5 ms·

Caltrans exec who protested a freeway expansion gets demoted

99 points by oftenwrong 3y ago

lukevp 3y ago
Is a deputy director really an exec? My understanding is that typically VP and up is considered an exec. And a director would be responsible for decisionmaking in a large scale; while a deputy director would focus on execution of the vision of the director.
- resoluteteeth 3y ago
  I think titles are somewhat different for this type of agency than for companies in the private sector. If you look at the page that has the executive bios at https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/executive-biographies https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/executive-biographies there isn't anyone with the title "VP" but "deputy director" seems to roughly be the equivalent of a VP title at a private sector company.
- MollyRealized 3y ago
  Executives are usually people of high rank in an organization who make decisions, manage operations, and overseeprojects - often for long-term strategic planning and execution - and have managerial and leadership tasks. Yes, I think a deputy director does that, when the director is considered the top executive of the agency. This appears to be an anti-whistleblower action.
  - junofan 3y ago
    Usually means P&L responsibility for a business unit.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  The Director is the top job at Caltrans. "Deputy Director of Whatever" is equivalent to "Chief Whatever Officer" at companies.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Is a deputy director really an exec? Yes, in California state departments generally, the "Director" is the CEO, the "Chief Deputy Director" is the COO, and the other principal executives (including generally most that have CxO style working titles, in the departments which use them, though there are some exceptions) will be Deputy Directors. Caltrans specifically: https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/departmental-organizational-chart https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/departmental-organizationa... Note that the CFO, CIO, and Chief Engineer are (among the) Deputy Directors. > My understanding is that typically VP and up is considered an exec. California state departments don't have officers titled "President" or "Vice President" (also, in lots of private entities, VPs and even Senior VPs are not executives, but Executive VPs are, so the "VP and up" rule doesn't necessarily work even where VPs exist.)
  - lukevp 3y ago
    Thanks for the explanation, this context helps a lot!
- ksherlock 3y ago
  VP doesn't necessarily mean anything. Goldman Sachs has 12,000 vice presidents, give or take. Not one of them will ever get a call at 3AM because DJ Solomon took some MDMA laced with Fentanyl and they need to be sworn in as CEO. Long ago at a job far away, there were account executives who schmoozed with clients. One day the CEO snapped his fingers and made them all vice presidents. Why? So they would look more important when they schmoozed with actual executives. Then again, maybe they were schmoozing with people who also had inflated titles.
  - chronic63903 3y ago
    > VP doesn't necessarily mean anything. Goldman Sachs has 12,000 vice presidents, give or take. Everyone knows VP at a bank is a junior title. Managing director (MD) is the real boss. Similar to tech, everyone knows senior SWE (L5/E5) is a junior/entry-level role. Whereas senior staff SWEs (L7/E7) are the real hot shots.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
      L5 is junior now? Whelp. I know they're nobodies in the grand scheme of big tech but I wouldn't exactly call them juniors, at least not in terms of skill. Maybe power within the company. But I guess that's what you meant.
avalys 3y ago
Nice. What voters actually want are executives that pay lip service to climate goals and all this mumbo-jumbo bullshit about public transport, but in reality, no one wants to ride the fucking bus. We want roads, more roads, bigger roads, better roads. Sounds like she didn't get the message. "There’s a culture of wanting to build more, and get it done quickly, despite the policy direction that sort of forces us to take a deeper look at the public benefits of those projects,” she said in an interview." Sounds like Caltrans is one the few agencies that is actually still able to get fucking shit done, as opposed to endlessly wringing their hands about social justice and burning taxpayer dollars to do it, while making no appreciable progress on social justice whatsoever and funneling money to their scumsucking friends in nonprofits who know the right words to say to get in on the scam too.
- _uhtu 3y ago
  No one wants to ride the bus because the entire public transport budget is slashed to go to more roads, bigger roads, all of which is doing nothing to help traffic and making climate change worse?
  - gedy 3y ago
    Frankly, the reality is bus system in California is mostly for poor people, including sketchy types that middle class people don't want to be around. Transit budget won't really change that.
    - mikeyouse 3y ago
      Not really true at all in SF.
      - gedy 3y ago
        Point taken, SoCal seems to be particularly like this and source is from the LA Times. Exception is commuter trains.
    - kstrauser 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
notamy 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20231014193229/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-13/caltrans-whistleblower-says-demoted-block-freeway-expansion https://web.archive.org/web/20231014193229/https://www.latim...
jeffchien 3y ago
StreetsBlog has a better article: https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/09/19/caltrans-shakeup-is-a-bad-sign https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/09/19/caltrans-shakeup-is-a... It sounds like she was caught in the crossfire between Friedman and CalTrans. If it's like her fight against CA HSR, Friedman might just want the funds to go to Metrolink improvements in Burbank than any alternatives for Davis and Sacramento: https://cal.streetsblog.org/2022/05/05/letter-to-speaker-rendon-stop-blocking-bullet-train https://cal.streetsblog.org/2022/05/05/letter-to-speaker-ren...
omneity 3y ago
Is this a case of Pournelle's Iron Law at play?
lasermike026 3y ago
There is absolutely no future for privately own cars in the United States and the world. It's over, accept it, and cars are gone.
- cyanydeez 3y ago
  Pretty sure the same kind of fun buttery will apply to cars, if it's not already here.
- ilyt 3y ago
  [flagged]
- Spivak 3y ago
  Even if you're right I'll be dead before I see them even 20% gone.
doormatt 3y ago
>She said she told him she was thinking of filing a whistleblower complaint with the state auditor. A complaint could trigger an investigation. Mistake number one. You either file a complaint or you don't. You do NOT warn them.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  I almost dropped my phone when I saw that but. I mean, you have to fire her on principal if anything at that point. It reminds me of when some tech or media company (I forget) fired a bunch of mainly younger employees because they were upset HR wasn’t there for them when addressing their complaints with the company. Like, who are these people? Whistle blowing is anonymous for a reason.
api 3y ago
So California can build things after all: roads. Imagine if it’d been someone opposing a rail line or an affordable housing development who got demoted. That’d be progress.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  > So California can build things after all: roads. Yeah, for obvious reasons. The Caltrans budget this year is $21 billion and the High-Speed Rail Authority only gets $1 billion. That is why the railroad won't be done until 2175.
karaterobot 3y ago
> Her attorney called her demotion an attempt to “chill whistleblowing content.” Why does the article focus on her gender so much? The quote about speaking up in meetings with men seems misplaced if the allegation is that she was demoted for threatening to be a whistleblower, and not for gender-based discrimination. If she'd been speaking up at meetings for years and only got demoted after threatening to trigger an investigation, it feels odd to introduce this angle to a narrative where it doesn't fit. Not saying it isn't true, but that I cannot see how that thread connects to the larger story.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  Are you getting upset that an article used a female pronoun to describe a female that identifies as a woman?
patrickhogan1 3y ago
The sad thing here is even if she did the right thing the outcome of her protest is California gets less dollars from the federal infrastructure bill due to her trying to slow the building down, because the infrastructure bill dollars get used up by states that can implement public works projects faster. Her protest doesn’t lead to less climate change, because we all breathe the same air. Her protest only leads to California having worse off roads compared to neighboring states which will utilize the funds until they are gone.
- r00fus 3y ago
  I disagree. It’s like the arguments that buying a new ICE car doesn’t add carbon to the atmosphere because if you didn’t that someone else would. A false narrative. Yes CA would have gotten less freeway dollars but more freeways just cause more traffic due to Jevons paradox. We don’t need freeway expansion. We need more mass transit.
  - patrickhogan1 3y ago
    The Infrastructure bill designates a specific amount of funds from the federal government for public works endeavors, with a particular portion allocated for road projects. $110 billion has been earmarked for roads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_... When the government earmarks funds for a purpose, they are typically spent for that intent. The road projects funded by this bill will be realized, although potentially less in California if faced with continued opposition.
    - r00fus 3y ago
      Repave or expand local roads don’t widen freeways.

