Joe Sangirardi

• Office: BART Board, District 9
• Election Date: November 5, 2024
• Candidate: Joe Sangirardi
• Due Date: August 26, 2024
• Printable Version

Thank you for seeking GrowSF's endorsement for the November 5, 2024 election! GrowSF believes in a growing, beautiful, vibrant, healthy, safe, and prosperous city delivered via common sense solutions and effective government. Our work includes running public opinion polls to understand what voters want, advocating for those changes, and ensuring that the SF government represents the people.

The GrowSF endorsement committee will review all completed questionnaires and seek consensus on which candidates best align with our vision for San Francisco.

This questionnaire will be published on growsf.org, and so we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.

Please complete this questionnaire by August 26, 2024 so we have enough time to adequately review and discuss your answers.

Table of Contents

• Your Goals
• Executive experience
• The Issues
  • Budget & Ridership
  • Station & Station Area conditions
  • Safety
  • Housing
  • Access
  • Performance
  • Automation
  • Expansion
  • Governance
  • BART Holiday Sweater Shortage
• Personal

Your Goals

We'd like to get some details about your high-level goals and how you intend to use your elected office to achieve them.

Why are you running for BART Board, District 9?

I'm running for BART to build a better future for San Francisco and the Bay Area. In the immediate term, that means fighting to save the agency from its impending fiscal cliff in 2026. I plan on doing that by working to make BART safe, clean, and reliable ahead of voting on a 2026 regional ballot measure being crafted right now to save our regional transit agencies. I plan to campaign for this measure and earn back the trust of voters by making BART safer, cleaner, more reliable, and making BART resilient with new revenue streams (like building housing on BART land). I'll be advancing these policies for the sake of the quality of service BART provides and to earn back the trust of riders and voters. Advancing policies that make BART safer and cleaner will not be easy on this 9-person body, but I am committed to working with my colleagues to make this happen. I have already started cultivating relationships with many of them to build trust and find opportunities where we know we can work together from the outset. Safety, cleanliness, and reliability are the most immediately important and significant issues facing BART in the minds of voters. We must address these issues as quickly as possible.

What is your #1 policy goal?

My #1 policy goal is to ensure that BART provides safe, clean, reliable and frequent service. Several of these areas - safety, cleanliness, and frequency - have been severely negatively impacted due to a severe drop in ridership and revenue since the pandemic. The result is that while the Bay Bridge is already back at capacity, BART ridership recovery is hovering around 42%. The only way to bring more people back to downtown as the commercial vacancy rate recovers is BART. Sadly, downtown commercial occupancy is not projected to recover until 2030-2033 and BART will hit its fiscal cliff long before then. I am running to help pass a 2026 ballot measure that would not only save BART and fix its overly fare-reliant antiquated funding model. I believe this measure can and should also create an incentive structure to reward coordinations among transit agencies.

How will you build the coalition and political capital to enact your #1 goal?

Passing the 2026 ballot measure won't be easy. But with the right leadership, the BART's board will pursue policies that earn back the trust of riders and voters so that they vote in support of the measure. I've already begun these conversations with many current BART directors and candidates so align on the basic immediate needs of the agency - addressing safety and cleanliness and specifically in San Francisco, working to address the situations at the plazas. A ballot measure is a matter of public opinion BART must win the battle for public opinion in San Francisco if there's any hope of passing the multi-county measure. The coalition on the BART board will include Directors who fear their legacy is on the line (it is) and new directors who run the gamut ideologically but understand the need to win back public support and are already very supportive of supporting public safety measures.

Regarding the public, the coalition will look a bit different. We know that more progressive voters and orgs will support the measure no matter what - though they may have a tough time with the potential reliance on the sales tax for funding. There may also be some challenges depending on whether labor is brought aboard. But ultimately, this measure will garner strong enough support from the public without the enthusiastic support of the moderate and conservative elements of the electorate - including more conservative elected officials. The 2026 measure must be structured in a way to strongly incentivise their support.

Will the power of the office of BART Board, District 9 be enough to achieve this goal?

