The C-TRAN Board Composition Review Committee met to consider the proposed allocation of board seats, focusing heavily on the representation balance between different municipalities. During the meeting, residents voiced strong opposition to a proposal that would assign four board seats to the city of Vancouver. Citing population data and state law, commenters argued this configuration would grant Vancouver an unfair majority and allow the city to impose its specific transit priorities, such as light rail expansion and higher tolls, on the rest of Clark County. To ensure fair regional representation and prevent one municipality from dominating transit decisions, speakers advocated for an alternative seat distribution. Specifically, they proposed an arrangement allocating four seats to Clark County, three to Vancouver, and two to smaller surrounding cities.
C-TRAN Board Composition Review Committee Meeting
March 10, 2026 · 00:12:00 matched · Watch on CVTV ↗
Full Transcript (1466 words)
0:00 (upbeat orchestral music) All right, good afternoon. It is four o'clock. I'm gonna call the order of the session of the Board Composition Review Committee for C-TRAN. Would you please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you. Miss Cindy, would you please call the roll? Michelle Belcott. Present. Sean Boyle. Present. Matt Cole. Present. Will Fuentes. Tim Hein. Present.
0:58 Matt Little. Present. Sue Marshall. Here. Glenn Young. Here. Eric Overholser. Here. Ann McEnerny-Ogle. Present. Michelle Wagner. Ian Shealy. Okay. Okay, great, thank you very much. We're gonna go into public comment. Anybody wishing to speak to C-TRAN Board Composition Review Committee regarding comments related to the composition review may come forward at this time. If attending virtually, the Chair will call on you when it's your time to address the committee. Committee comments are limited to three minutes per person. We have two people signed up tonight. The first one on my list is Margaret Tweed. Margaret, come on up.
1:53 - Good evening, committee. I wanted to note that the wrong time was listed for this meeting at the C-TRAN website, so perhaps that's why some people weren't able to make it today. Light rail's been repeatedly rejected by Clark County voters and is not justified on the I-5 bridge. In 2025, a majority of the Clark County Council abruptly removed Councilor Belcott from the C-TRAN Board, and she represents Council District 2, mostly county area, and was replaced by Councilor Fuentes, District 3, which has more Vancouver area per the county district map. Councilor Fuentes is a strong light rail supporter per his public comments, and Councilor Belcott has expressed concerns about replacing affordable bus service over I-5 bridge with a vastly more expensive light rail. Vancouver wants four seats,
2:50 and the county only three, and two for the smaller cities. I urge that you consider four county council seats on the C-TRAN Board, instead of increasing Vancouver to four seats. Every citizen 18 and older in the county has a vote on who will represent them on the Clark County Council. Clark County Council represents the entire county, everybody who shops in Clark County, where most of the retail outlets are located by zoning. Everybody is paying the C-TRAN sales tax. Clark County population, 542,400, Vancouver, 205,100 per the Office of Financial Management, April 2025 estimates. So clearly there are far more people that have a direct vote in the Clark County Council than the Vancouver City Council.
3:48 I have no vote in the Vancouver City Council, and there are more people outside of Vancouver than in it. If Vancouver gains another seat, they will continue to dominate this nine-member board unfairly, putting their priorities upon us all, their tax hikes, their hire tolls on us all. I wanna also say Clark County Council has taken positions on various aspects of the I-5 bridge program, including opposition to light rail. And I have that resolution that I sent to you, number 2022-07-14, whereas where the Clark County Council supports replacement of the I-5 bridge, but opposes every light rail project in Clark County unless it is first supported by a majority of the voters
4:47 in a county-wide advisory vote of the people. Thank you. - Thank you, Ms. Sweet. Next on sign up for public comment is Douglas Tweet. - Thank you, I wanted to reiterate similar points I brought up a month ago just with a little more data. State law says that no one city shall have a majority on a public transportation board such as C-TRAN. This was brought out in the September 2nd, 2025 letter by Matt Cole, Mayor Ridgefield. He points out, and I quote, "This distinction is very important when evaluating statutory compliance under ICW 3657A-050, both to assure proportional representation based on population and the additional requirement that a majority of the governing board may not be selected may not be selected to represent a single component city. Again, using the washed out assertion of plain language, actual representation by population requires a full analysis of which political subdivisions
5:47 represent population in each of the cities in unincorporated county." Now Vancouver wants four seats on this board, leaving three to the county and two to the small cities. However, one of the county representatives comes from a district that is mostly within the city of Vancouver, thus giving Vancouver effectively five seats in majority. This should not be allowed. There are more people in Clark County who live outside of Vancouver than those who live within it. And the new data is this table below, which you have a copy of. If you look at the 2025 numbers, got census data from 2020 to 2025. If you look at the 2025 column, Clark County is 542,400. City of Vancouver is 205,100. So there's 337,000 people who live outside of the city of Vancouver. So why should they have less representation than the city of Vancouver?
