Levitas to propose smaller MARTA board
BY Ken Edelstein • January 2, 2010
Reforming MARTA is sure to be a hot topic in the state Legislature’s 2010 session, which opens Jan. 11.
Fresh Loaf reports that state Rep. Kevin Levitas, D-DeKalb County, plans to push for legislation to reduce the size of MARTA’s board from 18 members to seven. The idea seems to make a lot of sense. As Thomas Wheatley’s post points out, larger transit agencies in other cities are run by smaller boards. Wouldn’t a seven-member board be able to move more nimbly and to operate more efficiently than the current 18-member board?
But Levitas’ proposal stands little chance of passage: It amounts to a Democratic lawmaker’s plan to cut the influence of suburban counties and that state on MARTA; the Republican majority in the House seems unlikely to allow the city of Atlanta, and DeKalb and Fulton counties to gain such relative power.
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Harold Buckley, Sr. has been one of DeKalb’s rep’s on the MARTA board for over twenty years. How ’bout some term limits? Also, he’s a realtor, and tried to profit from the proposed TAD’s around the MARTA Kensington station. A smaller MARTA board WITH term limts is a winner.