The timing seems odd for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District to expand its responsibilities. After all, it just received a thumping from voters and faces deep budget cuts.
The SMART board recently voted to take responsibility for freight service on its tracks. The move follows through with state legislation, authored by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, that conveyed — initially at the state’s expense — responsibility for freight service from the long-struggling North Coast Rail Authority.
The change removes an operational hurdle for SMART, where it was required to share its track through Marin and Sonoma counties with the NCRA. Now, SMART will have clear responsibility and authority over its tracks.
The tracks were once a primary means for transporting lumber from the mills in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, but that role has diminished. Modern demands have never generated muc business.
The NCRA was launched in 1991 to repair and revive train service on the tracks up to Humboldt. Over the years, the agency has been more of a drain on public dollars than a governmental success story.
McGuire made the phasing out of the NCRA a top legislative priority, transforming the northern reach of its tracks into a bike and pedestrian path, while turning the southern leg over to SMART.
McGuire’s original legislation called for an in-depth evaluation of NCRA’s ledgers, including the value and liability of its assets. That analysis is supposed to be completed this month.
But last year, McGuire won passage of a follow-up bill that transferred the southern tracks to SMART, giving SMART until June 1 to OK a hand-off along with the state’s promise to cover any costs — an estimated $4 million.
It’s not surprising that a SMART board member, San Rafael Mayor Gary Phillips, balked at joining his colleagues in endorsing the transfer. It’s hard to blame him. He’s been involved in this issue for months. When Phillips, a veteran accountant, says he needs to see more facts and figures, it raises doubt about the process.
While some of the publicly disclosed numbers involved in the transfer and ongoing freight operations have been less than firm, McGuire says transferring control to SMART has been thoroughly reviewed by state auditors who have determined the move would be in “best interest of the taxpayers and the state.”
In addition, SMART’s leadership discussed and endorsed McGuire’s legislation as it progressed through the Assembly and state Senate last year. Unfortunately, financial details of the transfer have been limited to closed-door board meetings. The SMART board’s public deliberation were pretty vague.
McGuire insists it’s better public policy to have a single agency having control over the tracks than having two agencies — with different responsibilities — share control over the railroad right of way. Looking over NCRA’s costly history, McGuire says the agency “should have been killed off years ago.”
Marin Supervisor Judy Arnold, a longtime SMART board leader, had been a Marin representative on the NCRA board and welcomed the transfer as a logical milestone for SMART.
SMART officials added that the transfer will also burnish SMART’s potential for winning state and federal funding for long-term plans to extend SMART train service eastward, parallel to Highway 37, to link with tracks in Solano County.
There’s a great deal of logic to the transfer. The decision making could have been more transparent and without the pressure of a deadline that left little time for public deliberation — especially in the midst of a pandemic.
But the timing is a head-scratcher, given SMART’s current political and financial difficulties. Expanding its responsibilities now, at a time when it is in the midst of having to fix its own political image and facing service cuts to cover a severe loss of revenue, is odd.
Given the state’s commitment to cover the cost of this commonsense transfer, the timing might be the best it could be.
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June 04, 2020 at 12:38AM
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Editorial: SMART purchase makes sense, but timing is off - Marin Independent Journal
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