Note: This post has been corrected; the new commissioners need to be approved by the Senate, but they can be sworn in and begin work in the meantime.
Governor Newsom announced late on Friday that he has appointed two new commissioners to the California Transportation Commission (CTC), the state body that oversees and allocates transportation funding. The commissioners play a key role in what projects move forward and who gets heard about impacts from those projects.
Newsom got a strong start with his first appointments to the commission, but it's not clear whether these new appointees bring the same wide range of viewpoints. One, Jon Rocco Davis, is a long-time labor union manager. The other, Lee Ann Eager, works on business development in Fresno.
Tamika was the only new appointee who is Black, and her resignation meant that Yvonne Burke remains the only Black commissioner out of the thirteen-member commission.
One of the thirteen seats is still in play. Two commissioners' terms ended in February, and a third seat had been open since Butler left. State sources confirmed that Chair Paul Van Konynenberg, who was overheard on a hot mic last month making a facetious but problematic threat, will not be reappointed. There has been no word about whether the governor plans to reappoint developer and business leader Lucy Dunn, whose term also ended in February.
The two new commissioners will need to be confirmed by the Senate sometime within the next year.
Davis has worked with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, where he chairs organizing coalitions and oversees financial and pension funds. His biographical information declares an interest in "the rights of working families including protecting and reforming legislation that guarantees worker rights, education and health care, voter registration, and immigration reform." According to its website, Laborers' International represents workers who build roads and bridges, water and sewer systems, solar plants, wind farms, gas and oil pipelines, and who maintain nuclear and coal power plants.
The union's website includes a page bemoaning "the deteriorating condition of our transportation infrastructure, with one in four bridges deficient or obsolete and potholes and other poor road conditions contributing to approximately 10,000 traffic deaths a year – coupled with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk."
Davis is also a director at United Business Bank, which partners with community groups working on issues like affordable housing and workforce and economic development.
Streetsblog California editor Melanie Curry has been thinking about transportation, and how to improve conditions for bicyclists, ever since commuting to school by bike long before bike lanes were a thing. She was Managing Editor at the East Bay Express, editor of Access Magazine for the University of California Transportation Center, and earned her Masters in City Planning from UC Berkeley.
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