How many times do the people of Healdsburg have to pound home the same message of what the overwhelming majority of us support before SMART sees that?

Steve Villano

32 minutes ago

(I’ve been around government, worked for government agencies, and advocated for progressive causes and issues—especially mass transit, environmental protection, and affordable energy and housing, for more than five decades. As a former State Official in New York, responsible for the integrity of a Governor’s office as well as for the that of numerous State agencies, I am acutely aware of the critical need for government, public agencies and public officials—who believe in the importance of public service and good government—to protect and nurture the public’s trust in our work.

Perhaps the biggest failure of “liberal” government—my favorite kind—is to get out of its’ own way, and to listen to the people whose best interests it claims to have at the core of every action. “Independent” Federal, State or local agencies—like the Metropolitan Transportation Agency in NY, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) in SF and the East Bay, and the SMART Train Agency in the North Bay area, are perhaps the biggest violators of this fundamental rule of democracies. They are quasi-government agencies whose leadership is not elected but appointed—even if through legislation, passed by elected officials—which CREATES the appointed “public” board.

While appointed officials—even if they are, or were elected officials in other capacities, like the Members of the SMART Board of Directors—can be freed to make more “independent” decisions by being appointed to their new roles, the track record of virtually EVERY such agency is for it’s members—and staff—to lose any sense of public accountability, by acting as if they know better than the voters who made them public officials in the first place, and who provided the funding needed for the agency’s operations. SMART has fallen into that trap, a common mistake made by such “independent” agencies, that undermines the rationale for its very creation in the first place.

Almost a month ago to the day of this month’s October 22, public hearing on the location of the SMART Train station in Healdsburg, CA, I sent the following open letter to the SMART Train Board’s 12 Members. Those members , and their phone numbers are listed below. I urge you to call them, and let them know what you think about the location of the SMART Train Station in Healdsburg:

1. Chris Coursey, Chair (incumbent Sonoma County Supervisor), 707-565-2241;
2. Mary Sackett, Vice Chair (incumbent Marin County Supervisor), 415-473-7331;
3. Janice Cader Thompson, (Petaluma City Council), 707-774-5912;
4. Kate Colin, (Mayor, San Rafael), 415-458-3005;
5. Victoria Fleming, (Santa Rosa City Council), 707-453-3015;
6. Patty Garbarino, (GG Bridge, Highway and Transportation Dist.), 415-485-5648;
7. Ariel Kelley, (Healdsburg City Council), 707-385-1282;
8. Eric Lucan, (Marin County Supervisor), 415-473-7331;
9. Kevin Jacbos, (Novato City Council), 415-209-8937;
10. Barbara Pahre, (GG Bridge, Highway & Transportation Dist.), 707-224-7129;
11. Gabe Paulson, (Larkspur City Council), 415-927-5002;
12. David Rabbitt, (Sonoma County Supervisor), 707-565-2241;

Dear SMART Train Board Members:

I don’t know how many times we Healdsburg residents have to say this until you hear us, or until you open you eyes to what we are demanding: We want the SMART Train Station in our town at the Hudson Street Station Hub, NOT on Vine Street.

Two years ago, in 2024, our Healdsburg City Council voted 4-1 to support the citing of the SMART Train Station at the old Rail Station Hub. At that time, SMART didn’t have all the funding it needed to continue the commuter rail line from Windsor to Healdsburg and up to Cloverdale.

To make certain that would happen, our small but mighty City of 11,137 citizens has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly for environmental and mass transit issues, for the fractional sales tax to fund SMART’s work, and to increase the funding necessary to do the job, resulting in the $270 million now available to bring the Healdsburg station home. Your welcome.

Then, just this Spring, because we were enthusiastic that “The SMART Train was coming to town,” as Mike McGuire cheered—with every single public and SMART official present—1,000 of us packed our new Foley Family Pavilion to show our support, that this part of the North Bay was finally receiving commuter rail-service. WE voted by our very presence—with nearly 10% of the entire town showing up—for the SMART Train. We gladly accepted all the “swag” SMART handed out, to boost this project, because Healdburg residents were delighted that “a new train was coming to town,” and that the location of the Station was settled.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the message the SMART Board appears to be getting from the one Healdsburg resident on the Board, our former Mayor Ariele Kelley—who is still insisting now, as she did even before her unsuccessful Assembly run against Chris Rogers—that she preferred the Vine Street station for the SMART train.

Many of us in Healdsburg have supported Kelley for every public office she has sought, and are proud of her leadership for affordable housing, diversity, and on the California Coastal Commission. However, on this specific issue of locating the SMART Train Station, Kelley is utterly out of touch with the people of Healdsburg, who by electing her Mayor, made it possible for her to serve on the SMART Board in the first place. Sadly, our former Mayor seems to have forgotten the voice of the very community she still represents, unless she perceives her audience to be elsewhere.

