Frustrated BART inspector general is calling it quits

BART’s inaugural inspector general is resigning next week, and she said it’s because the rail agency’s leadership, board directors and labor unions have obstructed her investigations into potential waste, fraud and abuse since she assumed the role in 2019.

Harriet Richardson’s resignation is the latest development in a divisive, years-long battle over financial oversight of the regional rail agency. It comes at a time when BART and Bay Area transit agencies are lobbying the state for a subsidy to ensure future operation.

“I kind of just reached a point where I said ‘enough is enough’ and I’m moving on,” Richardson, whose term would’ve ended in four months, told The Chronicle on Thursday.

The Office of Inspector General, with a full-time staff of three and a budget of $1 million, was created in 2018 as part of the Bay Area’s Regional Measure 3 to fund transit projects.

Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Richardson, a former auditor for the city of Palo Alto, as BART’s first independent watchdog. Working from a secluded wing on the fourth floor of BART’s Downtown Oakland headquarters, the inspector general’s office has flagged potential conflicts of interest surrounding a $40 million contract and inefficient spending to address homelessness on the system.

However, an Alameda County grand jury found last year that the agency’s general manager, unions and board directors sought to limit her role by limiting access to information and employees “from the beginning.”

Those alleged roadblocks, according to the grand jury report, included a requirement insisted on by BART unions that Richardson provide two days’ notice to interview any employee. BART officials, in their response to the grand jury, disagreed with the report’s main findings.

In her interview with The Chronicle, Richardson was especially critical of what she described as the BART board’s appeasement to unions, to the detriment of the inspector general’s investigations.

“The board keeps wanting to support what the unions want, and that is an interference in our work,” Richardson said of her office. “It undermines our independence and undermines employees’ whistle-blower protection rights, and I just simply can’t agree to it.”

BART is approaching a “fiscal cliff” of about $143 million starting in January 2025, and agency officials say the agency risks drastic service cuts without a subsidy from either the state or local taxpayers. BART is at the center of a lobbying effort by the state’s transit agencies to secure gap funding for operations in the state budget.

Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer of Orinda, a longtime critic of BART who wrote the legislative amendment that created the inspector general position, has sought to attach more financial oversight of BART as part of a state bailout for public transit. He introduced a bill, SB827, that has support from Richardson and would strengthen the Office of the Inspector General while making it a misdemeanor crime to obstruct or interfere with the office’s investigations.

Glazer authored a similar bill last session. It cleared the Legislature but was vetoed by Newsom, who cited opposition by BART board directors and “one unresolved issue regarding the notification of all represented employees of their right to representation.”

John Arantes, a transit vehicle mechanic and president of SEIU 1021’s BART chapter, called Richardson’s accusations “baseless.”

“The only thing we have issues with is the right to represent people who ask for representation during an (OIG) interview,” Arantes said.

Arantes likened Richardson’s resignation and Glazer’s resignation from a special committee formed to address transit agencies’ fiscal cliffs as “just theatrics to push her personal agenda and Steve Glazer’s agenda.” Arantes said the union opposes Glazer’s bill, adding that the senator’s efforts to tie a strengthened inspector general’s office to a bailout “shows how malicious he is by using blackmail to try to get his personal agenda because he hates BART.”

In a phone interview on Thursday, Glazer said the BART board should proactively provide more funding to the inspector general’s office and support its investigations. He added, “It would be financially irresponsible to give an agency like BART more money when they refuse to have prudent financial oversight over their affairs.”

Glazer called Arantes’ comments toward him “a baseless charge, and an inflammatory one, also.”

“It’s surprising to me that the union wouldn’t be fully committed to this type of financial oversight because they know it’s integral to getting voter support for any future financial subsidies for BART,” Glazer said.

BART’s Board of Directors discussed Glazer’s legislation at a meeting Thursday afternoon but did not take a position on it. Board President Janice Li thanked Richardson for her service and said BART officials have advocated for more funding for the inspector general’s office from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Li, at the board meeting, pushed for creating a charter that brings “much more clarity in the role of the Inspector General, how they interact with district employees and the access to information that the IG must have to do their job of identifying fraud, waste and abuse.”