MTC "We can raise taxes without going through the voters"

MTC "We can raise taxes without going through the voters"

Damon Connolly asks how small cities will receive housing funds and gets this surprising response

at the MTC Program Allocations Committee on Oct 24, 2018

The CASA technical committee full meeting Oct 17, 2018

MTC Boss Steve Heminger Admits "We have been failing" at Plan Bay Area

Heminger reacts to Brown Act violations of CASA ( MTC)

Executive Director of MTC, Steve Heminger reacts to Brown Act violations alleged by the public for a meeting of CASA( A group of political insiders who will determine housing policy).  He breaks into a slight grin, signals associate with his eyes that they are being video taped and looks away.  I don't know what Mr. Heminger is thinking but that grin looks very similar to a five year old with his hands in the cookie jar.  Notice that his associate turns around to look at the camera.

MTC Hemminger takes bare knuckles to opponents.

MTC Director Hemminger Advocates “Bare Knuckled” Approach To High Density Resistors

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.

http://mtc.ca.gov/…/key-staff-contact-in…/executive-director

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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Heminger

“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.’

MTC THINK CALIFORNIANS LOVE BEING TAXED TO DEATH

Steve Hemminger, MTC Commissioner defends Regional Government

Another very important video. He gets paid over 360k and travels first class worldwide on the taxpayer dime. His business failures are epic. The Bay Bridge Fiasco and massive cost overruns at the new MTC headquarters should have had him fired many times over.

Forcing Urban Growth with Plan Bay Area. A Citizen Responds.

No one elected Steve Heminger, Executive Director of MTC yet he wants to force urban growth on communities everywhere in the Bay Area and raise taxes and "fees" to fund the vision.  The allusion to Soviet central planning is not an exaggeration..

A Citizen responds to the comments made in the video:

"The communities we want to create": that is exercise of power at the expense of the power of others to choose for themselves the communities they want to create.

"in a more forceful way.": He is asking, how do we planners get more power to impose our will on others.

"minor update".: creates a perceived as reality.

"aggressive gHg targets: translation, need a bigger stick to get more power. We underestimated our lack of effective use of our power. Need more power.

Grants: Can we further craft the conditions (strings) that come with money that was taken by force as taxes to implement our agenda. Purchasing power. How to use this better to get more power.

The government power is in the hands of we the people not Mr. Heminger. He does not appear to understand the rule of law, rather is using the power of the public purse to implement Plan Bay Area.

It's all about power, power, power. Our constitutions and subsequent rule of law is in place to direct and limit this power.

We the people need to go to Sacramento and get these laws changed and absorb MTC and ABAG (all regional agency) into our State executive branch agency districts ("regions") and counties or we are going to lose our State, our country, our form of government and our freedoms protected by that government.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone..

Editors Note: Many planners like John Raime, Director of San Francisco Planning seen in the video want to force suburbs to absorb all of the growth and build high density developments.  These planners and Steve Heminger with their megalomaniac visions of urbanization will stop at nothing to achieve their dreams. They have the power of the purse strings and will inflict harm on anyone in their way.  Democracy be damned.

Stop MTC leader's bid for regional planning czar

Contra Costa Times editorial: Stop MTC leader's bid for regional planning czar

Contra Costa Times editorial © 2015 Bay Area News Group

POSTED:   09/30/2015 12:43:19 PM PDT1 COMMENT| UPDATED:   21 DAYS AGO

Steve Heminger, Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, makes a point during a panel discussion at the Silicon Valley Regional Economic Forum held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. (Gary Reyes/ Bay Area News Group)

Steve Heminger's self-centered bid to become Bay Area planning czar must be stopped.

The executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who runs his agency like his personal fiefdom, now wants to take key staff from the Association of Bay Area Governments.

He and MTC board chairman Dave Cortese portray the proposed move as a consolidation. Actually, this is a hostile takeover that would gut ABAG of its employees responsible for land-use and housing planning, and weaken the agency's financial underpinnings.

What's driving Heminger? Under state law, the two agencies must now work cooperatively on regional planning. As Heminger wrote tellingly, "these different organizational styles were more than a nuisance" during recent drafting of the latest joint regional planning document.

Heminger's doesn't like to waste time on the niceties of planning. "MTC is more action-oriented and project-based," he wrote, "while ABAG is more discussion-focused and policy-based."

Well, we've seen how Heminger's action approach has worked out. Bay Area traffic is a mess. Public transit systems are falling apart with billions of dollars of unmet capital needs. 

Read the article HERE

Hooray for new Gas Taxes!

MTC Executive Director rejoices for new Gas Taxes and User Fees.

Also see California Senator Hernandez cuts off debate before opposition speaks and then takes microphone away from dissenting Senator on minimum wage debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VN6KqrSBiA&feature=player_embedded

Fraud, Mismanagement and Budget Crises at the MTC

Daniel Borenstein: MTC commissioners allowing themselves to be misled on building costs

By Daniel Borenstein, staff columnist © 2014 Bay Area News Group

POSTED:   12/19/2014 05:00:00 PM PST0 COMMENTS

UPDATED:   12/20/2014 02:17:16 PM PST

The executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has once again deceived his board and the public about costs and financing for the agency's legally questionable real estate speculation.

At issue are misguided plans to use toll-bridge money for a new regional government center in downtown San Francisco housing MTC, Association of Bay Area Governments, Bay Area Air Quality Management District and San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

In 2011, MTC bought a 1942 building constructed by the Navy to provide assembly facilities for government projects. The $167 million project to purchase, gut and rehab the structure has ballooned 53 percent to $256 million. It won't be completed until December 2015, two years behind schedule.

