From: Marinos, Maria [mailto:Maria.Marinos@vta.org]
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 4:49 PM
To: Okuzumi, Margaret
Cc: Burns, Michael; Gifford, Suzanne; Board.Secretary
Subject: FW: Request investigation of VTA board meeting of February 7, 2008



Dear Ms. Okuzumi:



Thank you for bringing your concern about the Brown Act possible violation
to our attention. I have reviewed the meeting activities and have discussed
the issue with our General Manager and General Counsel. I agree that the
issue you raise is valid. I am advised that the remedy is to have the item
agendized, which is what we are planning on doing for an upcoming Board
meeting, possibly March. I want to assure you that we take the provisions of
the Brown Act very seriously and staff will be more diligent in the future
in monitoring Board discussion and action to ensure compliance. Thank you
again.



Maria Marinos

Board Secretary

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority

(408) 321-5773



cc: VTA Board of Directors



_____

From: Margaret Okuzumi [mailto:okuzumi@silcon.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 12:32 PM
To: Gifford, Suzanne
Cc: Board.Secretary
Subject: Request investigation of VTA board meeting of February 7, 2008



Dear Ms. Gifford:



The topic of VTA governing structure is one that is very important to me and
to many other members of the public. It has been identified as an area of
concern in previous investigations by the Santa Clara Civil Grand Jury, the
Hay Group report, and so forth. Therefore I was pleased to hear Mike Burns
announce at the VTA Summit on Friday, February 1, 2008, that VTA "will be
looking at board makeup and governance rotation over the next six months." I
expected that the deliberations would be conducted in an open and public
manner that was duly noticed.



I was surprised then to personally witness at the VTA board meeting of
Thursday, February 7, 2008, a discussion by at least four members of the
board of a proposed VTA board restructuring proposal, which was not listed
on the board agenda. As far as I'm aware, there was not a motion to put
this item on the agenda; rather it was discussed under the Chairperson's
(Verbal) Report.



At the end of the meeting I remarked that this was a violation of the Brown
Act and I believe it still is. It's especially disturbing to me that, this
item was not on the paper agenda distributed at the meeting, nor do I recall
it being on the electronic agenda on VTA's website that I viewed just prior
to leaving my house to attend the meeting, but some time later the item
appeared on the website and it appears the electronic agenda was modified
retroactively to show that the item was on the agenda. The written Board
Governance Recommendations Report, as distributed at the February 7 meeting,
did not list what item it was to be discussed under.



I respectfully request VTA general counsel to investigate this matter; to
examine, was the item added to the agenda during the meeting by a vote of
the board, and if so, what was the rationale for adding it; was there
retroactive modification of the board agenda that took place after the
meeting; did a Brown Act violation occur.



I also request a copy of the recording of the part of the board meeting
where the chair raised the issue of the governance structure of the board
and the board members' comments related to that.



I was disturbed to hear announced that this VTA board restructuring proposal
was planned to be presented by VTA staff member Jim Lawson to numerous
cities in the county this month, all this apparently being arranged before
the proposal has been considered in an duly noticed fashion by the VTA board
itself. I was also disturbed to hear board member Greg Sellers state that
there was a desire to have the VTA board vote on the proposal at the next
board meeting in March. I was surprised to hear member Casas offer that he
didn't have a personal gripe with giving up his seat to board member
Kishimoto due to her interest and experience; it was as if he had accepted
this was going to be the case. It appears that there have been
behind-the-scenes discussions about this proposal and arrangements being
worked out of the public view.



For something as important as determining how cities are represented on the
VTA board and powers distributed among them, it is a disservice to the
public interest for these discussions to be cloaked from public view and a
proposal developed by a subcommittee of one member appointed by the board so
that subcommittee deliberations were not noticed or subject to the Brown
Act. At the very least I would expect for recommendations coming to the full
board to be properly noticed, and the written report not merely incorporated
into "Chairperson's Report (Verbal Report)". I await your reply.



Sincerely,

Margaret Okuzumi, Exec. Director

BayRail Alliance

749 Winstead Ter

Sunnyvale, CA 94087