Berkeley’s local election ballot for this November includes candidates running for the BART Board of Directors with a focus on issues of public transit safety and maintenance.
In the two BART districts that include portions of Berkeley, three candidates are running to fill the seat in District 3, and three challengers hope to unseat incumbent Lynette Sweet in District 7.
Rebecca Saltzman, Fred Wright Lopez and Anthony Pegram are running for the open seat in District 3, which was filled by an interim board member after Bob Franklin resigned earlier this year.
“The BART system’s service requirements are varied,” Pegram said on his webpage. “(People) expect the daily operations of BART to be safe, clean and functional — but I believe we can do more than that.”
Saltzman, Lopez and Pegram all focused on issues of station and train maintenance.
Lopez, a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Policy Advisory Council, said he hopes to reduce crime by involving social media to catch “gropers, grabbers and flashers.” He also wants to clean up stations, control costs and make BART more accessible for tourists and the disabled.
“I try to think, ‘How can I make BART benefit everybody?’” Lopez said.
As a Berkeley alumna, Saltzman said she understands the difficulty of getting into the city
because BART does not run between 12:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. If elected, Saltzman said she wants to see BART run until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
In District 7, Sweet is looking to keep the spot she has held for nine years against candidates Margaret Gordon, Zakhary Mallett and Maria Alegria.
Sweet previously served as vice president and president of the BART Board of Directors. She actively pushed for police reforms after the incident in which an officer shot Hayward resident Oscar Grant on a BART platform at the Fruitvale station in 2009. Mallett said the current BART system is “old and outdated” and that there needs to be aggressive changes to modernize it.
Among his other points, Mallett said he would consider providing student-based discounts on BART now that he believes there are better ways to verify that people using the discount are students.
Alegria said it is important to have BART integrated into the community to allow for a “first-class working system with community partners.”
“We need to figure out a way to make BART affordable for students, seniors and the disabled,” she said.
At an Aug. 20 press conference announcing her candidacy, Gordon said she will push for more environmentally friendly alternatives in transportation.
“We need real change and accountability in planning,” Gordon said at the press conference.
Contact Shannon Carroll at [email protected].
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Lynette Sweet should remain on the Board. she does what an elected Board member should be doing which is putting the BART District to task on providing a safe reliable transportation system. Why do you think the Unions don’t want her? Because she calls them on their delivery of service and quality. This is someone that is fighting for the public. Not some political party affiliate like Rebecca!
There are several reasons, not stated in this article, that makes Fred Wright Lopez an exceptional candidate for open District 3 BART Director. First, Mr. Lopez is Cal educated and invested in the local community. After spending some undergraduate years at Cal, split between here and UCLA, he (wisely) settled at Cal and later earned a Law degree from Boalt Hall.
Personally, in working with people with visual impairment, there is a systemwide need to improve the accessibility of the BART stations. Making BART stations more accessible (to the blind, physically handicapped, etc.) would also make it safer to sighted and non-impaired users. Fred, as a person with visual impairment is deeply invested in these issues. His spent his law career involved working with the Civil Rights Office in SF and in DC he was a rights of the disabled to public transportation for many years in addition to being a litigator. In short, he knows how to fight the good fight.
Politically, Fred describes himself as a true independent, not tied to party or other politicians. Fred would be first Director with a major disability, a voice for the disabled community and the first Hispanic in BART’s history. It is for these reasons that I believe Fred would be an excellent voice of our community BART transportation needs.
I understand what you are trying to say…Because a person belongs to a protected class does not mean they are the best candidate at leadership and management for the advocacy of that class. stick with Lynette Sweet!
Rebecca Saltzman is by far the most passionate, knowledgeable, and savvy of the candidates vying for the District 3 seat. Satlzman has an impressive command of public transportation issues and she is determined to tackle BART’s long-term maintenance needs. Rebecca would fight to keep the BART system in a state of good repair so it can not only continue to be the transit workhorse it is today, but also become an even more robust system in the future.
Rebecca is a personal friend, but I am supporting her because I’ve seen her in action and she knows how to get things done. She’s built strong relationships across both physical and political geography, uniquely positioning her to be an effective leader on the BART board from the day she assumes office. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Rebecca has been endorsed by a wide array of officials and organizations that would make any East Bay candidate green with envy. These individuals and organizations include the Alameda and Contra Costa Democratic Party, plus the Alameda County Green Party; the Sierra Club; State Senator Loni Hancock; State Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner; multiple labor unions; over 20 mayors and council members representing seven East Bay communities; and many others.
If I seem overzealous, it’s only because my support for Rebecca really is that strong. So when you vote (on November 6th or before) be sure to go all the way down the ballot and vote Rebecca Saltzman for BART board District 3.
You are describing a politician…Lynette is the best choice to stay on the Board. Lets not politicize transportation. Your Board Director is someone that has the interests of the riding public at heart. When you hear about how the public dislikes those lazy BART workers, who do you think is fighting to change that image? Lynette, check her record!
Stan, if you read the article carefully, you will see that Rebecca Saltzman is running in District 3 and Lynette Sweet is running in District 7–they are not rivals. Same goes for Lopez, who is also running in District 3, which is not Sweet’s district.
None of them even talk about fiscal reform. They have no plan besides spend more money and keep raising fares, until it comes time to cut service and they will do that as well, unless they get a fed bailout.
Stay with Lynette.They have a new General Manager that is “on the ball”… You don’t want a candidate that is supported by the Unions because they are pushing for more money which wil eventually raise your fares. So, if you vote for Rebecca who is being supprted by the Unions, who do you think her loyalty will be to?
Or… The article doesn’t thoroughly discuss backgrounds and positions. After all, most candidates’ summaries are one-line summaries. It would be a pretty uninformative vote if you based it solely off of that, don’t you think??