In the three-county BART system, San Francisco holds less than one-quarter of the population, yet one-third of the district's directors are from the city. On Thursday, BART directors should reject new election boundaries that unfairly perpetuate the disproportionate power of the West Bay at the expense of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
San Francisco should not have undue influence over expenditures of funds and future planning for this critical Bay Area transit system. Since the current nine-member board was established in 1974, population has migrated to the East Bay, and with it the sources of ridership and tax revenues for the system. Political power should migrate too.
But the two options under consideration for redrawing boundaries of the nine directors' districts to adjust for the latest census give San Francisco an edge it doesn't deserve. The key beneficiary is Director Lynette Sweet, first appointed in 2003 to a vacant seat at the urging of then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Sweet is the only one of the three San Francisco directors whose district is not fully contained in the city. Indeed, her district straddles the bay, and most of its population is in the East Bay. So she needs as many San Francisco voters as she can get to bolster her re-election chances.
Under the proposed new boundaries, the two other San Francisco districts are underpopulated. That leaves 4,725 extra residents of that city for Sweet's
district. If the districts had been drawn evenly, Sweet would have 4,725 fewer San Francisco constituents and 3,406 more in the East Bay. That's a swing of 8,131 people, more than a 2 percent deviation from the desired population of about 374,000 residents per district. In a close election, that could make a big difference.
In redistricting, some deviation is common to keep entire cities or common communities within one district. That's not what's going on here. No other proposed BART districts have anywhere near the deviation seen in the San Francisco districts. Most of the other deviations are in the opposite direction, reducing the influence of those districts' voters.
Further, in the leading plan, Sweet's proposed district unnecessarily divides the East Bay cities of El Cerrito and Albany for no rational reason. Why does it matter? Because cutting cities makes it harder for potential candidates, especially city council members, to run against an incumbent. The map could easily be adjusted to reduce the number of divided communities.
Sweet, who has served on the board since 2003, could theoretically be a good representative for East Bay voters despite her San Francisco residence. But make no mistake: Her political ambitions are in San Francisco, where she ran unsuccessfully last year for the Board of Supervisors.
Even she acknowledged during her last BART board campaign that while she had given attention to her Oakland and Berkeley constituents, she could not say the same for those she represents in West Contra Costa.
Nevertheless, she's entitled to run and convince East Bay voters of her value. But she must win on her merits, not by rigging the makeup of the voters. East Bay directors must not sell out their own constituents by enabling this gaming of the system.
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