What one see as a South County sneak attack, another sees as a
sufficiently telegraphed effort to make the Valley Transportation
Authority board member selection process more fair.
What one see as a South County sneak attack, another sees as a sufficiently telegraphed effort to make the Valley Transportation Authority board member selection process more fair.
At least that’s what happened when two councilmen, one from Morgan Hill and one from Gilroy, voted this week to switch up the usual rotation for the board seat they share with the city of Milpitas.
The North County city’s mayor angrily called the move “unprecedented,” and labeled it an effort to “disenfranchise” the people of Milpitas for the sake of South County’s political gain.
But Morgan Hill councilman Greg Sellers, who is serving his third year on the VTA board, said the traditional method of choosing a board member for the seat he occupies is unfair. He explained that during his time on the board he has sought solutions to the convoluted process.
“I sympathize with the (Milpitas) mayor’s concerns,” Sellers said. “We’re unified in realizing we have to get a resolution to this issue, to ensure Milpitas has regular representation on the board, and we (South County) have regular representation as well.”
The VTA board consists of 12 members, who are divided into five groups based on city boundaries within Santa Clara County. Since the VTA was formed in 1995, the members of each group have rotated their representatives to serve as full-time board members and alternates for two-year terms.
“The authority to select board members rests with the city groups,” VTA spokeswoman Jennie Loft explained.
The groups also meet separately from the full board, usually once a month, and at this month’s meeting of the local group, known as “Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Milpitas,” or “MGM,” which took place Tuesday, only two of the three members — Sellers and Gilroy councilman Perry Woodward – were present.
Sellers and Woodward voted to appoint Woodward as the alternate board member for 2009, even though based on the pattern of rotation followed by group members for more than a decade, it would have been Milpitas’ year to hold the alternate’s seat, according to VTA officials.
Soon after the meeting, Milpitas Mayor Robert Livengood e-mailed a letter addressed to the mayors of Morgan Hill and Gilroy, and copied to both councils and the VTA board members.
“The Milpitas City Council never received written or verbal correspondences from the Cities of Morgan Hill or Gilroy, nor the VTA, to discuss this matter before action was taken by the MGM Group,” wrote Livengood, who was an alternate board member in 2008 and feels the South County representatives are trying to squeeze him out halfway through his two-year term.
The letter also said that it is important for Milpitas to be represented on the board, as a new BART extension will pass through that city, whose population of 70,000 is twice that of Morgan Hill’s.
When contacted by phone, he said he has not heard a good reason for the decision, which he thinks violates the board’s rules.
“We don’t believe they can arbitrarily remove a board member. Our contention is that (alternate) seat belongs to the city of Milpitas and we were duly appointed to that seat,” Livengood said. “The decision by two rogue council members does not have the effect of law.”
He is also concerned that South County will attempt to “hijack” the full-time board seat currently occupied by Sellers when his term expires in 2010, and Tuesday’s decision was the beginning of a South County power grab.
The traditional schedule has a representative from Milpitas, likely Livengood, taking over that seat, but now none of the three MGM members know who will sit on the board, due to recent rule changes and this week’s decision by Sellers and Woodward.
And that’s an issue that Sellers said he is working to clear up before the end of this year. He noted that the past rotation schedule is no longer binding in selecting board members. In April 2008, the VTA board voted to eliminate the rotation process, the first of a series of steps Sellers feels is needed to ensure all three cities are always adequately represented.
He said under the rotation process, Milpitas was represented only every third term, and South County was represented two out of three terms.
“That’s not fair for Milpitas, and it’s not fair for South County,” Sellers said, noting that both South County and Milpitas should always have a representative on the board.
Gilroy and Morgan Hill have already agreed to switch up their end of the rotation, as the current term was scheduled to belong to Gilroy. However, the MGM group agreed to leave the seat in Morgan Hill’s hands.
Sellers also noted that while other groups on the board are based on geographical proximity, the MGM group is not. He said that doesn’t make sense because the interests of Milpitas, which is in North County, are not the same as those of Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Thus, another improvement he hopes to bring to the board is to rearrange the groups.
Woodward added that it is important that Sellers’ alternate also be from South County, so that if Sellers can’t attend a meeting in which an issue that is important to the region is on the agenda, someone with local knowledge will be there to discuss it.
“I feel it’s imperative that we have somebody at the VTA board meetings that could speak for the areas south of San Jose,” Woodward said. “Now, if our seat goes to Milpitas, there’s no one to represent Morgan Hill and Gilroy.”
Furthermore, both Woodward and Sellers said they gave staff at the city of Milpitas at least a month’s notice that they intended to appoint Woodward as Sellers’ alternate.
What Livengood calls a hijacking, Sellers and Woodward consider a protection of their region’s interests. Milpitas’ mayor said the two South County cities are in collusion to ensure that Sellers gains a seat on the Board of Supervisors when Don Gage gets termed out at the end of 2010.
Sellers laughed at that notion, and said he is “not interested” in running for Gage’s seat. “I think it’s silly and naive to say that,” he said.
