AC Transit
The Community Says NO to Fare Hikes
AC Transit Board Can Be Persuaded –
Final Vote on June 11
On Wednesday May 21st, about 100 bus riders,
community and labor groups and elected officials gathered outside of an AC
Transit Board Hearing at
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Thwarting Buy American Laws to Buy Belgian
Dateline:
01/30/2008AC Transit had to subvert the intent of federal law to buy its Belgian buses.
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Belgium or Bust
Dateline:
01/30/2008
As AC Transit's service and finances took a wrong turn, its employees made more than 100 trips to Europe — possibly for nothing.
The Belgian Connection: Second of Two Parts
Shortly after Rick Fernandez took over as the general manager of AC Transit, the agency's board of directors awarded him the authority to approve employee travel. Sixteen months later, in April 2001, Fernandez and four of his staffers took an all-expense-paid trip to Europe that included a visit to the headquarters of the Van Hool bus company near Antwerp, Belgium. The excursion cost taxpayers $20,133 — and it was just the beginning.
In the years since, travel records show, AC Transit employees have jetted to Western Europe on more than one hundred separate occasions. The vast majority of these junkets were to Belgium, at a total cost to taxpayers of nearly $1 million. The cash-strapped agency has even paid for an Oakland bus inspector to live near Antwerp for more than five years, at a cost in excess of $500,000, not including his salary.
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The Buses From Hell
Dateline:
01/23/2008After AC Transit purchased costly foreign buses that drivers hate and many riders fear, its service and finances took a wrong turn.
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