Being a BART director is not enough, alone. I have to work to sell this measure outside of my official duties and own the role as a Director to use it as a bully pulpit. I'm planning as aggressive campaign to meet with and win over our elected and appointed officials from across the Bay Area. Even today, I am engaging with the officials who are brainstorming the 2026 ballot measure to ensure they are accurately considering the constituencies we need to pass this measure. In my official role as a BART director, I will continue to push for safe and clean service. And I will lead the board to "get out there" and champion the agency's progress, boost morale for BART employees, and will sell the public on BART's future. Establishing some basic "good government" policies will be essential, like a comprehensive list of developers and assessments of those developers, and an inspector general / auditor. The agency's current reliance on public sentiment means that progress with the reliability of service and the safety and cleanliness of stations and trains must be at the forefront of public relations. Before we make the transition to a sustainable funding model, we must win over the public.

What are your #2 and #3 policy goals?

I view providing safe and clean service toward the aim of passing the 2026 ballot measure as one comprehensive theory of change and policy goal. If that's so, my second will be the duel-goals of long term financial sustainability of the agency and addressing climate change. Supporting public transit is an essential tool in our fight against climate change and rather than penalizing drivers, we should focus on building such effective transit that it is competitive with private car ownership. This includes building dense communities on/around BART stations so people can live around transit and adopt carbon-light and carbon-free lifestyles. BART also gets to keep the tax revenue from land it develops and sales tax brought in on its land. I will drive BART to build an expanding revenue stream from this development that will also make it less reliant on fares and state, federal, and local taxes.

Will the power of the office of BART Board, District 9 be enough to achieve these goals?

The BART board has a direct role in deciding how it develops its land and I plan to advocate for bigger projects that also raise more money for the agency.

What is the top single policy you would like to reform in 2025?

Effective MOUs between BART PD and local police so that we can actually deal with people who are breaking the law in stations and on trains.

Is there an "out there" change you would make to state/local government policy, if you could? (For example: adding at-large supervisors, changing how elections work, creating a Bay Area regional government, etc.)

I have a lot of other ideas that I'm not ready to state publicly. Building consensus around certain issues that impact a lot of different constituencies is an important process in policy development, especially if we're talking about large structural changes. Including these ideas in a public questionnaire would be disrespectful and detrimental to my effort.

Tell us one thing you think needs to change in SF that the average voter wouldn't know about.

The average voter likely knows this now, but the BOS has, over the course of several decades, delegated away its authority - and responsibility - to over 130 boards and commissions. The BOS - and several mayoral administrations, have also so thoroughly obfuscated the government structure so as to diminish the power of the mayor to a point where she can't even fire many of the people who report directly to her. The result is that any position we think we're voting for (BOS, mayor, others) does not have the power we think it has and our votes, as a result, have diminished our ability as voters to impact meaningful change through the election process.

The one thing they don't know? The Mayor can hire the planning director but not fire them - only the planning commission can do that. To whom then is the planning director responsible? This is SF's obfuscated bureaucracy at its finest.

Executive experience

Please describe your experience running large organizations, managing executive teams (including hiring, firing, and performance management), driving cultural change and clear communication throughout all levels, effective financial management (budgets, reporting, audit, etc.), and any other relevant experience.

• I've led several different organizations and boards, including serving in leadership decision making at a university and on nonprofit boards I serve on. Cultural change is not easy and takes time. Perhaps the most important part of it is establishing that culture with new employees before they adopt current cultural practices. Sometimes this means concentrating hiring in areas where the culture is already good, or moving good leaders from teams that have a good established culture to other teams that need leadership to help them adopt it.

• I am a fan of regular but short executive updates to staff that helps employees feel like they are a part of the organization and valued in the decisions making process of executives.

• In my role as a development professional, I have worked very closely with the board's finance committees at my respective organizations, and have regularly participated in the drafting of budgets, audit processes, and regular reporting. This means I also know what a board should be able to expect from staff and I plan on bringing that perspective to my service.

Please describe a time when you had an underperforming subordinate and how you handled the situation, including (and especially) how you were able to increase their performance.

Note: Please remember that this questionnaire will be public, so do not include any personally identifiable information.

Clear and agreed upon expectations are the key there. When my direct report started not performing well, we set clear, but achievable, expectations and I communicated the implications of meeting them or not. Anything above and beyond these achievable expectations gave them more comfort and flexibility in their work.

Please describe a time when your organization faced an extreme challenge and how you got the organization through it.

