MTC and the housing crisis

From Tim Redmond at 48hills:

48hills filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court today asking a judge to order the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to release full reports of how much public money was spent on the Committee to House the Bay Area (CASA).

The lawsuit demands all documents that show MTC funding going to CASA from the first day the regional transit agency helped create that group, which was chartered with finding a “grand solution” to the Bay Area’s housing crisis.

In fact, as we’ve reported, CASA wound up with a set of proposals that will help developers and encourage unlimited growth with no protections for vulnerable communities.

Some of the meetings have been secret. We have had to struggle to get basic documentation. And our latest request, from reporter Zelda Bronstein, led to a lengthy delay and then only partial disclosure of information...

This is critical: MTC, a public agency, has clearly spent some---and possible a lot---of public money on a private operation that has a clear political goal of pushing legislation that will allow more market-rate housing in the Bay Area.

We need to know how much taxpayer money went to that operation and how it was used.