BART's posted the video of the statement General Manager Dorothy Dugger made at yesterday's press conference, called after an FTA letter to the MTC rejecting BART's plans to move ahead with the OAC within a specific timeframe were rejected.  The substance of the FTA letter is laid out in yesterday's story, which ran before BART was ready to make a full statement.

So what does the MTA say?

"BART is extremely disappointed and dismayed that FTA will not use its discretion to allow stimulus funding to the Oakland Airport Connector while BART is working to remedy Title VI (civil rights) deficiencies. BART's commitment to Title VI and civil rights is strong and abiding and we are fully committed to completing and correcting any deficiencies in our program. The action plan we submitted to FTA makes that clear," says Duggar, in the video, in which she also emphasizes that cancelling the project will lead to the loss of jobs that would have gone to minority workers.

"Longtime opponents of this project are using the Civil Rights Act to stop the Oakland Airport Connector project and the thousands of jobs it will bring to this region, many of which would be held by minority workers. Access to jobs is also a civil rights issue," she said.

Duggar also stated that she believed the actual reason the project plan was rejected was scheduling. "This letter cites no substantive deficencies in BART's action plan to correct the deficencies identified in a December 2009 audit. Instead, the basis of thr administrator's rejection appears to rest solely on the fact that BART's plan contained a timetable for implementation that exceeded beyond September 30, 2010, the deadline for awarding stimulus fund grants."

The video is available here. Sadly, BART has not enabled embedded yet, so we can't present it on OL.

See related stories on FTA letter and MTC Feb 17th meeting/BART Title VI compliance.