Transportation Commissioner Resigns, Citing Brown Act Violations in Menlo Park

Charlie Bourne resigned from his position as a Menlo Park Transportation Commissioner Tuesday, attributing his decision to a slew of Brown Act violations committed by city staff and consultants.  Bourne had served on the commission since 2005. He made this public statement to City Council Tuesday night in Council Chambers:


My decision to resign was triggered by the Brown Act violations forced upon the Transportation Commission by the transportation department management at our May 8th meeting and the subject of May 14th meeting of the Bike Commission. Because of the city staff’s desire to speed up the approval of a consultant’s plan, which was not a plan, for an Oak Knoll Safe Routes to School Project. These violations were pushed by staff in spite of my warnings then that this appeared to be a clear violation of the Brown Act.  The staff had brought forward a discussion paper number 3 and urged that it be sent to council with our approval as a plan.

But this was simply the lastest in a long list of demonstrated shortcomings by city staff and its management in their attempts to limit the scope of activity and influence of this commission. The most recent assault was the attempt of the city manager and his staff to eliminate the video recording and minutes of this important committee. The city staff city manager and council, counseled by its acquiescence with proposals from the planning department, has worked actively to keep this commission from focusing on and commenting on things that really need its attention namely the transportation issues associated with recent big projects: Stanford Medical Center, Downtown Vision Plan, Stanford/ El Camino Plan. The City Planning Department drew up a process for the downtown vision project that excluded the transportation commission from seriously participating in that review process. Our request to city staff to get those matters on our agendas and to get staff to provide relevant information to permit such a review were declined, citing council approval of the process.

Furthermore the transportation staff would not give us their comments on the EIRS that were published for these reports. Our attempts to include the commission in the review of transportation issues associated with the Stanford Medical Center were rebuffed. Similarly the commission was not permitted to review the transportation issues associated with the current Stanford/ El Camino Real Project. These are the kinds of critical reviews the commission was designed to do, but not permitted to do.

Shortcomings of the transportation staff management have also been evident in the poor oversight given to consultant reports. Consultant reports have been brought to the commission for review and approval and were found to be poorly written with content issues and judged to be a lesser quality than should be expected of professional consulting firms. The city deserved better. And the reports were sent back to the consultant for rewrites.

The shocking part of these actions was that the transportation staff itself had not even read or critiqued these reports before they were brought to the commission for approval.

Without some change in council attitudes and oversight and some change in all levels of city staff, I see no future for this commission other than deciding where to paint the curbs red.  Thank you.