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| Santa Clara VTA | Riders Union |
Margaret Okuzumi, executive director of BayRail Alliance, filed the following report from the VTA Board of Directors meeting last Thursday, November 1:
...the VTA board meeting was of mild interest. Ron Gonzales wasn't there but was appointed chair for next year. Jane P. Kennedy of Campbell became vice chair. If you think about it not many of the VTA board members were eligible because either they had recently been chair or vice-chair or are in the middle of getting re-elected.
VTA is in litigation with a construction firm that worked on the Tasman West LRT line. Apparently this project that VTA and Carl Guardino (CEO of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group) loves to crow about as being "on time and on budget" got that way because they screwed over the firm, Homer J. Olsen.
Just about the entire Homer J. Olson company showed up with their families to protest their treatment by VTA, over 100 people filling the auditorium. There were many families with young children who were all very cute and impressively well-behaved.
About a dozen of them made a public comment and were fairly eloquent in their remarks, above average in their quality from what one normally hears from the public. I don't know all the details of the issue at hand, but whatever happened seems to reek really badly for VTA. Homer J. Olsen employees presented a picture of being an upstanding company that dealt with really crappy engineering drawings from VTA with lots of mistakes, but which bent over backwards to do a good job, to deal with too many change orders and to finish the job on time regardless. It seems this honest company went the extra mile without protecting themselves well enough about getting paid for it. It is an employee-owned company, not unionized, and apparently more good-hearted and trusting than savvy. one of the project engineers told how after the contract expired, they got an emergency call from VTA when a dump truck severed the newly completed overhead wire and so Homer J. Olsen employees worked 19 hours straight starting at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning to help them get the light rail running again.
They asked for VTA to submit to arbitration in good faith instead of stalling like they have been asking for the last 2 years, so that they could get this settled and get paid. The board, which unfortunately did not have a quorum at that point due to some event at the Tech Museum, seemed impressed by the testimony. Pat Dando asked for an update by staff in a closed session at their next board meeting. Dennis Kennedy praised the employees for the quality of their testimony.
Further creating a black mark against the performance and management style of VTA management, a VTA union rep presented a petition objecting to harassment of some employees by some of the supervisors. Allegations included spying on employees, demanding rides to wherever after the drivers had finished their runs (against policy), and disciplining employees for alleged infractions weeks after their occurrence.
A member of the public from a neighborhood group complained that VTA was not looking at all of the alternatives the neighborhood was suggesting for the overhead crossing at Hamilton for the Vasona line.
Cindy Chavez raised a concern for the board, but I completely forget about what at the moment.
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