THIS NATIONBUILDER WEBSITE IS FOR WE ACT EVENTS & MEMBERSHIP ONLY   ||   FOR THE MAIN WE ACT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE WEBSITE VISIT WWW.WEACT.ORG

Sign In   |   Contact Us  
Donate Become a WE ACT Member
  • Home
  • Become a WE ACT Member
  • Calendar

Pages tagged "WE ACT"


Board of Directors

Posted on Our Story by Stanley Fritz · October 27, 2015 4:37 PM

 

 WEACTBoard_2009.jpg

WE ACT Board of Directors L to R: Roberto Lebron (former), Dennis Derryck, Eric Goldstein, Gregory Anderson, Vernice Miller-Travis, Jeff Jones, Peggy Shepard, Pat Terry, Hope Plasha and Phil Morrow.


Gregory J. Anderson (Chair)
Senior Managing Director 
Lebenthal
New York, NY 

Patricia A. Terry (Treasurer)
President 
PT Associates 
New York, NY

Charles H. Allison, Jr. 
CEO 
Interstate Biofuels LLC 
New York, NY
  
R. Darryl Banks, Ph.D.
Vice President, Energy Policy
Center for American Progress
Washington, DC
  
Joseph Bosch
Managing Director
Janney Montgomery Scott
New York, NY
 
Dennis A. Derryck, Ph.D.
Professor 
The New School 
New York, New York 

Eric A. Goldstein, Esq. 
Senior Staff Attorney 
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 
New York, NY 

Albert Huang
Senior Attorney, Director of Environmental Justice.
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
New York, NY

Jeff Jones 
Consultant
Jeff Jones Strategies 
Albany, NY

Marianne Engelman Lado
Chair, Environmental Health Practice Group
Co- Managing Attorney
North East Office & Staff Attorney
Earth Justice

Ken P. Mak
Director of Investor Relations
JANA Partners LLC
New York, NY

Vernice Miller-Travis
Co-Founder, WE ACT
Principal Consultant 
Miller-Travis & Associates 
Bowie, MD 

Phillip Morrow
President 
SOBRO 
Bronx, NY

Hope K. Plasha
Counsel
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP 
New York, NY

Peggy M. Shepard
Co-Founder and Executive Director 
WE ACT for Environmental Justice
New York, NY 

Regina L. Smith 
Vice President/Executive Director 
The Harlem Business Alliance 
New York, NY 

Dart Westphal
Supporting Center Partnership in Philanthropy
New York, NY

Posted on What We Do by James Burke · July 03, 2013 3:09 PM

 

NYSTEA_logo.png          003_weact_logo_v3_LRG.jpg

In order to support better representation for transit dependent people at the MTA, we ask that you sign this petition urging the Honorable Mayor of NYC, Bill De Blasio, to recommend two "rider-representatives" for appointment as voting members of the MTA Board of Directors. Once made, these recommendations must be confirmed by the Governor and Senate, but simply putting their names forward is a significant step in achieving transit justice.

Millions of New Yorkers are dependent on the MTA for their daily transportation needs, and yet these transit dependent people have very little influence on how the MTA is governed. The Rider Representation Campaign, led by the New York State Transportation Equity Alliance and WE ACT for Environmental Justice, seeks to have two "rider-representatives", with voting power, appointed to the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) as a means of addressing this inequity.

The current process for appointing members to the Board of Directors of the MTA, and all other transit governing boards in NY State, involves recommendations from local officials, with confirmation by the Governor and Senate. Furthermore, the Governor has the ability to appoint Board members independent of local recommendations. The MTA Board of Directors make wide-ranging decisions on capital investments, the cost of transit fares, service cuts/additions, and public engagement, among other things. Unfortunately, the appointment process in place has created a transit system that is too often detached from the needs of low-income NYers, and others who lack political influence.  

 

1,000 signatures

A rider-rep, with voting power, would work to ensure that NYC's transit dependent community, including children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and low-income riders, have their interests heard at the highest levels of transit leadership. This would be a significant step in promoting equitable funding for transit improvements and planning, and greater transparency and participation for transit-dependent people. 

The current appointment process has led to the disproportionate appointment of people for their business and management acumen, rather than their experience as users of public transportation. Or as one recent article said: “There are way too many people working on transit who don’t actually ride transit ... if you’re going to be making decisions about transit, you really need to know what it’s actually like. Not what it’s like in theory, but what it’s actually like.” While the MTA does have a seat for a “regular mass transit user,” that seat has no voting power, and arguably represents riders in name only. Furthermore, when riders try to influence how transit governance through limited public comment periods, their grievances fall on deaf ears, demonstrating that riders do not have a meaningful voice in the decision-making of our transit systems. It is profoundly troubling that the decision-making bodies of these authorities do not include the voices of their constituents that are most in need. A rider’s perspective, grounded in the daily use and dependence on the reliable functioning of public transit for their livelihoods, must be included in the decision-making body of those systems – with voting power to enact change. The path to justice starts by having a seat at the table.

Additional information about the campaign and the MTA governance process can be found below, and at the NYSTEA website. 

In September of 2014, the Rider Rep campaign submitted a letter to Mayor De Blasio with support from over 30 organizations, 30 City Council Members, and 700 signatures collected by our organizers on NYC trains and buses. You can see a copy of the letter below to see what groups and local officials have endorsed this campaign. Adding your signature here will only add strength and a sense of urgency to this campaign. 

RiderRepLetter-Final_Page_1.png

RiderRepLetter-Final_Page_2.png

 

For more information about how the executive leadership of transit agencies are appointed, please review the fact-sheets below. You can view the PDF versions here. 

Statewide information

RiderRep_Overview.png

 

 

RiderRep_MTA.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add signature

  • Sign in with Facebook
  • Sign in with Twitter
  • Sign in with Email


Follow @weact4ej on Twitter

Copyright 1998-2021 by WE ACT for Environmental Justice   Terms Of Use  Privacy Statement


Sign in with Facebook, Twitter or email.
Site by Mosaic • Created with NationBuilder