Governments try to make things easy for themselves. In the Army,
we used to say that the perfect soldier wore a size 10D boot and
had two left feet. If everyone fit that profile, the military would
only have to supply one size and one type of boot
– a left foot, 10D. What could be easier than that?
Governments try to make things easy for themselves. In the Army, we used to say that the perfect soldier wore a size 10D boot and had two left feet. If everyone fit that profile, the military would only have to supply one size and one type of boot – a left foot, 10D. What could be easier than that?
 Federal bureaucrats would be happiest if they only had to deal with one state – the State of California feels the same way about counties. When the prospect of having to deal with individual cities rears its head, the state literally shudders, so it is that the state has come up with another alphabet soup of agencies to, supposedly, streamline management, but it befuddles the citizens. So follow closely, much of your future lies in the hands of these mysterious organizations. 
There are 38 regional planning agencies; most were formed as councils of governments, called COGs, meaning that they represent joint powers agreements of cities and counties. The San Benito County COG consists of San Benito County, Hollister and San Juan Bautista.  
The State Legislature created others as transportation commissions. All of these have mandated state planning responsibilities and are responsible for identifying the share of the region’s housing need for each community. Nearly all transportation commissions and COGs have transportation planning responsibility under both state and federal law. 
City council members and county supervisors chosen by their peers govern all COGs and transportation commissions. Our COG has five board members, two from the Hollister City Council, two from the San Benito County Board of Supervisors and one from the San Juan Bautista City Council.  
Additionally, there are multi-county regional and sub-regional organizations for transportation. We belong to one of these – the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG). AMBAG is a monster. It has 18 individual cites and three counties (Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz) as members. It also has the San Benito County COG as an “associate member.”
I have no idea what that means since all the cities and the county are already members in their own right. Perhaps it entitles them to a free lunch at AMBAG meetings. 
Each city in AMBAG has one elected representative on the board of directors, and each county has two. AMBAG’s mission is to be a permanent forum for planning, discussion and study of regional problems of mutual concern to the counties and cities in Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties; and to the develop studies, plans, policy and action recommendations.
Note of that, AMBAG makes policy. I could not find a specific mission statement for the San Benito COG, but you can rest assured they also make policy. Both these agencies make important policies in several areas and they will be making more in the future. The problem is that they do it far from the view of the local citizens and in a manner designed to dilute objections to any regional planning decision. They say a camel is a horse built by a committee, and AMBAG is a big committee.
 I’m not foolish enough to believe that San Benito County or Hollister is going to sue the state to change this bureaucratic mess. We’ll leave that to some big county with lots of money, but we can demand that our representatives vote the will of the government bodies that appointed them.
 When members perform duties on the boards of COG or AMBAG, they do not embody the will of their districts or even their own judgment; they are there to express the collective will of the elected representatives who selected them for the job. If a member votes in direct conflict with decisions made by their respective city council or board of supervisors, then majority rule has no purpose.
 To make this work, our city and county representatives at COG and AMBAG must bring the policy issues back to their respective councils, boards and communities, present them, take public comment and ask for direction, taking council and board votes if required. Then they must represent that majority decision to COG or AMBAG no matter what their personal preferences. Only then can we ensure that the decisions of the people expressed by all the people’s representatives are honored. We can restore some representative democracy to this system and we should do so as soon as possible.
