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Councilmember Sullivan said he served as alternate on the CMA a few years ago. The CMA was in the middle of a long -range planning exercise for 35 years, and he questioned if the group would start over. Mr. Dow said the process is an update of that plan; the new process to update the countywide transportation plan will be very different than the one done in the past. They will utilize planning techniques to work out gaps in transportation systems, identify problems, and from that perspective, will arrive at recommended solutions. It will not be identifying favorite projects, but rather identifying and quantifying problems and putting projects on the same playing fields and discuss solutions and priorities. He said this has not been done previously in countywide transportation plans. Councilmember McGovern questioned if the allocation for funding would be approved by a simple majority or 2/3 votes. Mr. Dow said adoption of the plan would be approved by a simple majority of the new ACTC Board. Vice Mayor Thorne said he believes the timing of the consolidation is important, but voiced concerns about the voting distribution. He has always had concerns that transportation plans are always Oakland- oriented because of the vote distribution. He hoped projects in Alameda County will not be discriminated against because of the distribution. However, he supported the consolidation and would like to see many more agencies consolidating, as well. Councilmember Sullivan also voiced concern with the voting distribution, stating it has always been by population, and decisions were very political and geared toward high population centers. Mayor Hosterman felt that in more recent years Pleasanton has experienced much less of this, and programs have been much more evenly spread across the entire county. Councilmember Sullivan disagreed and said he has seen just the opposite with regard to the Triangle Study and TVTC. It seems that allocations of the board should be based upon congestion or transportation issues. Everyone realizes 1 -580 is a huge problem and he suggested there be more votes where the problems are identified versus where there are none. He said there could be a minority of the actual members passing something because they have multiple votes, and to him this is not democracy but a political exercise. He supported the consolidation, but was not comfortable with how votes are allocated. Mr. Fialho said the City of Oakland currently has more votes and they are not happy the consolidation which will take votes away from them. Mr. Dow agreed and said Oakland currently has 8 out of 35 votes. Through the consolidation, they would receive 4 out of 27 votes. He reiterated that the County is very diverse, its needs are very different, and speaking from major needs funding perspective, the northern part of the county's needs are in the transit side. Those needs in the east part of the county are more capital- intensive. He said Mayor Hosterman is correct; within the last 10 years, in looking at who gets the most in terms of capital dollars, it is this area. In adding up the CMA bond, the investment for Route 84 and 1 -580 interchanges and other improvements add up to over $4 million in the last 10 years, which is significant. He agreed that more needs to be done given congestion, available land, and pass through traffic, and noted that 1 -580 is the second most congested corridor in the entire Bay Area. Councilmember McGovern supported consolidation and asked that the Commission, in their annual report, show taxpayers exactly how much money is saved from the consolidation. She also asked Mr. Dow to take back the Council's concerns about the voting distribution. Mayor Hosterman noted that the consultant had projected $600,000 to $1 million would be saved from the consolidation. City Council Minutes Page 5 of 10 May 18, 2010