When I joined a previous organization, we hadn't met our budget in 4 years and we were in debt for nearly ⅓ of our outstanding debt (and most of our debt was over a year old). Within 6 months our staff fell by 2/3 and within a year I was the longest serving employee. It was a nightmare, but I built out a plan for what we could fundraise, cut the things that had the lowest ROI, despite aggressive pushback from the board, and by the end of my 3rd year we were exceeding our budget and had grown to a budget that was 50% larger than when I'd started. I attribute our success and my success to patience, persistence, and discipline.

The Issues

Next, we will cover the issues that voters tell us they care about. We hope to gain a better understanding of your policy positions, and we hope that you use this opportunity to communicate with voters.

Budget & Ridership

Please explain the cause of BART's current budget problems.

BART faces an existential fiscal cliff in 2026. Around one third of its current operating budget comes from emergency funding from the federal government that runs out in 2026. Due to BART being a fixed-rail system and already running a bare-bones service schedule, it's expected that this loss of 30% of operating funds will result in service reductions of 85%. This is all due to an antiquated funding model from the 1970s that makes BART 80% reliant on fare and parking fees, dramatically out of line with the industry average for public transit systems being only ~10-25% reliant on fares.

That means BART has been very vulnerable to the impacts of remote work - more so than just about any other transit agency in the country. This inequitable funding model is broken and threatens BART's existence. I am running, in large part, to champion a ballot measure in 2026 to fix this and save BART. At the core of my campaign is climate change and equitable transit access, but also SF's economic recovery. SF doesn't recover simply because of BART, but it will NOT recover without BART. I plan to campaign for this measure and earn back the trust of voters by making BART safer, cleaner, more reliable, and making BART resilient with new revenue streams (like building housing on BART land).

What changes does BART need to make to shore up its budget, and what level of cost-savings or additional revenue would that bring?

Above all, BART needs the 2026 ballot measure to shore up its budget. Passage would reduce the agency's reliance on fare revenue and ensure it can meet basic service levels. As it stands today, BART is running the bare-minimum service levels needed without hemorrhaging what ridership it has.

That said, like with any organization, business, or agency, there are likely things that can be cut. I am very open to an independent auditor or inspector general to help bring an objective understanding of BART's finances to staff and the board. Sadly, even if that savings were 25% - which would be massive considering the cuts BART has already experienced - that will still not be enough to stave off the fiscal cliff.

How would you build the political coalition to make these changes?

This crisis is an opportunity for consensus on the hard decisions and I plan using the will for BART to survive to help facilitate the coalition needed to make these decisions.

Do you support a revenue measure to address BART's current budget problems? What type of revenue measure do you envision putting before the voters and when?

See above.

Should BART conduct fare enforcement operations? Why or why not?

I support the new BART fare gates and I am strongly against fare evasion since BART relies on fares and fare evasion ultimately hurts most lower income people and BIPOC folks who rely on BART. Fare evasion results in service cuts.

If you don't believe BART should enforce payment, please explain why not paying is acceptable to you and how BART will make up for the lost revenue.

San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties support BART operations through a series of tax measures. San Mateo does not support BART operations, other than through a small fare surcharge which does not nearly cover the cost of the service. What would you do to fix this, and how would you build the political coalition to fix this? What would you do if no fix could be found?

See answer regarding fixing BART's revenue model through a 2026 ballot measure. This would fix the fragmented approach to funding BART that exists today.

What would you do to increase BART ridership in the short and long term, and how would you build the political coalition to make that happen?

My approach to increasing BART ridership would be to focus on improving safety, cleanliness, and reliability so that BART riders have confidence that they will reach their destination safely, comfortably, and on time. In San Francisco, businesses will not call employees back to the office or expand their businesses downtown if they do not feel that their employees will be able to get to the office safely, and the three recent homicides at BART stations in San Francisco in the last few months, including the horrific pushing death of a passenger onto the train tracks, have only deepened community fears about safety on BART. BART must be safe.

Data shows that crowd density on transit has an inverse impact on antisocial behavior. Said another way - the more people who use transit, the lesser the prevalence of antisocial behavior. But with 42% ridership and a very slow recovery rate, BART will not reach that necessary ridership level in the next several years which means public safety measures - like the presence of BART police, ambassadors, and crisis intervention specialists - are more essential than before the pandemic to deter antisocial behavior like drug use on trains and those suffering from psychotic episodes. I support all 3 of these teams in their efforts to provide safe travel for riders. I also support establishing "annual passes" like many other systems (like in Paris) where a flat annual fee is paid by an individual or company for unlimited use. This created predictable/reliable annualized revenue for agencies like BART and data shows it has the impact of incentivising more regular use. In this case, it may encourage more folks to come to the office more often.