Most cost increases haven't been due to unforeseeable expenses, but rather Executive Director Steve Heminger's failure to perform due diligence and include basic items in original estimates.

Three years ago, Heminger tried to ram through commission approval of the project without providing long-term finances, downside risks or assumptions essential for putting the deal together.

After criticism of the deal in this column, Heminger finally provided an analysis purportedly showing the bridge toll money for the project would be recouped over 30 years.

But the state auditor later concluded MTC used improper accounting methods that hid a $30 million shortfall. The auditor also chastised MTC for failing to disclose the risk and revealed that the chief financial officer withheld from the commission his own calculation showing the agency would not be able to repay the bridge toll money as promised.

In 2013, building costs jumped $56 million, due to design changes, seismic safety cost increases, and furniture, fixtures and equipment that were inexplicably omitted from original estimates.

Last month, costs jumped another $33 million. We learned that construction had been severely delayed because contractors had to work around a tenant, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which has yet to vacate its top-floor lab. It turns out that MTC bought the property without assurances all the tenants would move out.

The project also had already blown through its $18 million contingency budget and other costs had ballooned.

Heminger's latest deception comes when he explains how he plans to cover the latest cost overrun. Previously, MTC had committed $149 million of bridge toll money for the project. Heminger insists no more bridge toll money will be used.

Instead, he explains using masterful hairsplitting, the new money will come from savings the agency derived from refinancing bonds. But money paying those bonds derives from a pot with two sources, state funds in this case and bridge tolls.

In other words, if not for the latest overruns, savings from the bond refinancing could have gone

Metropolitan Transportation Commission should fire its prima donna director (The Story Marin IJ didn't Publish)

Steve Hemminger "splaining himself" at a press conference over the Bay Bridge cost overruns.

Contra Costa Times editorial: Metropolitan Transportation Commission should fire its prima donna director

Contra Costa Times editorial © 2014 Bay Area News Group

POSTED:   12/27/2014 04:00:00 PM PST1 COMMENT

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission should fire its chief prima donna.

Whether it's the Bay Bridge, empire-building real estate speculation or self-indulgent travel, Executive Director Steve Heminger shows disregard for the public purse. To him, it seems, cost is no object and the ends justify the means.

Commissioner Steve Kinsey, a Marin County supervisor, assessed the fallout. "We're ending up as a kind of a prima donna agency in the eyes of the public," he said. "We're acting in ways that appear to be indifferent to the economic realities and the frustrations of the traveling public."

While Heminger officially reports to a board, in practice it's often flipped. The commissioners, mostly city or county representatives, worry first about securing money for their locales, which requires remaining in Heminger's good graces. After 14 years running MTC, Heminger has become the regional transportation czar.

In three years, he flew to conferences in Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing and Vienna using air tickets costing more than $45,000, Bloomberg reported. MTC rules require travel by the most economical means, but Heminger ignores them.

His $13,000 Sydney flight was eight times the price of a coach ticket. His bill for international trips surpassed leaders of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago transportation agencies. Those officials took a combined five trips in the same time.

Meanwhile, Heminger continues deceiving the public about his real estate deal that's using bridge toll money to gut and refurbish a San Francisco building for MTC, Association of Bay Area Governments, Bay Area Air Quality Management District and San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.It was a bad idea from the onset, before the $167 million project ballooned 53 percent to $256 million. Heminger didn't do basic due diligence. The state auditor slammed MTC for its bogus accounting. The state Legislature's attorney questioned the legality of using bridge tolls for it.

As for the new bridge span, Heminger leads the oversight committee created in 2005 to protect toll and taxpayers' interests. But he has often been an ill-informed defender of Caltrans, claiming technical expertise he lacks and spending excessively.

The Sacramento Bee reports that bridge officials paid hundreds of millions of dollars to speed up work slowed down by contractors' own blunders. "We have traded money for time," Heminger claims. "We never once traded quality for time."

After broken bolts, hundreds of cracked welds, road deck leaks and weakened steel tendons inside concrete, does anyone seriously believe we got top-quality construction?

We need a cost-conscious official running MTC, not an imperial one. It's time for commissioners to act.

The Bridge So Far- A legacy of Corruption, Incompetence at the MTC

Imagine if you went over budget by 5 billion dollars on a project. Would you win raises and get to keep your job?

Steve Hemminger was in charge of the 25+ years of repairs at the Bay Bridge.  Be sure to watch at 22:00 where he admits that top executives overseeing bridge contracts had business interests in companies bidding on projects.  

He defends those executives and says there was no undue influence in the process.

He still has he job and is now in charge of another major scandal in the purchase and remodeling of MTC/ABAG headquarters where there is $300 million dollars in "accounting irregularities".

Steve Kinsey, Marin Supervisor serves in the oversight of MTC and Mr. Hemminger. Why does Steve keep his job?

Who is Steve Heminger, who hid $30 million dollars in construction costs for the MTC headquarters?

Steve Heminger, Executive Director of the MTC explains the Bay Bridge $400 million dollar cost overruns

Related Articles:

"Why MTC should fire it's Prima Donna Director" HERE
"Fraud, Waste and Mismanagement at the MTC" HERE

Editor's Note: The Marin IJ is the only newspaper in 

the Bay Area Newsgroup newspaper chain 

(includes The Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News)

that did not publish news about this explosive scandal at MTC. 

Why?