Bigger cities seek power on OCTA

Jenny Marder

A bill approved by the California Assembly earlier this month would

boost Surf City’s political muscle on the governing body that makes

major decisions about transportation.

The bill, AB 710, authored by Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana)

and approved by the Assembly on May 15, would expand the Orange

County Transportation Authority board to include board members from

the five most populous cities in Orange County -- Huntington Beach,

Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Irvine.

The bill would expand the 11-member board of directors, which now

consists of four county supervisors, six city council representatives

and a public member selected by the other 10, to a 16-member board.

The one public member would then be appointed by a majority vote

of the other 14 members. There would also be one nonvoting member

appointed by the governor.

It has been 15 years since Huntington Beach has had a

representative on the board.

“There’s nothing like having one of your own council members on

[the board] to guarantee that Huntington Beach gets a fair share,”

said Ralph Bauer, who served on the Huntington Beach City Council

from 1992 to 2002.

The OCTA’s mission is to improve transit, streets and freeways in

the county. The agency also administers Measure M, a half-cent sales

tax approved in 1990, which provides funding for street and freeway

improvements and new transportation projects.

“I think it’s only appropriate that larger cities have guaranteed

representation on the board,” said Assemblyman Tom Harman, who

supports the legislation.

Harman, who served on the Huntington Beach City Council from 1994

to 2000, said he recalls times that representation would have

affected the amount of grant money Huntington Beach received from the

organization.

“Sometimes Huntington Beach wouldn’t get what they thought was

their fair share,” Harman said. “You have to ask why. Perhaps it’s

because they didn’t have any representation. I think we did get

probably less than what we would have gotten if we had representation

on the OCTA board.”

Past board decisions might have taken a different course had Surf

City been represented on the board, Bauer said, citing improvements

to the Garden Grove freeway as an example.

A Huntington Beach representative would have pushed to make

connecting the Orange County CenterLine, a light rail system the

authority is developing, with Los Angeles a priority item, he said.

The CenterLine would run from Santa Ana to Irvine through Costa Mesa.

“Had Huntington Beach been represented, it much more likely would

have put connectivity to Orange County on a higher priority,” Bauer

said.

The OCTA board of directors normally meets on the second and

fourth Monday of every month at the Orange County Planning Commission

Hearing Room in Santa Ana. Meetings are open to the public.

The bill will now go before the state Senate”This is a very

important issue,” Harman said. “I hope we’ll be able to work this

through the Legislature and get the governor to sign it.”