Do you have some "out-there" ideas for increasing revenues that don't include raising fares?

In the long term, BART can contribute to solving the city and region's housing and economic needs while also diversifying its revenue base if it pursued developments on land it owns, since it gets to keep the property and sales tax from such developments. We should be thinking much bigger with projects.

Station & Station Area conditions

The cleanliness of station interiors greatly improved due to the mobilization of more cleaning staff in 2023, but the exterior conditions at 16th & Mission and 24th & Mission remain very bad. What causes this mismatch in conditions, and what can the BART board to do resolve it?

I will fight for a permitting system for vendors. I will fight for regular plaza cleaning by BART staff or an MOU with SF DPW to clean the plazas often (daily). Small-scale infrastructure for permitted vendors can help create some order around the stations and the selling of goods. And again, robust MOUs between BART PD and SFPD are essential in addressing crime in/around stations.

What do you think of the conditions of the stations and station areas along Market St, and what would you do to improve those conditions?

The conditions are bad, and mostly bad around Civic Center and Powell. New fare gates for BART, public restrooms, and MOUs between SFPD and BART PD will substantially help these conditions. But these stations are ultimately not shelters and it is a failure of local and state government to address the housing affordability crisis, addiction crisis, mental health and homelessness crisis that has made stations and BART a last refuge. But for BART to survive with a fare-reliant funding model, this cannot persist.

Safety

In February 2023, BART increased the number of BART Police on the system, with a record number of riders now reporting they have seen BART PD on a trip. 79% of riders report they feel more comfortable riding BART when police are present. Should BART continue deploying BART police at the current levels?

I support having robust levels of BART police on trains and in stations.

What else needs to be done to improve both actual and perceived safety on BART and in BART stations?

I also support adequate staffing levels for ambassadors and crisis intervention specialists, since not all situations are best handled by BART police. These teams can deter antisocial behavior like drug use on trains and assist those suffering from psychotic episodes. That said, BART PD needs more officers and that should be the priority in hiring.

I'll work to increase cooperation between BART police and local law enforcement agencies so that individuals who engage in criminal or unwanted behavior towards women are prosecuted appropriately. These policies would support the "Not One More Girl" campaign launched by BART several years ago.

Regarding perceived safety - BART leaders and local leaders need to sell the improvements to the public. If BART is making good headway with safety - and it is, overall - I will be out there championing that progress.

Housing

Do you think BART should be actively working to increase housing production in and around BART stations, and why?

Transit-oriented development is essential to meeting San Francisco's and the Bay Area's state-mandated regional housing targets. Increased housing density makes the most sense near quality transit. At the state level, I've supported SB 50 and many other bills to allow for faster approval of multi-family buildings near transit. I think BART should think bigger when developing around its stations so it can become less reliant on fares, help people adopt carbon light or carbon free lifestyles, and ensure that BART is around for the next century with a sustainable revenue model.

If yes, what would you do to increase housing production in and around BART stations?

This comes down to the BART board's appetite for the size of projects and how much blowback it's willing to take from supporting projects in communities who will oppose new projects, no matter what the size and no matter what percentage is BMR. I will fight for the largest projects feasible that bring in the largest amount of revenue possible.

Do you think BART should be building housing on its parking lots, without replacing the lost parking in new parking structures?

Yes, to some extent. BART's funding model is still heavily reliant on parking fees, so unless the new development more than makes up for that lost parking, some parking likely needs to be included. BART was built as a commuter rail and as downtown SF recovers, commuters who drive to BART stations will return. Unless we fix the funding model, we need that revenue.

Do you think that BART's affordable housing policy is helping build housing around BART stations?

I think it's lopsided and hurts BART's ability to raise new revenue from non-fare and non-local tax sources.

Access

Do you think BART should be actively working to make it easier to access BART stations without a car?

Yes, 100%.

If yes, what would you do to increase access to BART stations without a car?

BART stations should be the centers of bus, bike, and micromobility hubs. Bike highways and BRT lanes should be created that bring folks to BART stations and BART should work with local jurisdictions to advance these policies. This would also require much larger and secured bike storage facilities at stations.

