Press Releases

For Immediate Release

Napa County Supervisor Bill Dodd and
Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty to Lead MTC

New Commission Officers and Six New MTC Commissioners

CONTACT:
Brenda Kahn 510.817.5773
Randy Rentschler 510.817.5780

OAKLAND, Calif., February 28, 2007 . . . Napa County Supervisor Bill Dodd took the reins of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) today after his fellow commissioners unanimously elected him as chair at their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. At the same time, the MTC commissioners unanimously elected Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty to the vice chair slot. Both officers will serve a two-year term.

Representing District 4 on the Napa County Board of Supervisors since January 2001, Dodd was first appointed to MTC that same year, and has been twice reappointed to MTC by the Napa County Board of Supervisors, first to the four-year term beginning in 2003, and then again to the new four-year term that began in February 2007. At MTC, Dodd has been chairing the Administration Committee while also serving on three other standing committees.

Beyond the Board of Supervisors and MTC, Dodd sits on the Napa County Transportation Planning Agency Board and the Napa County Flood Control Board, and serves on the Local Agency Formation Commission, the Napa County League of Governments and the Napa Valley Housing Authority, among other bodies. Dodd was born and raised in Napa, where and he and his wife Mary live and where they raised their five children. Prior to his election to the Board of Supervisors, Dodd was the president and general manager of Diversified Water Systems, Inc. (dba Culligan Water Company).

At the top of Dodd’s agenda at MTC is prompt implementation of the infrastructure bond package passed by the state’s voters last November. “The stakes are high, with nearly $20 billion in new transportation money in the pipeline statewide,” he said.

Transit efficiency is another interest. “The region has got to do better to make our two-dozen public transit operators work together for the good of the customer,” said Dodd. Toward that end, he will take a leadership role in deploying the TransLink® fare smart card regionwide. To date, the system has been fully installed on AC Transit and Golden Gate Transit.

Further on the horizon, Dodd said he’s looking for a new approach to formulating the region’s next long-range transportation plan, which is due for adoption in 2009. “Rather than being the sole province of MTC, this edition will have to be more of a partnership effort if we’re going to make headway against regional problems with global implications such as sprawl and traffic gridlock,” he said. Those partners would include the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Quality Management District, and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

This is also the beginning of a third MTC term for Haggerty, who started on MTC in late 2000. Haggerty has been chairing MTC’s Programming and Allocations Committee while serving on three other standing committees. He was first elected to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in November 1996, and currently is serving a third four-year term on the Board. In January 2007, Haggerty’s fellow supervisors unanimously voted to elect him to serve as president of the Board.

Haggerty has extensive experience with regional transportation and infrastructure policy. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Partnership, comprised of 15 elected officials representing counties and cities from two regions, and he is a member and former chair of the joint powers authority that operates the Altamont Commuter Express (ACE). He is a member and former chair of the Alameda County Transportation Authority/Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority, chair of the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency and is a member of the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA). Beyond transportation assignments, he is a member and former chair of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and is a member and former president of the Association of Bay Area Governments’ Executive Board.

“My goals include making long-needed improvements in major travel corridors, especially Interstate 580 through the Tri-Valley, one of the most congested roads in the Bay Area, and expanding and enhancing transit service,” Haggerty said.

Haggerty was raised in Fremont and now resides in Livermore with his family.

In addition to appointing new officers, the Commission welcomed six new members to the new four-year term today:

• Tom Bates, mayor of Berkeley, who is representing the cities of Alameda County and replaces outgoing commissioner Shelia Young;
• Sunnyvale City Councilmember Dean J. Chu, who isrepresenting the cities of Santa Clara County and replaces John McLemore;
• San Jose Vice Mayor Dave Cortese, who is the Association of Bay Area Governments’ appointee (and the chair of that agency’s executive board) and replaces Pamela Torliatt;
• Federal D. Glover, who has been appointed by his fellow members of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors to replace Mark DeSaulnier, who recently was elected to the California Assembly;
• Orinda City Councilmember Amy Worth, who is representing the cities of Contra Costa County and replaces Irma L. Anderson; and
• Ken Yeager, who has been appointed by fellow members of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to represent Santa Clara County and replaces James T. Beall Jr., who recently was elected to the California Assembly.

MTC’s governing Commission consists of 16 voting and three nonvoting members who serve concurrent four-year terms. While he stepped down as chair of MTC, Jon Rubin, a commissioner representing the mayor of San Francisco, continues to serve on MTC in the new four-year term. Other commissioners who have been reappointed to this four-year term on MTC are: San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, representing the city and county of San Francisco; Tom Azumbrado, representing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Santa Rosa Vice Mayor Bob Blanchard, representing Sonoma County and its cities; Anne W. Halsted, representing the Bay Conservation and Development Commission; Marin County Board of Supervisors President Steve Kinsey, representing Marin County and its cities; Sue Lempert, representing the cities of San Mateo County; Caltrans District 4 Director Bijan Sartipi, representing the State Business, Transportation and Housing Agency; Solano County Supervisor James P. Spering, representing Solano County and its cities; and San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Vice President Adrienne J. Tissier, representing San Mateo County. Dorene M. Giacopini continues to represent the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has not yet taken action on filling the new term.

Formed by an act of the California Legislature in 1970 and based at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter in Oakland, MTC is a regional public agency responsible for planning, coordinating and financing transportation in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. MTC commissioners serve on the policy boards of two related agencies staffed by MTC: the Bay Area Toll Authority, which administers tolls from the region’s seven state-owned bridges and plays a major role in overseeing a multibillion dollar bridge rehabilitation and upgrade program (including construction of the new East Span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge); and the Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways, which oversees the region’s network of freeway call boxes and the roving tow trucks of the Freeway Service Patrol.

For background about MTC and commissioner contact information, go to www.mtc.ca.gov/about_mtc. High-resolution photos of the new chair and vice chair can be downloaded at www.mtc.ca.gov/news/photos/.

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