Mayor Hosterman shares more assignments with McGovern Mayor Hosterman shares more assignments with McGovern (January 14, 2005)

Former trustee is school liaison, plus on new Triangle Committee
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli

Mayor Jennifer Hosterman appointed Councilwoman Cindy McGovern to a new regional committee plus gave up her own seat on the school liaison committee to her at last week's council meeting.

At Hosterman's first meeting as mayor, in December, the list of appointments showed that she would serve on 21 regional and local committees while McGovern was only given five.

"First and foremost I wanted to give everyone what they wanted," Hosterman explained this week. "No. 2, I wanted to split these duties up as evenly as possible. But I didn't think of it in terms of quantity. What I tried to look at was how much time these various committees take."

"Some meet every month," she said. "Others, in my time on the council, have never met. I gave myself those. I thought it was unfair to put someone on committees that never meet."

She also noted that perhaps the assignments were not "packaged" correctly because the list did not indicate that there are some that require the mayor to serve. "If you took all those out, the others were fairly evenly distributed," she said. Some subcommittees also take a big time commitment, she added.

Hosterman said she found it unfair that some people said she did not have time to serve on that number of committees.

"I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to make the determination from their view as to whether I have time to do anything," she said. "I think it's terribly unfair to say, 'We question if you can handle it.' I got elected to this position of mayor and intend to do a good job, not cut short any of my responsibilities or duties to the public."

At the December public hearing, two other council members, Steve Brozosky and Matt Sullivan, each gave up one committee to McGovern, and the council approved the list with the understanding that Hosterman would revisit her appointments.

McGovern was a trustee of the Pleasanton Unified School District for 10 years before running for City Council in November and had requested the school liaison committee, but Hosterman appointed herself instead, along with re-appointing Brozosky, saying she wanted to serve on new committees.

McGovern attended the last liaison meeting when Hosterman was unavailable, Hosterman said at the council meeting Jan. 4. "When she caught me up on what had happened, I was so impressed by her level of expertise," Hosterman said at last week's meeting. "I think I kind of missed the boat on that one."

"Serving on the board for all the years you've served, I think you would be invaluable," she told McGovern.

At last week's meeting, Hosterman also named McGovern as the City Council representative to the Tri-Valley Highway Planning Study Committee, known as the Triangle Committee, to serve along with her. Hosterman said she would revisit the assignments after the fifth council member is chosen in a special election June 7.

The Triangle study is being pursued by the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency together with the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority and Caltrans. Its purpose is to develop a long- and a short-range plan for improvements along interstates 580 and 680 and Highway 84.

The Triangle Study will have a technical committee of staff members and a policy oversight committee with the mayor and one council member from each of the three affected cities - Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore - plus county supervisors Scott Haggerty and Nate Miley.

"I'm really, really excited," said Hosterman. "We're finally going to be taking a concrete look at moving traffic on freeways around Pleasanton."

The 2004 Countywide Transportation Plan includes $445 million for I-580 corridor improvements. ACTIA has $70 million for the Route 84 Expressway in its expenditure plan, according to the staff report. CMA and Caltrans are also working together on improvements to I-680, with more than $200 million in funds identified.

The committee will analyze traffic in the triangle to plan the order in which to make improvements. The study is funded by CMA for $400,000 and is expected to take six months.

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