Performance

BART regularly faces delays, either from malfunctions or police activity. What policies will you enact or change to minimize delays?

Measure RR is helping a lot with this already. According to the 2023 Measure RR report, instances of server delay have fallen from 300+/year to under 80/year. Many malfunctions are a result of original infrastructure that hadn't been updated since BART was built. This work is ongoing Building redundancy - like a 2nd transbay tube - will also help with this, providing other options for riders when one section fails.

When BART does face delays, do you think BART effectively communicates to its riders about those delays to help them make alternative arrangements? If no, what would you do to solve this problem?

BART has a texting system and is quick to post on social media. I'm open to hearing other ideas BART can implement!

BART has struggled with keeping its elevators and escalators in good working order. What would you do to increase the up-time of escalators and elevators?

BART should have a fund specifically dedicated to these accessibility issues so the capital is immediately usable to fix them.

Automation

Would you support automating the trains, like many international cities (and Disneyland) have done decades ago?

If you support this, please indicate a prospective timeline for these upgrades, what they may cost, and how much they may save, as well as expected improvements in performance and reliability for the system. Please also explain how you will build the political coalition for automation?

If you do not support automation, please explain why.

Expansion

Do you support the BART expansion to San Jose, and why or why not? If yes, how much do you think the project would have to cost before it is no longer worth it? If not, what would you do about it?

Yes, but I think the project is a boondoggle. Politics has resulted in 2x the cost. It's an essential project, but it is poorly executed. It is unclear at this stage if an alternative is feasible but I'm open to learning more about it.

Do you support a second rail crossing of the Bay (known as Link 21), and why? How would you assess whether the cost of a second rail crossing is worth the benefits?

Yes. I think it should be a standard-gauge track - not BART - so that it can eventually carry High Speed Rail to the East Bay and up to Sacramento. This would also allow regional rail like the Capitol Corridor into downtown or standard gauge trains from the peninsula to move through downtown SF to the East Bay and Sacramento. Caltran is already proposing expansions of highways across the Bay Area indicating their continued believe that expanding highways are the answer to all traffic problems (they aren't) but also indicating capacity needs. A more robust, connected, frequent, and reliable transit system will better integrate the economies and allow for economic growth. As it stands today, the changes in commute times based on changing jobs impacts the flexibility and dynamism of our economy. People are less likely to change jobs if a new job takes too long to get to. Fast and reliable transit helps with this. And the data shows that the easier it is for people to change jobs, the more dynamic an economy is. This is why "hubs" (conversations of one industry, like SF) are so prosperous and effective.

Governance

Should BART have an elected or appointed board, and why?

Both methods of choosing a BART board would be effective.

BART Holiday Sweater Shortage

In a bit of fun, what will you do to solve the BART Holiday Sweater shortage? Every year, the sweater fully sells out quickly, depriving BART fans of delightful whimsy.

Sadly, this sounds like a personal problem.

Personal

Tell us a bit about yourself!

How long have you lived in San Francisco? What brought you here and what keeps you here?

5.5 years

What do you love most about San Francisco?

I love how civically engaged San Francisco is - I actually think it's proof of how patriotic San Franciscans are! I think much of this comes from SF's diversity and immigration over the last 150 years. I'm also in love with SF's natural beauty.

What do you dislike the most about San Francisco?

I deplore the state of ad hominem attacks that proliferate in San Francisco and its toxic politics. I believe in the politics of hope and giving people something to believe in and fight for, not just against. That said, maybe even more so than this, I really "dislike" how ineffective our city has been at solving big problems. For a city built on a dream, it feels like we have lost our ambition to dream big. I hope to change that.

Tell us about your current involvement in the community (e.g., volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, civic and professional organizations, etc.)

I have also served on numerous boards and community organizations, including:

1. Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association (Secretary and VP)

2. LGBTQ Victory Fund Campaign Board

3. University of Oklahoma LGBTQ Alumni Society (founder, former president)

4. Alice B Toklas LGBTQ Demcoratic Club

5. Neighbors for a Restored Castro Theatre

6. AIDS/LifeCycle Cyclist, 2022, 2023 (top 50 fundraiser in 2023)

7. NERT Certified (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team)

Thank you

Thank you for giving us your time and answering our questionnaire. We look forward to reading your answers and considering your candidacy!