Dudley visits Langley: City council, mayor back Councilman Jim Sundberg

Published 2:28 pm Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Oak Harbor Mayor Scott Dudley made good on his declaration of needed change on the Island Transit board with a visit to the Langley City Council Monday.

Himself a recent fixture on the five-member board that includes representatives from the cities of Oak Harbor, Coupeville and Langley and two from Island County, Dudley asked city leaders to demand better representation. His call for sweeping changes to the transit board included a request to ask “tough questions” of the city’s transit representative, Councilman Jim Sundberg. Dudley framed his plea as a response to “public outcry” over financial revelations from  earlier this year about the agency’s dire financial situation.

“Even in the short time your representative has been on the board, Island Transit is not in good shape financially,” Dudley said.

Island Transit altered services, cut routes and laid off 24 employees to help reduce expenses and cover its bills.

A report from the Washington State Auditor’s Office concluded that one of the causes of the financial woes was poor monitoring of finances by the board. Dudley cited the audit as he addressed Langley Mayor Fred McCarthy and the Langley City Council during the public comment section of the council meeting. Dudley also raised the issue of Island Transit not discussing other means of revenue, such as advertising on buses or collecting fares from the historically fare-free commute.

“There’s no vision. There’s no mission. There’s no business plan,” Dudley said.

At no point was he interrupted or argued with as he spoke for almost five minutes. Sundberg never broke his gaze from Dudley and had no tells as to his displeasure or discomfort at having a fellow Island Transit board member criticize him.

Councilwoman Rene Neff defended Sundberg’s position on the transit board, saying she understood the difficulty of serving on a board that meets once a month and is saddled with great responsibility. Neff questioned the efficacy of the board’s makeup, saying that perhaps a subcommittee of financial experts would be a better way of monitoring the budget moving forward.

“We should look at a whole different system,” she said.

Sundberg countered several of Dudley’s claims about the mismanagement and financial outlook of Island Transit near the end of the council’s more than two-hour meeting. During the council reports, Sundberg said the transit board has a financial plan in place that shows recovery of revenues and reserves.

“We do have a six-year funding plan,” Sundberg said. “We adopted that a couple of months ago.”

Refuting Dudley’s claim that Island Transit’s outlook is bleak, Sundberg pointed out that they already have about $700,000 in operations funds, cash-in-hand, and expect to have another $500,000 in reserves by the end of the year.

“The hope is if we can obtain additional grant funding, we can restore some suspended routes,” Sundberg said.

At the same meeting, the Langley City Council approved Mayor Fred McCarthy as Sundberg’s alternate in the event he could not attend a transit meeting.