Why SANDAG faces a bumpy road in 2025

There’s an old New Year’s Eve tradition in some families: Go to the back door, open it, and let the old year out. Then, go to the front door, open it, and let the new year in.

If anyone was at the San Diego Association of Governments offices on B Street New Year’s Eve and adopted this tradition, they would have flung open the back door and eagerly swept out every bit of 2024 — and then cautiously cracked open the front door, to usher in whatever 2025 has in store.

For SANDAG, the region’s transportation planning agency, 2024 was that kind of a year. It began without a leader, as former CEO Hasan Ikhrata stepped down on the second-to-last day of 2023.

It ended with the defeat at the ballot box of a critical sales tax increase meant to fund a massive transportation plan for years to come, and the exit of another leader when county Supervisor Nora Vargas, who was the chairperson of the SANDAG board, abruptly announced Dec. 20 she was stepping down.

Here are some of the challenges SANDAG faces in 2025.

Board leadership

SANDAG found a new CEO in April when it hired Mario Orso to helm the agency. Now the issue of who will preside over what is often a fractious board, split between urban and suburban leaders, will be among the first orders of business. 

The vice chairman of the board in 2024 was San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who would normally be considered to slide into the top role. But Elo-Rivera is no longer one of the two city representatives to the panel, and is now the second alternate to Council President Joe LaCava, who joins Mayor Todd Gloria as the city’s representatives after a shuffling of outside appointments approved by the council on Dec. 17. 

So far, two current board members Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner and Del Mar Mayor Terry Gaasterland have formally expressed interest in becoming chairperson. 

The board is set to elect new officers as the first order of business on Friday. 

Measure G failure

San Diego County voters turned down Measure G, a half-cent increase in sales tax that would have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars annually. It was backed by a coalition of environmental and labor groups and construction contractors who were heavy contributors to the measure.

The bulk of the money would have gone to SANDAG to fund an ambitious agenda of projects including expanding public transit, more carpool lanes and an assortment of highway repairs. 

What now? Officially, the agency said the failure of Measure G is not a mortal blow, and it could still draw on funds from a previous voter-approved tax increase known as TransNet. 

But the agency acknowledged there was work to be done.

“SANDAG has a multi-year capital program that is not dependent on the outcome of Measure G,” the agency said in a statement to inewsource. 

“Next year, the Board will be having important discussions about our funding priorities and how to best continue leveraging the TransNet Program to bring other funding sources to deliver critical infrastructure to the region.”

Toll road problems

One piece of welcome news at the end of last year was SANDAG announcing in December that a federal investigation that apparently examined the agency’s sprawling contracting work had been closed — with no criminal charges filed.

Exactly what the feds were looking at was never revealed, but speculation centered on the ongoing problems with the South Bay Expressway. 

And while federal officials may no longer be interested, the agency faces other problems stemming from the expressway and a flawed computerized toll collection system that incorrectly charged penalties and fees to motorists. 

At least one potentially class-action lawsuit has been filed by a wronged motorist. And the agency is facing a second and potentially more explosive suit from a former top executive who alleges she was terminated after she contended in internal meetings that SANDAG was not being transparent with auditors about problems with the road.