Government

Bowser, Bulger get WMATA Board, Wells gets planning

by David Alpert   •   July 12, 2011 11:52 am

The WMATA Board, which has already had most members change in the last year, will see even more turnover as Kwame Brown plans to strip Tommy Wells of his seat along with the transportation committee today.

Photo by thisisbossi on Flickr.

Muriel Bowser would instead represent the DC Council as a voting member, Freeman Klopott reported. Bowser currently chairs the regional Transportation Planning Board. Kwame Brown also recently nominated lobbyist Tom Bulger to replace Michael A Brown as an alternate on the WMATA Board.

In addition to getting oversight of libraries, parks and recreation, Wells would gain oversight of the Office of Planning, says Mike DeBonis. Bowser has transportation expertise and a demonstrated commitment to Metro, and OP is an important agency to oversee. But both moves undermine Brown's stated rationale for rearranging the committees.

The vote hasn't yet been taken. Keep telling Kwame Brown and the council what you think by calling Brown's office at (202) 724-8032 and emailing the council.

Brown, and his number two Mary Cheh, claimed this morning that the change is not vengeful but rather an attempt to better align committees with subject areas. Cheh oversees environmental issues, and she said Brown wants to reunite the environment with public works and transportation. All three were part of a single committee before 2008.

According to Wells, Brown offered the WMATA Board seat to Cheh as well, but she turned it down. If his goal really were to unite policy areas under one committee, he'd have pushed Cheh to either take the seat or not take the committee. Or, if his motive hadn't been payback, he could have just let Wells keep his seat.

Having oversight of planning could give Wells the opportunity to help OP move forward on its zoning rewrite and continue or even expand its good work on neighborhood plans around DC. But OP needs Wells' oversight far less than DDOT, WMATA, the Taxi Commission, and the other transportation agencies do.

And if unifying the Department of the Environment with transportation in a single committee makes sense, it would make even more sense to put it with planning and parks, both of which have a significant environmental impact as well. A Committee on Planning, the Environment, Parks and Recreation seems even more logical than a Committee on Public Works, the Environment, and Transportation.

It still seems evident that this move was motivated more by politics than common sense. That's why Tom Sherwood called Brown's justification for the transportation change "paper thin."

Wells and the other new members of the Board went through many days of orientation to learn the ins and outs of WMATA's operations, budget, policies and safety issues. In doing so, several have said they built up strong working relationships that can foster regional cooperation. Bowser will now have to learn the same material over from scratch, but without the camaraderie that Wells developed. Again, DC will lose momentum, expertise, and relationships, all because of Brown's pique.

Last year, the WMATA Board came under criticism for members acting parochially, which most everyone knew was code for Jim Graham (ward 1)'s penchant for favoring Ward 1 transportation projects. In the last budget, Bowser showed a very parochial attitude toward city programs, focusing entirely on her own ward. Will she do the same on the WMATA Board, pushing needed transportation enhancements for Ward 4 but at the expense of other parts of the city?

Bulger's son ran Brown's Ward 3 operation in his campaign for chair. The Council held roundtable on the nomination last week, but seems never to have posted it anywhere on the Council site; I have an automated system that monitors the calendar for changes, and the word "Bulger" didn't appear until Sunday when it popped up as part of today's Committee of the Whole agenda.

Bulger runs Government Relations, Inc., a federal lobbying firm, which used to lobby for Fairfax County (but does not today). Bulger also told me he was involved with pushing Congress to pass the current federal transit benefit.

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington. He has had a lifelong interest in great cities and great communities. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.