Why All The Fuss About the Bay Bridge? Bay Area Council President Wunderman Explains

Jim, let's begin with you laying out the mission of the Bay Area Council for our Southern California readers.

The Bay Area Council has operated for 60 years. It was formed at the end of World War II as business leaders from the region at that time pondered what the future Bay Area would look like, the nature of the growth that would be required, what infrastructure would be necessary to support the resurgence of the Bay Area economy after the war, since the Bay Area was in a war economy at the time. The organization has been strong since then, and has been responsible, to varying degrees, for many of the infrastructure improvements that occurred, including the BART system, several of the bridges, and other major infrastructure projects. The Council has been involved with the University of California, Stanford and other research institutions in the region as the Bay Area grew and became a major economic and technological leader in the latter part of the 20th Century.

Is this a business group or a public/private group? Who composes the leadership of the Bay Area Council?

The Bay Area Council is made up of more than 250 businesses from throughout the nine Bay Area counties. Most often the CEO is the member representative. We do have some members that fall outside the business community, but they are few, and none of them sit on the executive committee.

What are the issues and challenges that have recently been taken on by the Bay Area Council?

Many of our challenges are California's challenges as well. Transportation funding is key. Bay Area voters and business leaders alike identify transportation as the number one problem facing the region. We conduct a poll every year, and most years voters in the nine counties tell us that transportation is the number one problem in the region. So that's key.

The Bay Area was one of the first areas to experience a housing crisis. That crisis has spread to other parts of the state so there may now be a broad call to deal with it, but we have certainly been in the unfortunate lead in terms of median home prices.

We've also been at the forefront of the state's recession. The Bay Area lost about 450,000 jobs from 2000 – 2003. During that same period the rest of California actually gained jobs. Had it not been for the Bay Area, California would not have had a recession. Interestingly, during that same period of dramatic recession, the median home price rose by about $150,000. That is counterintuitive, and illustrates that our ability to house our employment base and people who want to live in this place is a major challenge.

You have a great deal of experience addressing problems as a region. What lessons have you learned about creating a regional agenda in the midst of so many local interests? How do you develop consensus?

Well, building consensus isn't easy. We're a nine county region with 101 cities and a population of close to 7 million people. We created a forum to develop consensus, both within the business community and with the environmental community and social equity groups, through an organization called the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development. Through the Alliance, we have worked to lay out a footprint for desired development and housing in the Bay Area. To implement this footprint, we believe that state law needs to change that would create incentives for housing to be built within the confines of the footprint – within the urban limit lines as they functionally exist. There need to be both carrots and sticks to make sure that cities issue permits for the needed housing within their boundaries or sub-regions. We need to achieve a jobs-housing balance so that people aren't required to take extremely long commutes that seriously impact the quality of life and pollute the environment. Both the legislature and the administration have shown great interest in this.

The word "region" doesn't appear anywhere in our state or federal constitutions. How do you overcome this lack of official sanction to create a true regional plan for housing, transportation, air quality, etc.?

We've been successful, to a degree, in creating regional structures over time like the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The Bay Area Council had a hand in creating all of those. It's absolutely true, however, that we lack a very strong, centralized regional authority that can establish priorities like building major transportation projects that utilize combinations of local, state and federal resources. Part of our mission is to create such a model, and we are pursuing it.

The Los Angeles' Economic Development Corporation is currently working to develop a regional think tank that would address area challenges like goods movement, transportation, air quality, etc. What lessons can you share from the experience of the Bay Area Council that might be instructive to this effort?

I think you will need to educate the public about the value of having a regional governmental structure that can back up the work and thought that leaders put into it. Counties and cities will resist it to some degree because they like what they have, and they are comfortable with the way their constituencies are organized. It's not an easy thing to do, but if you're going to be effective, you really do need to have some structure in place to carry out the mandate.

The business community has changed in the last 25 years. How has the Bay Area Council continued to engage business leaders as a more global perspective has taken hold and the stakeholders have changed?

We're very fortunate to have business leaders in the Bay Area who care very much about the place. The Bay Area is unique and many people come here with the idea that this is where they want to make their lives because of the combination of education, the culture, climate, geography, and aesthetics that is hard to match. So there are people who are very invested and active in the Bay Area. That said, it is a different world today and some companies are not as involved as they used to be. CEOs see themselves as global business leaders, as opposed to regional business leaders. So we're in the market for people who want to be involved, who care about the place and are willing to invest time and resources in it. There are people that we'd love to have involved who aren't.

The chair of the Bay Area Council, Nelson Rising, also has credentials in Southern California. That in mind, could you talk about the issues-water and transportation funding, etc.-that tend to divide north from south in California and how we can work more cooperatively in the future?

Over time, we've done a good job of working together on the water issue. I think the CALFED process, in which the Bay Area Council was a major player, was a good example of how various interests can be brought together to help each other solve problems. That was a very constructive dialogue that bore fruit, and now we need to reach the goal line with a funding plan for CALFED. So, it certainly can be done.

Southern California has transportation problems just as Northern California does. In fact, the Texas Transportation Institute ranks us one and two-Southern California is number one and we're number two-in worst transportation in the country, so we should be quite united on that front. We should be working together to make sure that the infrastructure needed to support the quality of life and the economy in both regions exists.

I feel very strongly that the Bay Bridge issue, which has been used divisively by some, should really unite us. Our major infrastructure needs today could be Southern California's major infrastructure needs tomorrow, and, at the end of the day, we're stronger if in the game together.

The Irvine Foundation used to fund projects that supported regional leadership and collaboration throughout California, but no longer emphasize these programs. Where are we to find support for regional collaboratives that will allow them to develop?

There is no shortage of philanthropic individuals who really care about the state, their regions and their communities. The burden is really on us to convince them that the best solutions are regional in nature. I think for a lot of people are willing to embrace a regional perspective. It's just a matter of how we can do it and what can be accomplished by working together. That's our burden. There are great people in California who I think would be very responsive to hearing from us about what could be accomplished if we were to work together.

In closing, what are the prospects for regional entities like the Bay Area Council, the LAEDC and the Orange County Business Council getting together to address California's challenges?

I believe that there are too many "no" votes in California. It's time for people to get together and develop agenda on how to move this state forward in a serious and practical way. With that in mind, I think there would be incredible potential in bringing together the major regional business groups in California to hold a summit and put forward an united agenda for California.