Text Messages Reveal San Jose Mayor, VTA Tried to Hide Ballooning BART Extension Cost
Valley Transit Authority (VTA) officials and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo privately shared concerns over public perception and funding gaps relating to the BART extension to downtown San Jose via text messages without immediately disclosing those concerns to the public.
John Pelissero, senior scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said the messages could “undermine the public’s trust and confidence” in government.
“The fact that the federal government had a number and they shared it with the local officials in the valley and they were not willing to put this out in the public appears to be an attempt to be less than transparent, and that’s never a good strategy for public officials,” Pelissero said.
John Pelissero, senior scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, quoted on The Mercury News.