Countywide : Catz Named to OCTA Board of Directors

Sarah L. Catz, 36, a Laguna Beach lawyer, was chosen Monday as the public’s representative on the Orange County Transportation Authority board of directors.

Catz succeeds Newport Beach lawyer Dana W. Reed, who resigned effective Aug. 1 to devote more time to his politically influential law firm in the upcoming election year.

Catz has already served for 19 months as Reed’s alternate and has been an OCTA delegate to the Southern California Regional Rail Authority and the Los Angeles-San Diego Rail Corridor Agency.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Catz said of the unanimous, 10-0 vote by the OCTA board, which selects the public member.

Southern California Edison executive Charles C. Wilson, 31, and former county transit official Gregory T. Winterbottom, 46, and Catz were the finalists from among 68 applicants for the public member at-large seat on the OCTA board. The OCTA board will choose either Wilson or Winterbottom to become Catz’s alternate in the next two weeks.

OCTA sets highway and transit priorities countywide, employs more than 1,500 people and has an annual budget exceeding $500 million, mostly due to voter approval in 1990 of Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for traffic improvements. Members are paid a maximum of $500 a month for attending meetings.

Although a strong advocate of additional rail passenger service, Catz won points from many OCTA officials for saying that the agency must have demographic data showing ample ridership for a proposed elevated urban rail line, or “we should not develop the system.”

Board members also said she was more specific in detailing her commitments to OCTA’s “2020 Vision” plan, which includes 30 years’ worth of projects and policies, the use of high-tech traffic management systems to reduce congestion, and OCTA’s role in determining the future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which is being considered as a future airport site.

After the vote, Catz said it was too early to have her own opinion about the reuse of the El Toro base.

Catz, who is married to marketing consultant Lou Weiss, becomes the only woman on the 12-member board, which consists of six city representatives, four county supervisors, the public member at-large and the non-voting chief of the Caltrans district office in Orange County.

A Democrat, Catz had to overcome two board members’ fears that she might be too liberal for the nonpartisan but conservative, Republican-dominated board. Nearly two years ago, one supervisor started a rumor campaign against her bid to become Reed’s alternate, citing her previous involvement in Democratic Party politics.

But OCTA Chairman Gary L. Hausdorfer said Monday’s unanimous vote resulted largely from board members’ belief that Catz had worked as hard as an alternate as any regular board member.

“It would be wrong not to reward that kind of effort,” he said.