within the county. Such appointments shall be made following consultation with city and town jurisdictions within the service area. In addition, the secretary of transportation or the secretary’s designee shall serve as a member of the board and may have voting status with approval of a majority of the other members of the board. Only board members, not including alternates or designees, may cast votes.
The WSDOT secretary has a vote.
Thank you. I’d rather replace that position [] with a very loud 12 for Transit.
I want somebody on that board who is going to be that fire in the belly to get things done. I mean the current Board only found a spine against trolling when THIS 12 found one for them.
I also would make very clear to the local jurisdictions this Board with me on it is not going to be a rubber stamp or happy with last minute deals. No, I would have said, “We will take our time and go through agreements very carefully to make sure Sound Transit – propped up by local taxes & state contributions & federal grants – succeeds.”
I finally want somebody there who will listen to the Seattle Transit Blog comment threads and public commentators who have more substance than []
That is not what that language says. It says that the WSDOT secretary “may” have vote if the majority of the board allows it.
In other words, it is up to the representatives of the the regional taxing district as to whether or not the WSDOT secretary can vote. That is an entirely different thing than allowing someone from Skagit county to vote on ST regional issues even if the local elected officials don’t want it.
The WSDOT Secretary sits on the board because WSDOT is a very major stakeholder in Sound Transit. A lot of rail and BRT alignments are in WSDOT ROW.
This is very obviously not analogous to Skagit County or any other random non-RTA representative.
Most votes on the ST Board are unanimous. []
You should want a parliamentarian rock star. You should want someone who wants to bring the heat and fight to include YOUR voice in the board decision making process. You should want someone who represents the out-of-district farepayers with a fire in the belly.
What Sound Transit Boardmembers are fighting to include YOUR voice now?
Dan;
“The WSDOT Secretary sits on the board because WSDOT is a very major stakeholder in Sound Transit. A lot of rail and BRT alignments are in WSDOT ROW.”
News to me. But I would say The State of Washington via WSDOT and out-of-ST district members paying fare, sales tax and more within the district have a very major stake. We pay a portion for ST, we have a right to ONE voice.
Hell, Oregon recently had a transportation board and had three – 3 – Washington State reps to recognize the role of Washington State commuters.
“This is very obviously not analogous to Skagit County or any other random non-RTA representative.”
Quite analogous, quite. You can handle me on the ST Board, although you won’t be able to moderate my awesomeness. I’ll have so many fans I can go into talk radio.
This is no time for fear. But courage, bold courage in defense of our values.
“Most votes on the ST Board are unanimous.”
And, that they should be. You can’t do any real decisions and negotiations in a board meeting environment, with 10 million things to discuss, very little time, and everything you say in the public eye. It works much better to do the negotiations among the board members offline, and use the formal meetings to rubber-stamp what has already been decided.
I say this about boards in general, not Sound Transit in particular. Even committees in Congress work the same way – because it’s the only way to get anything done.
To somebody in Massachusetts, Republic, Seattle, and Vancouver Washington are all in the same State. And a lot of the world doubtless envies everybody in all of our States because, compared to the average very small country in Europe, all three hundred million of us really are Indivisible because we think and act like we are One Nation.
What ST needs most of all? To achieve local fairness by thinking of the whole Sound Transit District as a single region,expanding to State lines and beyond. Making the well-being of other parts of the region, and the State, a major budget item for every locality.
Politically, Seattle’s best, and maybe last chance to get a non-hostile Legislature years-long on our side, is to use the energy of its $M-bomb hit to see to it that people are making a living again in Aberdeen. And everyplace else who deserves the pro-Labor leadership they’ve spent thirty years fighting against out of spite. Served by a transit system fast enough to let their work itself pay back Seattle and everywhere else. In addition to their taxes.
Because behind it all, this how we lost the War Against Transit The thing cars could always do-that we’re still struggling against doing-is that for decades, they’ve progressively erased local boundaries from minds, maps, and pavement, track, and ferry wakes and Government all six.
Exact structure of the governing Board- lots of different ways will work. As long as I have people in charge who think that people working together get a greater individual share, than same number of people fighting to be sure nobody else gets any of their own.
Mark Dublin
“O’Ban said the bill was founded on a basic democratic principle: ‘If you are going to tax individuals, the taxing authority should be directly elected.'”
Guess he missed the part where the various ballot measures were put in front of voters and passed with large margins: Sound Move (+13), ST2 (+16) and ST3 (+8). One can take away from those results that people are fine with the way the ST board is functioning.
