MTC Director Hemminger Advocates “Bare Knuckled” Approach To High Density Resistors
Want more WinCups in Marin?
MTC Director Steve Hemminger is on a mission to bring them to you and yours.
“Engage the adversaries,” he advises executive committee members in this 51 second video clip “Don ‘t try to win the argument with those who don’t want housing in their neighborhoods. Take away their tools.”
He’s talking about “tools” such as CEQA (California Environment al Quality Act” and about local control of zoning . Take those away, Hemminger suggests, and his vision of a dense, urban California will prevail, engulfing the suburbs.
Who Is Hemminger, whose increasingly aggressive public statements qualify him as our regional planning Baron of Braggadocio?
He’s the unelected bureaucrat-exec who runs the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission. In 2012, his compensation ----paid for by taxpayers--- was “only” $360,000 per year with five weeks vacation.
The MTC website says he’s the wheel who manages Bay Area transportation planning through allocation of a whopping amount of federal and state taxpayer dollars.
“Steve Heminger is Executive Director of MTC and responsible for the administration of more than $2 billion per year in funding for the operation, maintenance and expansion of the Bay Area’s surface transportation network.
Wikipedia is not slow to note that that Hemminger’s long run at the MTC helm has been rife with controversy. The question then arises: Why is this guy--- with a “take no prisoners” attitude toward local control advocates in county and local governments in the nine county Bay Area---still in charge and issuing unpopular directives?
“Heminger was appointed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California to serve on the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission.[4]
Heminger, a Democrat, has been active in transportation politics, and he has recommended that the federal gasoline tax be raised by forty cents per gallon. He was also a possible candidate to be President Barack Obama's nominee as Secretary of Transportation.[5]
Obama would ultimately choose Ray LaHood and not Heminger to fill the Transportation post.[6]
Heminger's leadership of the MTC has been controversial, with concerns over the lengthy span of his MTC employment , budgetary expenditures related to new MTC headquarters in San Francisco and the lack of collaboration displayed when working with local government agencies in the 9 County area represented. Heminger's signature Plan Bay Area strategy was controversially approved, despite widely voiced concern from local and municipal stakeholders during public outreach stages.’
Heminger, a Democrat, has been active in transportation politics, and he has recommended that the federal gasoline tax be raised by forty cents per gallon. He was also a possible candidate to be President Barack Obama's nominee as Secretary of Transportation.[5]
Obama would ultimately choose Ray LaHood and not Heminger to fill the Transportation post.[6]
Heminger's leadership of the MTC has been controversial, with concerns over the lengthy span of his MTC employment , budgetary expenditures related to new MTC headquarters in San Francisco and the lack of collaboration displayed when working with local government agencies in the 9 County area represented. Heminger's signature Plan Bay Area strategy was controversially approved, despite widely voiced concern from local and municipal stakeholders during public outreach stages.’
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