Store
by JR Valrey, Minister of Information, SF Bay View Oakland Bureau
Last Thursday, BART Board Director Lateefah Simon was preparing for the BART Board of Directors meeting when she was informed by officials that her new residence was a “stones throw” outside of her district line.
This, after the legally blind Lateefah Simon consulted senior BART officials about the address of her new residence prior to moving her family from their former Richmond home – where they received multiple death threats as well as urine on the porch.
Simon told the SF Chronicle that before she moved, senior BART officials whom she had been conversing with had helped her to execute a conflict-of-interest memo, since her residence is a part of a transit-oriented development, on agency owned land.
Simon also presented documentation as proof, according to the SF Chronicle story, on March 10, 2022.
The border of Simon’s former district shared representation of MacArthur station with Board Director Robert Raburn, according to a map of BART’s district boundaries. Simon’s district included the station, while Raburn’s district covers the portion east of northbound State Route 24 that includes the station’s entrance plaza, parking garage and apartments built on BART property.
Simon’s removal was briefly mentioned at the beginning of last Thursday’s board of directors meeting.
“I can’t say much, but I can say that my legal team is at work, and I’m not finished serving and I am going to fight to retain my seat. I owe the people of District 7 that. I am 300 feet away from the line,” said Lateefah Simon, after moving her family to a condo on 40th and Telegraph – adjacent to the MacArthur Bart Station.
In light of Simon’s disability, her family’s move puts them in a safer environment with public transportation right along the street.
Lateefah Simon was elected in 2016 to the BART Board of Directors, where her service was highlighted by her introduction of hiring community civilian ambassadors to help with security, limiting the need for uniformed police. She was also extremely outspoken about re-opening the investigation of the murder of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale BART station on new year’s morning of 2009, a move that prompted the death threats and harassment targeting Simon and her family at their prior residence.
In 2019, she was elected as president of the BART board, and months later, the pandemic hit. Simon sought out hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to help successfully save the local transit agency financially, whose ridership plummeted by 94 percent in spring of 2020.
“I am upset that one of our most powerful voices for equity and justice in the Bay Area has been silenced from her role where she has been guiding one of our most important regional transit agencies – especially as this was predicted on the advice and guidance of the agency’s staff,” said Oakland City Councilman and mayoral candidate Loren Taylor.
“This directly undermines the democratic process through which Director Simon was voted into office twice by residents of her district. It is even more damaging because she was the only Black board member, and one of only two people of color on the nine-member board.”
District 7 voters are planning to decide Simon’s permanent replacement in a forthcoming election. The BART board has 60 days to appoint a replacement to fill the vacated seat in the interim. A legal battle is sure to ensue, so we will see what the winds blow in. Stay strong, Lateefah Simon.
SF Bay View Oakland Bureau Chief JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of the Black New World Journalists Society, can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com or on Facebook. Visit www.youtube.com/blockreporttv and blacknewworldmedia.com to see his work.