By contrast, our current Healdsburg Mayor Chris Herrod perfectly expressed the astonishment of most Healdsburg residents when he told the San Francisco Chronicle recently:

“To have SMART come up now and re-think this at this fairly late time—is flabbergasting!”

And, to further compound the dumb decision of the SMART Train staff to do a fast bait & switch with the Station location, former Healdsburg Mayor Evelyn Mitchell—who served as Mayor when the original SMART Station commitment was made to the City—told a standing-room-only City Council meeting crowd:

“I felt like I was blindsided.”

In one, single, ill-advised and highly biased presentation delivered by SMART’s General Manager Eddy Cumins and his assistant Zoe Unruh at the September 21, 2016, Healdsburg City Council meeting, SMART jettisoned years of good faith, trust and public support it carefully developed, since the passage of it’s original enabling State legislation in 2002.

I pointedly asked SMART’s General Manager Cumins, “What the hell were you guys thinking?”

My question came from a deep well-spring of support for SMART’s work, and a lifetime of support for environmental protection, mass transit, and public service.

Such an extraordinary sensitivity to treating public trust as a precious natural resource is essential to rebuild the public’s confidence that government can work effectively, honestly, well, and responsibly on behalf of the people it serves—especially in the face of anti-government forces, with the malevolent mission of destroying government, and denying urgent public services to those most in need.

The collection of stale, 3-year old data, blatantly biased conclusions, and the use of such disconnected, bureaucratic jargon like “Euclidian Walksheds,” which SMART’s executive team delivered to the citizens of Healdsburg, and the entire City Council at the packed-public meeting, was an insult and a violation of trust to a well-educated population that has formed the backbone of the North Bay’s public support for “bringing the train to town.”

That egregiously bad effort could only be described as a colossal public relations and administrative agency failure, which smacked many of us involved local citizens as an arrogant, not-so-SMART move. Healdsburg residents, and the majority of our public officials who are among SMART’s most loyal and ardent mass transit and green environmental supporters, felt stabbed in the back by SMART staff trying to pull a last-minute, bad-faith switcheroo on the long-settled location of the Healdsburg Station.

Yet, as someone who has devoted my entire career to making governments and humane non-profit organizations succeed on behalf of the people we serve, I still have faith in many of the public officials who lead the SMART Board, particularly it’s Chair, Chris Coursey, who worked for years as a first-rate journalist, before being elected as Santa Rosa’s Mayor, and as a Sonoma County Supervisor. I believe Coursey has the courage, strength & intelligence to put the SMART staff back on track, reminding them that it is our tax dollars and citizen support that is critical to the short and long-term success of the SMART Train to improve all our lives in the North Bay.

Perhaps the two most telling messages delivered by the people of Healdsburg to SMART’s staff came from City Manager Jeff Kay, and from Healdsburg resident Oded Shakked, a local businessman.

The Healdsburg Patch reported that “the city manager (Kay) said Healdsburg received between $1.1 million and $1.2 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission after the 2024 vote to prepare a plan centered on the (Hudson Street) depot. The planning area includes land south of the river”.

In fact, the City Council, acting on those commitments, created a seven-page, “SMART Station Area Specific Plan,” predicated upon the SMART Station being sited at the Hudson Street Hub, and including Veterans Memorial Beach in the important tourist area that SMART Train passengers would be able to walk to upon their arrival in Healdsburg by train. It will be the only Russian River beach reachable within walking distance by SMART train from Larkspur to Cloverdale, the full length of the route when completed, IF the Healdsburg Station is at the Hudson Street Hub.

But it was a Healdsburg resident and taxpayer, Oded Shakked, who, in a straight-forward common-sense way, was among the final speakers at the City Council hearing and, in less than 30 seconds, demolished the detached-from-reality “Euclidian Walksheds” being relied upon by the SMART staff to justify it’s conclusion to unilaterally move the Station from the already-committed Hudson Street Hub to Vine Street, where at least 40 mature trees, and the same number of scarce parking spaces would be destroyed:

“I walked both distances from each of the proposed SMART Station sites to the Healdsburg Town Square. From the Hudson Street Hub, it is 376 steps; from the Vine Street spot, it is 232 steps.”

Shakked then succinctly summed up the sentiments of many of his follow Healdsburg citizens and taxpayers:

“The SMART Board owes this Council, and the whole town, an apology.”

To that quietly eloquent request, I would add that we want the SMART Board to rebuild our trust; respect the democratically arrived at decision by a Healdsburg public that wants a vibrant SMART Train station in our town; and, to continue to involve this community in this great public achievement that will improve all of our lives.

You can do that by affirming that the SMART Train Station will be— as our community resoundingly supports— located at the Hudson Street site.

Yours for a community built on trust & a world worthy of our grandchildren,

Steve Villano,

Healdsburg resident, taxpayer, grandfather.

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