Secrecy has no place in transit decisions

Secrecy has no place in transit decisions

By Jeff Nagel - The Tri-City News - January 20, 2008

 
 

They collect your money — $500 million a year from property and gas taxes combined — and they spend it by the bucket on the transit, roads and bridges we all rely on to get around.

TransLink is one of the most in-your-face forms of local government and it's no surprise citizens take intense interest in its deliberations.

A fare increase comes directly from the pockets of users.

A change in a bus schedule may decide whether people can use transit or are forced into their cars.

A rapid transit line can lift real estate prices and improve liveability.

And the replacement of an antique bridge like the Pattullo can end a daily danger for commuters.

What's more, in order to finance the province's new $14-billion regional transit plan, TransLink is now tasked with raising its $2.75-billion share.

Will that amount come through a vehicle levy? Further property and gas taxes?

And now, the ability to watch how the TransLink board makes those decisions and sets its priorities has been eliminated. All board debates will now be in secret, according to Dale Parker, the chair of the new, appointed board.

If any of the nine directors owns property along possible rapid transit routes, we won't know what they said behind closed doors, who lobbied for what and whether conflicts of interest may exist.

That's plain wrong.

Parker vowed TransLink will remain true to its values and continue the "tradition of public participation and dialogue."

But that will be limited to public input meetings on major plans and a chance for delegations and the public to speak to the board perhaps four times a year.

The new appointed structure was created last fall by the provincial government, which accused the old TransLink of devolving into a political circus.

Democracy is sometimes like that. But nobody would think of eliminating debates in the legislature.

The BC Liberals were first elected on promises to deliver the most open and accountable government ever. They did, for a while, keep a promise of holding open cabinet meetings — highly staged affairs — before they were quietly discontinued.

Now, the gutting of TransLink governance represents a new low.

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon called the last board unaccountable because it consisted of mayors and councillors who were indirectly elected through their local councils.

He now expects a Mayors Council on Regional Transportation to be the elected authority for the increases in fares, property tax and gas tax that will be needed to fund expansion.

But despite the minister's claims, it is hard to see how the new structure will be anywhere near as accountable as the last — particularly when the appointed board will operate behind closed doors.

The government was wrong to decimate TransLink democracy by moving to an appointed board of directors.

The new appointees are doubly wrong to immediately ditch the transparency this region has rightly come to expect.

Jeff Nagel is Black Press' Lower Mainland regional affairs reporter, jnagel@blackpress.ca.

 
 

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