Shouldn't "we" have a say in WMATA's future?

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:20:00 EDT

You might never know it, but influential business leaders and former elected officials are meeting behind closed doors to determine the future of WMATA's board and whether you have board members who listen to your concerns.

Photo by Kevin McShane.

The Greater Washington Board of Trade is a lobbying group made up of business leaders from the Washington region. It pushes for policies that benefit businesses, which is a totally reasonable thing to do, and has some very intelligent and thoughtful members. But, of course, it is an interest group.

The Board of Trade decided to create a "task force" to look at restructuring the WMATA board. It asked the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), an association of local governments across the region, to participate.

And here's where it gets weird. Without telling anyone ahead of time or soliciting input, COG, chaired by DC Council member Kwame Brown (a candidate for DC Council chair), went ahead and signed on to the Board of Trade's task force. That puts an official imprimatur on a project that's still dominated by one particular group, businesses.

Other advocacy groups, such as the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the Sierra Club and Action Committee for Transit, said, wait a minute. If this is an officially sponsored project by local governments, shouldn't other opinions, such as those of riders and rider advocates, be represented? On Wednesday, the COG board rejected this suggestion, and many elected officials showed a disappointing contempt for including the public in such an important decision as how to structure our region's transit agency.

COG officials argued that they shouldn't include any "advocates," because if they include some, they have to include them all. But that mysteriously ignores one very important point: the Board of Trade, which appointed almost half the members, is itself an advocacy group. Its Web site even says so. Instead, Brown decided to appoint himself and two other current elected officials, Penelope Gross of Fairfax and Andrea Harrison of Prince George's, to the task force.

COG staff had said that COG's participation was important because it would open up the process and make it more accessible to the public. But when interested observers showed up at Friday's first meeting at the Board of Trade headquarters, they were told it was private. The Board of Trade wants an official stamp on its activities, but it doesn't want anyone to know what it's up to.

They plan to hold a hearing to get some public input, and say they will accept public comment on the draft report, but this is merely token participation. The task force will decide its recommendations based on the agendas and interests of the members, and the deliberations themselves are happening in secret thus far. COG's participation could give the report a more official sheen for decisionmakers and in the press than a report just issued by the Board of Trade, but it won't be truly representative of the range of views and the business agenda will still dominate.

There's some reason to believe the Board of Trade already has a specific end-goal in mind: removing elected officials from the WMATA board and replacing them with unaccountable members appointed by area chief executives, as . That would be a terrible idea. The members who most listen to riders and rider concerns are typically the elected officials on the board, like those from Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax County and the District. Meanwhile, the Maryland members, appointed directly by the governor, are some of the least accessible.

Our region's transit system is too important to too many people to be run by a group of unaccountable insiders. And debates about how to structure the agency are critical to riders and the public.

Kwame Brown wants to portray himself as a man of the people. His Web site is even titled "The We District." Is this for real or is it just show? As voters get ready to make up their minds, they'll be looking to see whether Brown truly wants the District to be one where "we" participate in deciding our futures together, or just one where where he and some influential campaign contributors make all the decisions behind closed doors and "we" simply obey.

Cross-posted at the Washington Post's All Opinions are Local.

7 comments

Commission forming to study WMATA governance (May 13, 2010)
Give input on new railcars, WMATA governance (Jun 30, 2010)
Metro's governance task force needs more sunshine (Aug 17, 2010)
Dear COG and Board of Trade: Democracy is healthy (Jul 6, 2010)
WMATA governance task force distracts from real issues (Jun 8, 2010)

Meet in public

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:11:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Muriel Bowser introduced a bill strengthening the open meetings law. In particular, it would forbid the Council's behavior last year when it negotiated measures to close a budget gap almost in secret except for Mike DeBonis (who live tweeted the details) and a couple others. 8 Councilmembers cosponsored this time. (City Paper)

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Public Meetings - Greater Greater Washington

Shouldn't "we" have a say in WMATA's future?

Meet in public