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VTA Daily News Coverage for Monday, April 29, 2019 1

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VTA Daily News Coverage for Monday, April 29, 2019 1 From: VTA Board Secretary <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2019 3:56 PM To: VTA Board of Directors <[email protected]> Subject: From VTA: April 29, 2019 Media Clips VTA Daily News Coverage for Monday, April 29, 2019 1. Milpitas Police Department Eyeing BART Contract (Milpitas Beat) 2. Chief of troubled Muni system to step down in August, under pressure from mayor (San Francisco Chronicle) 3. Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris gets ‘more specific,’ calls for ban of ‘right to work’ laws (Bizpacreview.com) 4. SEPTA, VTA seek public input on proposed budgets (Progressive Railroading) 5. 2019 Bike Commuter of the Year Winners Announced (Chestnut Post) Milpitas Police Department Eyeing BART Contract (Milpitas Beat) At April 2, 2019’s City Council meeting, Milpitas Police Chief Armando Corpuz addressed the City Council in regard to a request from the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) for supplemental law enforcement at the upcoming Milpitas and Berryessa BART stations. Milpitas’ new BART station is scheduled to open this coming December. At present, VTA is contracted with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office to provide supplemental law enforcement services for VTA properties, which include the Light Rail and bus stations, as well as the Milpitas and Berryessa BART stations. That contract, however, is set to expire on June 30, 2019. Through its research, the Milpitas Police Department has come to expect that the BART station’s presence will have a public safety impact, as well as an accordant impact on public resources. If the Milpitas PD gets the VTA contract for Milpitas’ station, they’ll get added funding from the VTA for resources including equipment and personnel. Whereas the BART Police Department is responsible for the interior of every BART station, what’s at stake here is the surrounding area and property, which is controlled by the VTA. The VTA will decide which applicant to award the contract to. While Bernice Alaniz, Director of Business Operations and Communications for BART Silicon Valley, told The Milpitas Beat that the other applicants are confidential, she did emphasize that “Safety for the public, passengers, and our employees is first and foremost. Safety has been a priority from the minute those shovels hit the ground and will continue as we deliver service.” Councilmember Carmen Montano offered Chief Corpuz her blessing, along with whatever help the Council might be able to offer. Councilmember Bob Nuñez echoed Montano’s sentiments, making the key point that “When the calls come out, you’re the first one on the scene anyway.” In other words, incidents around the new BART station requiring a law enforcement presence will first and foremost spur the presence of the Milpitas PD, so it only makes sense for them to go after the contract. Council unanimously approved the Chief’s request to apply. Back to Top Chief of troubled Muni system to step down in August, under pressure from mayor (San Francisco Chronicle) The head of San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency is stepping down amid the fallout from a 10-hour meltdown that choked the city on Friday, drawing anger from City Hall. “The employment agreement I have with the SFMTA Board of Directors ends in August, and it’s become clear that this is the right time for a change,” Ed Reiskin wrote in a note to colleagues on Monday. He said he will resign this summer, shortly before his contract expires. His announcement coincided with a scorching letter from Mayor London Breed — the latest in a series of missives to the city’s main transit board — calling for a national search to find a new director. The failure of an overhead wire that caused the subway to collapse on Friday appeared to be the breaking point for Breed, who was already scrutinizing the agency. “While unplanned outages and service disruptions come with a system as complex as ours, it is our proactive work to prevent these outages and disruptions from occurring and responding to them head-first when they do that defines strong leadership,” Breed wrote. “San Franciscans deserve robust contingency plans that are ready to execute, strong communication plans that are ready to deploy, and a visibly engaged management team that can steer the system through turbulence,” she continued. “Yet recent incidents at the SFMTA have shown that existing leadership is not up to the task.” Reiskin took the job in 2011, a novice to the transportation world with plenty of experience running other embattled departments — he’d headed the city’s 311 call center for complaints and the Department of Public Works. An avid cyclist and public transit rider known for wearing secondhand suits, Reiskin cut an unassuming