6:41 So again, also Michelle Belcott was removed from the C-Tran board when she chose to represent the citizens of her district, which is mostly outside the city limits of Vancouver, and that removal should not have been done. A more fair and representative solution would be for Clark County to have four members, while Vancouver gets three and the small cities get two. I also support a resolution to the board composition, which includes the stipulation that any county representative of the C-Tran board should come from a district that is mostly outside the city of Vancouver. Thank you very much. - Great, thank you very much. I believe that concludes our public comment. All right, we have an executive session on the agenda. The committee will go to executive session pursuant to RCW 42.30.110, section 1-I-I-I.
7:39 It is estimated to take about 20 minutes, and the board will resume following that session. - Matt, can you please recite the time? - Oh yes, so it'll be 4.30. No, I'm sorry. Yeah, 4.30 p.m. (upbeat orchestral music) - Okay, the board is returning from executive session, and we will continue with our meeting. Oh, do we have to do roll call again? Sorry, apologies. Would you please call roll? - Michelle Belcott. - Present. - Sean Boyle. - Present. - Matt Cole. - Present. - Will Fuentes. Tim Hein. - Present. - Matt Little. - Present. - Sue Marshall. - Here. - Glenn Young. - Here.
8:39 - Eric Overholser. - Here. - Anne McInerney-Ogle. - Present. - Michelle Wagner. - Ayaan Sheely. - Great, thank you. We move forward with the approval of the minutes from February 10th, 2026. I would entertain a motion. - Chair, I make a motion to approve the minutes from February 10th, 2026 of the BCRC meeting. - Second. - Been moved by Hein, seconded by Overholser. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, oh, sorry. - Matt, one abstention. - One abstention. Okay, all those in favor say aye. - Aye. - All opposed? All right, with one abstention, the motion carries. Thank you. Next on our agenda is an action item for board composition review and the direction by this board to refer to the C-TRAN board of directors. But given the interest of this board and action expected
9:38 from the C-TRAN board of directors later today, I would like to move that the BCRC recess until immediately following that meeting so we can consider the final structure with a full clarity. Do we have a second? - Second. - It's been moved and seconded. Motions to recess are not debatable, therefore I'll call a vote. All in favor say aye. - Aye. - All opposed? - Aye. - Okay, great. The motion carries. The BCRC will go on recess and resume 10 minutes following the adjournment of the C-TRAN board of directors meeting. Thank you. (muffled speaking)
10:35 Of name parties and said suit sitting as members of this BCRC. Would that satisfy the requirement? - Yes. - Okay. So it's been moved and seconded. Any other further discussion? Okay, all in favor of this amendment say aye. - Aye. - Thank you. All opposed? - No. - Okay, one no. The motion carries. Okay, back to the original, the amended motion. Any remaining discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote again. All in favor say aye. - Aye. - All opposed? - Nay. - Okay, with one nay, the motion carries. And the recommendation for the direction is adopted.
11:31 Okay, and with that, this concludes the Board Composition Review Committee. This meeting is adjourned. - Yay.