November 2018: Experience and Passion - Nutter for BART Board Director, District 8

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SFLCV supports Melanie Nutter for BART Board Director for District 8. BART needs leadership that will ensure the system is not only safe, reliable, and accessible for all, but is also environmentally sustainable.

Melanie Nutter has a wealth of relevant experience to accomplish these goals. She served as Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment under Mayors Newsom and Lee, and there led the passage and implementation of an ordinance to make buildings more energy efficient, which she would like to bring to BART. Nutter also worked as Deputy District Director for House Leader Nancy Pelosi. This 25-year career in environmental protection, sustainability and government ensures that Nutter will be a strong advocate for the environment if elected to BART Board. She now works as a sustainable cities and transportation policy advisor, and her expertise around best practices should prove an asset to BART. Her working relationships with city, state, and agency leaders of city and transit governments will allow her to foster open communication between agencies to create an efficient web of transit.

During SFLCV’s endorsement process, candidate Nutter identified several concrete ideas she would bring to BART that will help protect the environment, including:

  • Integrating biking and walking with BART in order to provide the best possible network of core transit and first mile/last mile options nearest to where people live and work;

  • Fully implementing the Fleet of the Future;

  • Powering BART with renewable energy sources;

  • Repurposing parking structures for transit-oriented development that could be revenue neutral or revenue positive; and

  • Using BART’s underutilized real estate for affordable and middle income housing.

Nutter also calls for BART to provide safety that is “not at the expense of people of color and allows people to ride alone at night.” She supports providing low cost or free passes to youth, elderly, and those who cannot afford it.

Her full response to our questionnaire can be read here.

We want to note that candidate Janice Li is also a strong, passionate environmental advocate. While Li supports many of the same needed changes to BART as Nutter and has other ideas on how to make BART more environmentally sound, SFLCV is sole endorsing Nutter based on her deep experience with working with people to solve complex problems. This type of experience is sorely needed for BART to meet its full potential as a regional transit system that is environmentally friendly and gets people out of their cars.

For these reasons, SFLCV is endorsing Melanie Nutter. Vote Nutter for Bart Board Director, District 8!