Council passes transparency changes to transit partnership board

Last week, City Council voted to recommend changes to the Austin Transit Partnership Board of Directors that would add two additional seats to the five-member board and establish transparency standards for their appointments.

The resolution directs the city manager to consult with community stakeholders to address and consider eligibility requirements, which has been a controversial aspect of the proposal, as well as application and appointment processes for the new directors, and return to Council with recommendations by February 2023.

The transparency considerations include making the nominating committee process and criteria for selection publicly available at the time that the committee publishes its solicitation for applications. The nominating committee must seek feedback from the stakeholder committee on the criteria for selection before those criteria are finalized.

The resolution calls for all applications to be made publicly available once submitted, and any preliminary selection or elimination of applications to be made public as soon as the decision is made. Nominations must be made public two weeks in advance of the joint approval of the nominees by Council and the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors.

These changes to the Austin Transit Partnership articles of incorporation must be adopted by both Council and the Capital Metro board before going into effect. No new ATP board members will be appointed until the process is completed and adopted by both entities.

“I think that it’s very important for us to move forward with the transparency provisions to build trust in the community,” said Council Member Ann Kitchen, who is vice chair of the Capital Metro board and who sponsored the resolution.

Council Member Chito Vela said he appreciated the transparency provisions.

“I was surprised, honestly, with our last process where we probably had about 12 hours notice, or something to that effect, before we were voting on a candidate, and that is not the best way to do things,” he said.

Council Member Paige Ellis expressed concern that Council would pass the measure as both Council and the Capital Metro board undergo transitions, because there will be new members making decisions moving forward.

Ellis said Council should streamline how it amends the transit partnership’s articles of incorporation going forward “so that we’re not just chipping away at them one at a time and creating confusion among the staff and among the state or federal entities that need to understand” them.

Mayor Steve Adler also expressed concern that not all stakeholders had been adequately consulted on the criteria for the new board members. While he said Council must approve transparency measures, he didn’t agree that there had been a process to fully vet those measures.

“I agree with the intent of what you’re doing and I share the need to move it forward,” he said. “But I think that the better thing for us to do today would be to postpone this until there can be a conversation.”

Kitchen denied that she hadn’t spoken to a sufficient number of stakeholders on Council and the Capital Metro board, and said she had been very careful only to bring forward elements those stakeholders had achieved consensus on.

“This is very simple,” Kitchen said. “It says the public have the right to know who is applying for these public positions. The public has a right to know who is being interviewed. The public has the right to know at least two weeks before the body’s vote on who’s being proposed. I don’t think it needs a long conversation.”

Adler and Kitchen deliberated on the dais to modify the language to address his concerns about the stakeholder process. The resolution passed with Council Member Mackenzie Kelly voting no, and Council members Ellis and Natasha Harper-Madison and Mayor Pro Tem Alison Alter abstaining.

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