{"id":223226,"date":"2014-12-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/the-bizarre-unity-of-the-sandag-board\/"},"modified":"2014-12-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T08:00:00","slug":"the-bizarre-unity-of-the-sandag-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/the-bizarre-unity-of-the-sandag-board\/","title":{"rendered":"The bizarre unity of the SANDAG board"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Keatts | Voz de San Diego<\/a><\/p>\n

After a second court earlier this month ruled SANDAG\u2019s long-term transportation plan violated state requirements to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the regional planning agency\u2019s board voted overwhelmingly to go for one more appeal.<\/p>\n

The board is made up of elected officials from all over the county. When the vote showed Councilman Todd Gloria was among those who favored an appeal, it got a lot of people wondering: Why is the guy who \u2014 through force of will \u2014 pushed the city of San Diego to pursue an aggressive plan to cut emissions siding with SANDAG after two courts said its plan would actually increase emissions by 2050?<\/p>\n

Gloria said he wasn\u2019t trying to defend SANDAG, just seeking clarity on state greenhouse gas reduction requirements. A spokeswoman also said he had planned to vote against an appeal when he went into the closed-session meeting, until legal counsel explained the benefits of an appeal.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, it highlights a long-running SANDAG dynamic: The politicians on its board don\u2019t pursue policy changes there the way they do at city hall.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1543web\"<\/a>
SANDAG plans regional transportation projects in La Mesa and beyond. (Photo by Jeremy Ogul)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Art Madrid, formerly La Mesa\u2019s mayor for nearly 25 years and a longtime SANDAG board member, said there\u2019s always been a go-along-to-get-along mentality in the agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone speaks out, they\u2019re ostracized,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He and other past and current board members offered a handful of explanations for the board\u2019s reluctance to use its position to further major policy objectives.<\/p>\n

Money<\/strong><\/p>\n

SANDAG has a gigantic budget. At $1.2 billion \u2014 mostly for transportation and large capital projects \u2014 it\u2019s basically the same size as San Diego\u2019s. On one hand, that makes the question all the more pressing. On the other, it could help explain why directors don\u2019t want to make noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cSANDAG distributes lots of money and makes lots of decisions,\u201d said former San Diego City Councilwoman Donna Frye, who served on a SANDAG subcommittee. \u201cThe board decides how funds are going to be spent and who is going to get them. I suspect if one were to make too much of a fuss, they would find themselves in a difficult situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s absolutely the perception among board members, Madrid said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that blatant, but it\u2019s the undercurrent there, quite frankly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that an entire city could get closed out of SANDAG\u2019s funds for making a fuss, Madrid said. It\u2019s more subtle.<\/p>\n

Cities compete for SANDAG grants. If two projects are equally deserving, there\u2019s concern money will go to the city that\u2019s been less disruptive.<\/p>\n

Ron Morrison, National City mayor and who\u2019s on the board and previously served as chair, said there was a time when decisions were made that way, but now all decisions are made based on distinct criteria, so there\u2019s less room for political retribution.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been plenty vocal at times, he said, sometimes voting against the wishes of other South Bay cities that expect his support, but has never felt it came at a cost to National City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is that perception, I think it\u2019s one not necessarily based on knowledge, on being perceived,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Madrid said even the criteria-based approach leaves room for subjective decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are standards you have to meet, obviously, but it\u2019s like a beauty contest: You have three or four ladies walk by, and each judge evaluates each person on talent or smile or hair length, and those are things that take place no matter what the standards are,\u201d Madrid said.<\/p>\n

Resources and Attention<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another explanation is that directors don\u2019t have the capacity to challenge what SANDAG staff says is the best option, or suggest another course.<\/p>\n

The basic case is that SANDAG staff, and especially its executive director, Gary Gallegos, runs SANDAG, not its board of directors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them are part-time city (council members) and mayors,\u201d said Steve Erie, a professor of political science at UCSD. \u201cIt\u2019s a staff-driven agency, particularly with Gallegos, who is a master politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStaff has tremendous influence on decisions,\u201d Madrid said. \u201cThe decisions are technical and controversial, and small cities don\u2019t have resources or staff to do research. The bigger cities have staff, but they\u2019re often working on city issues. But the rest of us, we rely on our own experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Erie, though, SANDAG and large planning agencies like it just aren\u2019t set up to be a place for politicians to pursue a political agenda. He points to SCAG \u2014 the Southern California Association of Governments, a similar organization that\u2019s even larger, representing over 180 cities from Ventura to Imperial counties \u2014 which also has never been used that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s staff-driven, and really it\u2019s a forum for smaller cities to have a voice, and to have an organization to build regional consensus on things like border projects and freeways that require state and federal funding, where it\u2019s beneficial to have a collective voice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gloria spokesperson Katie Keach said that major SANDAG hearings, like its budget review, usually have only a few public speakers and are decided in a single meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSANDAG enjoys not being on the radar,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s beginning to change, she said, as activist organizations increasingly recognize the power it wields. But she said the SANDAG staff briefings Gloria receives on an item are always much more direct and understandable than the supporting materials put to the public ahead of a meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reports seem like they\u2019re made complicated to deter interest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The one big exception to the board\u2019s historic hesitance to insert itself in SANDAG\u2019s operations was former Mayor Bob Filner.<\/p>\n

It was remarkable, multiple people said, when Filner showed up for his first meeting. Early on, the board had to approve hiring outside counsel for a legal issue. Filner demanded to know how much the organization paid for additional lawyers, and wanted to know why the board\u2019s own lawyers couldn\u2019t handle it.<\/p>\n

Staff didn\u2019t have the answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard the gavel more that day than in the rest of the time I\u2019ve been on the board,\u201d said Morrison, who considers Filner a friend after decades working with him. \u201cHe spoke over people, he made demands, he was the only one who talked. It was disruptive, but that was Bob\u2019s style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madrid said it seemed SANDAG didn\u2019t know how to react to that sort of pushback.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only guy who challenged everything was Filner,\u201d Madrid said. \u201cThat had never been done before, and my sense is we all could have, but his style is acerbic and confrontational. That\u2019s his personality. That pissed off people and it would rally people against him, but he was asking legitimate questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, no one could point to a political price paid by the city of San Diego as a result of Filner\u2019s confrontations.<\/p>\n

\u2014 I’m Andrew Keatts, a reporter for Voice of San Diego. Please contact me if you’d like at andrew.keatts@voiceofsandiego.org<\/a> or 619-325-0529.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Keatts | Voice of San Diego After a second court earlier this month ruled SANDAG\u2019s long-term transportation plan violated state requirements to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the regional planning agency\u2019s board voted overwhelmingly to go for one more appeal. The board is made up of elected officials from all over the county. When […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":748,"featured_media":221770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"The bizarre unity of the SANDAG board","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11548,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-la-mesa-courier","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}