NEWS: Yvonne Burke Appointed to Amtrak Board

[Justin Walker]

FYI, some good news for us.

On Thursday, the White House announced its nomination of Yvonne Burke to serve on the Amtrak Board of Directors.  (The West has long been unrepresented on the Amtrak Board of Directors.  I don't personally know when or if the West was last represented on the Board.)

Yvonne Burke has been quite involved in transportation during her career.  After serving in Congress for 6 years, she was elected to the LA County Board of Supervisors, where she served until 2008.  Being a county supervisor, she was also on the LA Metro Board of Directors for many years.  She advocated for rail in her district and is largely responsible for the LAX/Crenshaw Corridor light rail project (beginning construction later this year).  Since leaving the LA Board of Supervisors, she has served on the California Transportation Commission.

LA Times article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/03/obama-nominates-yvonne-burke-to-amtrak-post.html

-Justin

[am458]

This is great news for Amtrak. And for rail travel.

Think the last time we had anyone from the west coast was the late
Congress and Mayor of
Palm Springs was Sonny Bono. I dont recall anyone else.

I was at the LOSSAN Meeting in Santa Barbara. Arthur Leahy Metro-CEO
was on Train #761.
And he said he was happy to see Yvonne Burke be nominated. He also
give a good talk about it
during the meeting.

And many of the LOSSAN Board Member suggested sending out letters to
President Obama,
Boxer, Fienstein, and to many of California's congress members. And to
Ms Yvonne Burke.

> LA Times article:http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/03/obama-nom...
>
> -Justin

[Erik Griswold]

She is also the idiot who insisted on installing turnstiles at LA Metro, and she should be in jail for living in Brentwood while representing South Los Angeles.   

Richard Alarcon is about to be.

http://www.laweekly.com/2008-05-22/news/yvonne-burke-39-s-crumbling-kingdom/

She is also 79 years old!   Why can't these fossils retire?

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[Michael Hedvig]

I agree with Erik. My guess this was a way to get the black vote for Obama's election. 

[Justin Walker]

RailPAC reports that the last California on the Amtrak Board of Directors was appointed by President Reagan.  Still not sure who that may have been.  Anybody know off-hand?

-Justin

[Stephen Weissbart]

He probably did it to get the white vote for his re election...

[Augustine Kposowa]

To Steve,

Are you really that cynical about President Obama to claim he made such an important appointment for racial reasons? I do not believe that all white persons hate the President.  We should look at how his policies have brought the US from economic brink (left by the Bush Administration). I might add that Bush was not a friend of AMTRAK.  Mitt Romney has stated that if elected, he would get rid of AMTRAK. Would you prefer Romney over Obama simply because Romney is White?

 

Augustine

[Erik Griswold]

I hope it has nothing to do with race.  

And if you read the LA Weekly article, you will see that apart from often being the "First African-American Female" in many offices, she did little that really benefitted anyone regardless of skin-color.

I'd name Damien Goodmon to the Amtrak board if this were about attracting votes.

On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 5:03 PM, Michael Hedvig <mhe...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

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