figure. He endeared himself to many San Francisco residents while attracting criticisms from others who wanted a tougher, more visionary leader. But Reiskin, who earns $342,483 a year, has come under increasing pressure as Muni’s challenges mount. Last summer, a retrofit of the Twin Peaks tunnel slowed down service throughout the system and highlighted a chronic driver shortage at the agency. Those problems escalated over the ensuing months, as lawsuits and employee complaints exposed a culture of bullying and intimidation within the agency. The former director of the Muni bus and subway line abruptly retired in October, just as the SFMTA was trying to roll out a new fleet of rail cars, which are racking up rider complaints and concerns about safety. These problems illustrate the heavy demands on any leader of a transportation department, in a city that’s constantly growing. Breed acknowledged those challenges in her letter, noting that San Francisco failed to adequately invest in its transit system for decades, and the strain is starting to show. Yet she also criticized Reiskin and other SFMTA leaders for appearing “paralyzed” as issues piled up. The agency hesitated to crack down on its management until Breed hired an ombudsman to intervene. Managers hedged when questions arose about door sensors on the new Siemens rail cars, after a woman’s hand got stuck earlier this month, sending her tumbling onto the tracks. And it wasn’t until 9:30 p.m. Friday that the agency explained the day-long collapse in its subway system, which elicited new questions about the maintenance of its overhead wires. Meanwhile, the shortage of bus and train operators persists. The operators organized a labor action last week, refusing to work on their days off as they negotiate a new three-year contract. It caused delays on more than a dozen bus lines. Malcolm Heinicke, who chairs the SFMTA’s Board of Directors, praised Reiskin Monday for eight years of “dedication and persistence.” “The way Ed is departing really speaks to his character,” Heinicke said. “He’s not complaining about the situation. He’s not saying he was mistreated — none of that. He’s saying, ‘It’s time for me to leave at the end of my contract.’ But he’s going to carry through and work hard to the end.” Heinicke put Muni under a microscope after taking over as chair this year, demanding monthly performance reports for the light rail and buses. He said that in previous years the board had been fixated on big picture plans rather than day-to-day service, which is what stands out most to commuters. “The challenge is that we have an aging system that wasn’t designed perfectly,” Heinicke said. “But we’ve all been on the system when it runs properly, and we all know how great that can be.” Back to Top Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris gets ‘more specific,’ calls for ban of ‘right to work’ laws (Bizpacreview.com) (mention of VTA case) Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris indicated Saturday that if elected president, she intends to continue catering to the interests of powerful, politically connected unions over those of individual workers by banning what are known as right-to-work laws. Speaking at the so-called National Forum on Wages and Working People, she specifically said that wants to use “legislation” and “the bully pulpit” to strengthen the alleged rights of unions. “Let’s be more specific — it has to be about banning right-to-work laws,” the 2020 hopeful said. Listen: Right-to-work laws protect individual workers from bullying by unions. In states that lack right-to-work laws, unions may force fees on all workers, even those who prefer to not be in a union. Imagine for instance that you work as a plumber for a local company, and you and your co-workers generally enjoy your work and are happy with your pay. Then suddenly a group of politically connected bureaucrats descend into town and demand you join their union. Suppose though that you and your coworkers don’t want to join because you don’t want to pay their ridiculously exorbitant $450 annual fee. In a state that lacks right-to-work protections, you and your coworkers would have no other choice but to bend the knee and sign up. If you lived in one of the following mostly Republican-operated states, on the other hand, you’d have the right to tell the bureaucrats to bugger off and leave you and your co-workers alone: Alabama Arizona Arkansas Florida Georgia Idaho Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Michigan Mississippi Nebraska Nevada North Carolina North Dakota Oklahoma South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Notice that Harris’s home state of California isn’t on the list … Because of the state’s lack of right-to-work laws, an estimated 5,000 local government employees were forced to pay “millions of dollars in fees” to one of the most powerful unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union.
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