BART Board of Directors Race--who's running and what do they stand for?
Article by Irene.
Last updated at Wed, 22 Sep at 3:02pm.

Elections are on as Oakland seeks its next mayor. But, while many are talking about who will best deal with current city-wide unemployment, wealth disparities and fiscal realities, an under-publicized, key post is being contested.

Nineteen months after the death of Oscar Grant III - the young man killed by a BART police officer on New Year’s Day 2009 - a BART directors seat is up for decision by Oaklanders.

In addition to police armament controversies, BART has recently received criticism for the Oakland Airport Connector and the associated $70 million loss in federal stimulus funds, as well as budget decisions regarding a surprise $4.5 million surplus.

Who will voters elect to guide BART through rough financial waters and oversee policies regarding safety, system expansions and ridership?

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FTA to BART re Oakland Airport Connector: No way!
Article by Susan Mernit.
Last updated at Sun, 14 Feb at 10:29am.

 Late this afternoon,  the Federal Transit Administration issued a letter to BART rejecting their plan for addressing civil rights concerns regarding the Oakland Airport Connector and restated the FTA's concerns that BART's focus on this project could jeopardize a large amount of funding.

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BART director says difference in timetable was cause of FTA rejection of OAC project
Article by Susan Mernit.
Last updated at Sun, 14 Feb at 10:28am.

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.

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Attachment 3: FTA puts BART on the hook for compliance to Title VI processes
Article by Susan Mernit.
Last updated at Sat, 13 Feb at 9:11am.

The MTC will be meeting on February 17th to discuss next steps in reallocating federal funds for local transport, now that the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) has been rejected.  The agenda for that meeting contains a memo labelled oac that is from Cheryl Hendry, Director of Civil Rights for the FTA. You can read it below, but the gist is that BART did not follow procedure, the complaints were deemed valid after an audit and BART has to clean up its act (and MTC has to prove it).

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Jobs and Services vs. Jobs and Services
Blog entry by Ryan Van Lenning.
Last updated at Thu, 28 Jan at 12:45pm.

Yesterday, I attended the long and crowded MTC meeting addressing the funding of the Oakland Airport Connector (at one point I was literally edged out of the main auditorium onto the outside patio). I reported on it.  I wanted to make a few personal comments here.

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Oakland Airport Connector held up over Civil Rights Complaint (Urban Habitat Community News)
Blog entry by Urban Habitat Tea....
Last updated at Wed, 20 Jan at 6:22pm.

Today marks a huge victory for transit riders, workers and tax payers.

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City Council supports Oakland Airport Connector as good for local economy
Blog entry by Susan Mernit.
Last updated at Fri, 9 Oct at 5:00am.

Last night was a long, drawn-out and critically important meeting of the Oakland City Council on the fabulously expensive and not at all worth the cost Oakland Airport Connector, planned long ago, at a time when the idea of a 3.2 mile shuttle seemed wise.  The tweets were flying fast and furious, with v.smoothe doing a great job of almost realtime tweeting, and Bart Diaries, among others, posting summaries of the night's discussion.

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