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VTA Board Meeting
June 6, 2002
County Supervisors Chambers, San Jose

Tonight's meeting contains the usual collection of about 50 VTA staff. However, there are about 30 citizens in attendance tonight. Some are a group of disabled citizens, later revealed to be clients of the Peninsula Council For the Blind and the Lyons Blind Center, both based in Palo Alto.

Jim Beall, ex-officio member and County Supervisor for West San Jose and Santa Clara, is not in attendance tonight. (Ex-officio members cannot vote on issues and cannot be replaced by alternates.) "Mr. Roadshow", Gary Richards, is in attendance in the Media section.

The meeting begins after the employees of the month are honored. Our congratulations go out to the honorees!

VTA Board Chair Ron Gonzales moved an agenda item to vote on an advisory measure for the November ballot to the June 20 special VTA Board meeting. We found out two days later some of the details of that advisory measure thru a Gary Richards column in the San Jose Mercury News two days later.

I arrived just after 6:30, when board members were commenting on the VTA counter-proposal for Caltrain non-electrification. The board member seemed to have real concern that the voters would not be getting what they voted for when passing measure A in '96. Nevertheless, times are tough and VTA will do what it must. (Editor's Note: person expressing that concern was John McLemore, who is on Santa Clara's City Council.)

Next, the meeting was open for public comments (2-minutes each). About 10 persons aired their disapproval of the proposed budget cut backs: 5% service and 15% fare increases. Most speakers represented groups affected by cuts: driver union representatives, the blind, VTA union, and so on. Our man, Eugene Bradley, pulled no punches by telling board members to do their homework better. If he could find $3-million in waste or undisclosed expenditures in the proposed budget after only a cursory review of the document, then surely they could do better.

Speaking out this evening was made extra difficult because the public address system acted up and you had to speak over mysterious background voices picked up on the microphones. At one point the "voices" rang out in laughter--a surreal affect that must have sounded pretty discouraging to the person expressing their view at the podium.

So after going through the motions of public debate, the board all voted "yeah" to the new 2002 austerity budget.

After the budget was voted on, several disabled citizens spoke out during the public comment period. These citizens are users of Outreach and were from the Peninsula Center for the Blind and the Lyons Blind Center, both based in Palo Alto. They were angry that the disabled community was not included in discussions for raising fares and reducing service. They were also angry at the rise of paratransit fares and that "consultants from Ohio...who know nothing about Bay Area transit" have made eligibility requirements more tougher to qualify for Outreach paratransit services.

Then the board retired to the back room for the non-public portion of the agenda. I don't recall whether the mysterious laughter returned at this point.

Antony Nispel contributed to this report.

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