The decision earlier this week to name Live Oak-Soquel county Supervisor John Leopold to the bus district board has caused quite a bit of political caterwauling. Critics see it as progressives taking control of transportation planning in the county — not to mention the board of supervisors.
A couple of points on this: progressives have mostly controlled the political process and most local government elected positions for a long time and this doesn’t change that. Second, so what? It’s no different that Democrats and the Obama administration putting their own people into influential positions and seeking to change some policy directions. Of course, transportation planning has long been a battleground to determine where the county is headed.
Here’s a column I wrote last year on the highway as a political football, kicked into a game where there are no winners, only endless losing battles with congestion.
And here’s our Editorial for tomorrow on Leopold and transportation planning:
The appointment of Live Oak-Soquel Supervisor John Leopold to the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Board raised more than a few eyebrows this week.
For one thing, Leopold’s nomination to the board that oversees the $35 million local bus system seemed to be a political power play by progressives. That he will replace a disabled woman on the board didn’t exactly smooth things over.
A big part of the opposition is because of Leopold’s associations with a political movement that has long opposed widening Highway 1 and other traffic-congestion improvements. During his successful campaign for the supervisor’s seat last year, Leopold stated he is in favor of widening alternatives.
So why does naming him to the transit district board affect overall transportation planning for the county?
Here’s why: The transit board, which most recently has supported widening Highway 1, has three votes on the county Regional Transportation Commission, where decisions are made about spending for projects such as highway improvements, as well as the purchase of the Union Pacific rail line.
Critics fear that Leopold will eventually change the direction of the RTC. The supervisor, however, says his intention is simply to give district residents a voice in how the bus system is run.
Still, his nomination was opposed by Aptos Supervisor Ellen Pirie and Pajaro Valley Supervisor Tony Campos. Representatives from the county’s four cities, including Santa Cruz City Councilwoman Lynn Robinson, also expressed misgivings. Part of the problem was that Leopold is replacing a disabled person, Pat Spence. But Spence, according to a Sentinel report, did not have the support of the powerful bus drivers’ union; in addition, she has already served two four-year terms — and two other disabled persons remain on the board.
Leopold prevailed with the votes of Santa Cruz Supervisor Neal Coonerty and San Lorenzo Valley Supervisor Mark Stone, raising the specter of a progressive majority bloc on the Board of Supervisors.
If so, that’s politics. Leopold made no secret of his affiliations or his opposition to highway improvements during the election. He can hardly be faulted for using his position to gain influence over policy making.
He’s also a strong advocate for his district, which did not have any representatives on the 12-member transit board. Pirie and Stone are also on the board — and Pirie’s selection was protested a year ago, since the deciding vote was cast by Leopold’s predecessor, Jan Beautz, over Leopold’s protest. After Leopold was seated, he replaced Pirie on the county-city library board and on LAFCO — both influential positions.
One final note: Although the transit board, and by extension the RTC, do a lot more than make decisions about Highway 1, we hope Leopold, who has supported using funds for public transit, keeps an open mind about how a gridlocked highway affects the movement of buses in the county. These same buses are the only viable people-moving alternative to cars — and carry his constituents as well as people living, say, in Aptos and Watsonville.
