Bay Area Council

Proponents of the measure say it's the only way to make up the deficit.

Emily Loper is the vice president of public policy for the Bay Area Council.

There is not a way for them to just cut their way out

of the crisis, as has been alleged.

just say, to your point, Joe, I mean, there's a long and rich history of regional business interests supporting transit.

I mean, we got BART via the Bay Area Council initially, right? I mean, they were the ones who put together all the initial planning documents and stuff beforehand.

With Prop H2, like, please, Joes, correct me if I'm missing something here.

You know, SFMTA, you know, came up with a list of proposals for how we could, you know, save Muni.

Yeah.

So, Ian, that is at least part of what is going on here is the taxes that made it.

At least I know the RTM more than H, but... were the kind of taxes that the Bay Area Council, for example, and other business leaders wanted to see.

And by the way, it's also regressive that I have to pay $2.10 for a BART fair and Elon Musk has to pay $2.10 for a BART fair.

But then the educational organizations can just tap into that workforce piece and aren't expected to stand up and maintain an ongoing organization.

You see it here in the, you know, you got Bay Area Council, East Bay EDA, all these other organizations.

I think it would be valuable for a consortia to get a seat at those tables and have some engagement around curriculum development as needed.

But it's just a, it's a nice feature in a community if you can just go show up somewhere and showcase what you have available and then see how there could be a match.

We have some East Bay fans or some Libby Schaaf fans in the room.

And currently, is it CEO? Is that the title? CEO of the Bay Area Council, which is a group of the Bay Area's largest employers, which I also think is very relevant to the conversation of the American dream or of income inequality issues.

And at some point, Libby, I'll ask you to talk about the academic-ish experience that you had in between those two experiences, because Libby wanted me to know that and you to know that she's five months into the job of Bay Area Council.

So we can't ask her to too solidly represent her brand new organization.

I wanted to start out by asking each of our panelists very briefly to tell us how they would define the American dream, because I think it's an expression that we all think we know, but it's quite loaded and it's central to our conversation tonight.

They have not advanced the American dream, but it is this balance between our morals, our values, And this amazing engine that is fueled by capitalism and innovation and the need to create.

So I appreciate that.

The Bay Area Council, for those of you who don't know, was founded more than 80 years ago by none other than Earl Warren.

Good morning.

We've got Libby Schaaf, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, and also importantly for this show, former mayor of Oakland.

Welcome.

Good morning.

So it's basically the and ridership is like it is mentioned, has not come back to where we're at about for AC transit, about 80 percent of where we were post pre-COVID.

Hmm.

Libby Schaaf, with your Bay Area Council hat on here, why is Bay Area Council interested in this? I mean, Bay Area Council, for those who don't know, is kind of the big business representatives here in the Bay Area.

Well, I would say we're the civic voice of business, Alexis.