BART pays fine for Measure RR campaign violations

BART has paid the state $7,500 for campaign violations associated with its $3.5 billion Measure RR bond, the funding that voters approved in 2016 for capital improvements like new cable and a modern train control system.

The fine settles claims that the agency did not file campaign statements on time or properly disclose how much money it spent to press the bond measure. But it doesn’t satisfy state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, who made the complaint. He’s now urging the state attorney general to investigate what he calls an “illegal use of public money for political purposes.”

During the summer of 2016, BART spent more than $1,000 in public funds to advocate for Measure RR — enough to qualify as an independent expenditure committee. State campaign law requires such committees to file campaign statements and make advertising disclosures. BART failed to submit some of those reports and turned others in late, regulators from the California Fair Political Practices Commission said in a stipulation and order released Monday.

The order described Measure RR as an offshoot of the Better BART initiative that the agency began touting in July 2014, using the tagline “It’s time to rebuild.” BART repurposed that slogan — or versions of it — in YouTube videos, social media posts and a text message during the 2016 campaign, the order said.

BART officials argued that those videos and posts weren’t intended as campaign material, but commission regulators interpreted them differently. The commission ruled that BART should have included written and spoken disclosure statements in two videos — one

called “Rebuild BART,” the other called “It’s Time to Rebuild” — after spending $7,791.66 to produce, edit and distribute them. BART also should have added disclosures to the tweets and Facebook posts it made to promote the videos, as well as a mass text message sent to subscribing BART customers, reminding them that Measure RR was on the ballot.

“BART’s efforts to educate the public were educational in nature,” agency spokesman Jim Allison said in a statement released Monday. “We were diligent to keep all material educational, never suggesting how people should vote.”

He added that BART respects the commission’s decision and has worked closely and cooperated with regulators on the matter.

Glazer, a tireless critic of BART who often accuses the agency of mismanaging money, said these advertisements “took advantage of a massive social media network” that BART built over the years with public funds, intended to give riders information about the rail system. This network “was not intended to serve as the foundation for a political campaign,” Glazer said in a statement.

To him, the $7,500 fine didn’t go far enough.

“This decision ignores BART’s most egregious offense during the Measure RR campaign — the district’s illegal use of public money for political purposes,” he said.

BART was also required to file several forms with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters within 24 hours of making each video, since each of them cost more than $1,000 and emerged in the 90-day period before the Nov. 8, 2016 election. Additionally, state law mandated that BART submit a semiannual campaign statement itemizing its activities during that election year, but the agency failed to turn one in by the Jan. 31, 2017, deadline.

So, voters who had to decide the fate of the bond measure — which prevailed with nearly 71 percent of the vote — were left in the dark about all the resources BART used to promote it, the order said.

The commission will vote on whether to approve the settlement at its Dec. 20 meeting.