Gotta hand it to O’Ban, even though he’s not up for election until 2020 and his party is no longer in control of the State Senate, he’s keeping at his futile attempt to weaken or destroy Sound Transit. Compare to Dino Rossi, who used the GOP State Senate control to fling futile attacks at ST in an attempt to raise awareness of himself for next year’s election to replace Reichert. Once the GOP lost the Senate, he quietly slinked away.
“destroy Sound Transit”?
Over the top.
An elected Board could function the way the BART Board does in San Francisco. Which is quite well, with real debate and real transit advocates on the Board – not those who get along to go along.
ICYMI: We don’t need yes people right now.
The passage of ST3 is a subtle yet major expansion of the role of Sound Transit. ST3 expands the role of ST to be a major project delivery partner in services to be branded and operated by other local transit operators. ST2 did this only in a limited way (like the FHSC). It’s becoming both a regional transit FUNDING board as well as a transit OPERATIONS board.
A good case can be made for having both funcctions in one agency, or in two agencies. Still, before any debate about an elected board can be had, a more basic debate about the roles of ST needs to be had.
For example, I could see having a directly elected funding board — but not a directly elected operations board. A good comparison is the elected Portland Metro Council, which is structured differently than Tri-Met is. Are there any Portland insiders that can explain how well this system works?
Have you ever seen the ENO report from a few years ago? They did an analysis of a half dozen or so transit agencies in several large metropolitan regions across the US and one of the areas they looked at was board structure and governance. It’s been a while since I read the report but it was the first thing I thought of after reading your comment above. I hope this is helpful in some way.
https://www.enotrans.org/etl-material/getting-to-the-route-of-it-the-role-of-governance-in-regional-transit/
It’s a good, thought-provoking report!
Interestingly, every major Metro area in the report has actively tried to address the transit coordination iand oversight in a structural way. Meanwhile, we have every city and operator giving lip service to coordination and to productivity, but still doing pretty much what their board members tell them to do.
“The passage of ST3 is a subtle yet major expansion of the role of Sound Transit. ST3 expands the role of ST to be a major project delivery partner in services to be branded and operated by other local transit operators. ”
I agree. I want ST to also be a centre of regional transit excellence, passing on its techniques to junior transits. A lot of junior transits do NOT have the resources for rider ediquette artwork on buses, not the knowledge ST employees have in getting different jurisdictions and activists to get along and play as a team.
“A good case can be made for having both funcctions in one agency, or in two agencies. Still, before any debate about an elected board can be had, a more basic debate about the roles of ST needs to be had.”
I agree. A debate we should have had in the state legislature and in the activist community as ST3 was being drawn up…………
“I could see having a directly elected funding board — but not a directly elected operations board. A good comparison is the elected Portland Metro Council, which is structured differently than Tri-Met is. ”
Citing Tri-Met as a role model is a bad idea. Tri-Met has horrid labor relations, a horrid safety record, and quite frankly I joke about a branch Sound Transit University being opened in Portland.
As to the report, “The main governance challenge in the Bay Area is the excessive number of transit entities with decision-making authority. While everyone in the region agrees that this is a problem, consolidation into one super agency is not seen as realistic or desirable. Instead, consolidation to a little over a dozen operators appears to be the most appealing alternative.” At least we don’t have that problem…
Also, “City-suburb tensions are often perceived as stemming from ideological conflicts that are political in nature. But in most regions with locally appointed boards, these conflicts are rooted in parochial interests. Where members are locally appointed, board membership is typically proportional to population or geographical area, which often over-represents suburban interests with respect to transit ridership. ” Which is why I support a Sound Transit Board elected by districts drawn by population the same fair way our state draws legislative districts. I think such a board would a) Draw a ST4 that addresses the serious problems of the Rainier Valley & not serving the Boeing Renton Plant and b) Allow subareas that don’t approve ST4 taxes to not get ST4 projects.
I have said enough. I’m not giving a State of Sound Transit 2018!
“major project delivery partner in services to be branded and operated by other local transit operators.”
What services? The only service new to ST3 are the 3 BRT lines.
Besides 405 and 522 BRT project, ST3 includes bus transit projects (presumably branded for ST), there are others: RapidRide C/D Upgrades, Madison BRT, Pacific Ave in Tacoma upgrades and upgraded services from Sumner Station to the south/east. There is also an allocation for funding a bus-on-shoulder program on I-5, I-405, I-90, SR-518 and SR-167 (a mix of ST and non-ST buses possible) as well as an allocation for a Sammamish park-and-ride lot (and there are very few ST Express bus runs in Sammamish). ST has also included set-asides to sponsor locally-led projects that would improve access to stations.
In several of these instances, ST3 is a funding source for transit services not to be branded by ST. They may have been important to build a consensus to support ST3 and the projects mostly have merit — but it should also be highlighted that this is a significant step outside of the original intent of the agency.