I had the privilege to testify before the Senate Transportation Committee today in support of Senate Bill 5220, which seeks to change the governance structure of the Sound Transit Board. Changing the governance structure of the Board to allow voters to directly elect members, rather than having county executives hand-pick existing elected officials, has been a long-standing recommendation of Washington Policy Center.

As I shared with the committee, we support this bill primarily because we believe that Sound Transit and families would both benefit from additional government transparency and the agency being more directly accountable to those it makes promises to.

This is especially important as Sound Transit moves forward with its light rail expansion plan over the next two decades. A change to the democratic process towards fairer representation, even though the political process can be messy, is a move in the right direction.

We believe voters in the taxing district, who will be paying for this project for a long time, should have a say in replacing Board members they feel are not representing their interests, are not managing tax dollars properly, or are not keeping promises with regard to project delivery.

In light of the ongoing reports of cost overruns and delays, this seems an appropriate time to provide a reasonable check and balance on the agency to help encourage better performance in the future. In the long run, direct accountability could help increase the agency’s credibility and the public’s trust, which is a good outcome for everyone.  

Video of our testimony can be viewed here.