Thank you, Mike Brady. The audit question is one that many people
have been asking rhetorically. To whom is Caltrain accountable?
Where is an Inspector General when you need one? Mike, you are
absolutely correct about requiring that Caltrain operate as a public
service utility. Right now, they are trying to run their
organization like a government-subsidized private business. That's
having the worst of both worlds. They are neither accountable to the
tax payers who subsidize them (the public), nor are they accountable
to investors as they ought to be if they are operating a business.
Where does all that money go?

Perhaps what we need is 1. a comprehensive organizational structure
that manages the entire Bay Area's mass transit systems -- not
competitively, like now -- but cooperatively, and 2. make that
organization a tax funded public utility (think school systems), with
fares paying for no more than the fare management system itself. That
would make the management part of the public payroll and make them
accountable to us, the taxpayers.

Martin
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Published Thursday, May 17, 2007, by the Redwood City Daily News

Letters to the Editor

Caltrain funding

Recently, Caltrain reported that it had slashed $2 million since
February from its projected deficit, and it still faces a $3.7
million deficit. Someone needs to do an audit to see if Caltrain
s telling us the truth.

Starting about three years ago, pleading the same "deficit blues,"
Caltrain started a program of raising the fares.

When you combine this with the fact that every year Caltrain brags
that its ridership is "way up" due to the marvel of the bullet
trains, where is all the excess money going?

Why don't we have an auditor examine this subject and tell us?

Since Caltrain started raising the fares, it has been paying
employees more and more, not to mention its administrators. Why
should Caltrain employees or administrators get one dime of increase
in salary if it faces a deficit? This is certainly no incentive to
balance the budget.

Caltrain is, in essence, a public utility. It serves the public
interest, and the taxpayers of San Mateo County pay into the coffers
of Caltrain to keep it going. And yet towns such as Atherton have
their service during the week completely cut off, with no rational
explanation.

We need an outside audit to explain why the cheerful picture of
huge fare increases and huge increases in ridership have not made a
difference. Is this just another story of money down the rathole?

Michael J. Brady
Redwood City

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Martin Engel
1621 Stone Pine Lane
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650:323-1670
martinengel@earthlink.net
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