SMART not making smart decisions

SMART (Sonoma Marin Area Rapid Transit) announced in a press release its three campaign co-chairs, Former Marin Supervisor Cynthia Murray, Steve Birdlebough, former chair of Friends of SMART and Marge Macris, former Chair of the Sierra Club Marin group.

In more confusion, it seems like SMART has created an organization called North Bay Transportation Alliance (NBTA) to run the campaign. The press release wasn't clear whether the newly announced co-chairs are co-chairs of NBTA or of the SMART campaign. The press release also said that NBTA is building a volunteer base to begin voter contact in August. This voter contact operation should have been up and running 6 months ago. The press release should have said that the operation was already up and running and so was the direct voter contact.

Now, to address the co-chairs. The only pick that makes sense is Cynthia Murray. She is a former Marin Supervisor who will make a great liaison to the business community, and has campaign experience. The other two don't have any kind of significant campaign experience that were aware of, and certainly do not have a political base like Cynthia does.

The press release also mentions that there is a SMART coordinator, Sonia Tanner, someone that we have never heard of and probably someone who is serving in a volunteer position.

Based on these decisions, the campaign is shaping up to be the unorganized and unprofessional campaign that plagued SMART the last time it was on the ballot. What is lacking is somebody to take control of the campaign and start making decisions. Based on the press release, and the creation of NBTA, it shows the campaign is already on a path of dysfunction. Its in much need of someone with stature to come in to take control who can get the business, labor and the environmental community to listen to them. Unfortunately, the only people we see capable of such a task already have day jobs: Jared Huffman, Mark Leno, or Charles McGlashin.

What would be the appropriate model for the campaign? Set up an advisory board of donors and activists which everyone can agree on. That board then hires a political consulting firm and campaign manager by majority vote. The board then oversees the work of the consulting firm and campaign manager, but doesn't micromanage. Essentially, the would have the same roll a city council has over the city manager and city staff. It doesn't make sense to have people without significant campaign experience making day to day campaign decisions. Just as it doesn't make sense to have city council members make day to day decisions for a city when they do not possess any day to day city management experience.

We'll see how this develops.