99 points by oftenwrong 3y ago

Is a deputy director really an exec? My understanding is that typically VP and up is considered an exec. And a director would be responsible for decisionmaking in a large scale; while a deputy director would focus on execution of the vision of the director.

resoluteteeth 3y ago
I think titles are somewhat different for this type of agency than for companies in the private sector. If you look at the page that has the executive bios at https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/executive-biographies https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/executive-biographies there isn't anyone with the title "VP" but "deputy director" seems to roughly be the equivalent of a VP title at a private sector company.
MollyRealized 3y ago
Executives are usually people of high rank in an organization who make decisions, manage operations, and overseeprojects - often for long-term strategic planning and execution - and have managerial and leadership tasks. Yes, I think a deputy director does that, when the director is considered the top executive of the agency. This appears to be an anti-whistleblower action.
- junofan 3y ago
  Usually means P&L responsibility for a business unit.
jeffbee 3y ago
The Director is the top job at Caltrans. "Deputy Director of Whatever" is equivalent to "Chief Whatever Officer" at companies.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Is a deputy director really an exec? Yes, in California state departments generally, the "Director" is the CEO, the "Chief Deputy Director" is the COO, and the other principal executives (including generally most that have CxO style working titles, in the departments which use them, though there are some exceptions) will be Deputy Directors. Caltrans specifically: https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/departmental-organizational-chart https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans/departmental-organizationa... Note that the CFO, CIO, and Chief Engineer are (among the) Deputy Directors. > My understanding is that typically VP and up is considered an exec. California state departments don't have officers titled "President" or "Vice President" (also, in lots of private entities, VPs and even Senior VPs are not executives, but Executive VPs are, so the "VP and up" rule doesn't necessarily work even where VPs exist.)
- lukevp 3y ago
  Thanks for the explanation, this context helps a lot!
ksherlock 3y ago
VP doesn't necessarily mean anything. Goldman Sachs has 12,000 vice presidents, give or take. Not one of them will ever get a call at 3AM because DJ Solomon took some MDMA laced with Fentanyl and they need to be sworn in as CEO. Long ago at a job far away, there were account executives who schmoozed with clients. One day the CEO snapped his fingers and made them all vice presidents. Why? So they would look more important when they schmoozed with actual executives. Then again, maybe they were schmoozing with people who also had inflated titles.
- chronic63903 3y ago
  > VP doesn't necessarily mean anything. Goldman Sachs has 12,000 vice presidents, give or take. Everyone knows VP at a bank is a junior title. Managing director (MD) is the real boss. Similar to tech, everyone knows senior SWE (L5/E5) is a junior/entry-level role. Whereas senior staff SWEs (L7/E7) are the real hot shots.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
    L5 is junior now? Whelp. I know they're nobodies in the grand scheme of big tech but I wouldn't exactly call them juniors, at least not in terms of skill. Maybe power within the company. But I guess that's what you meant.

avalys 3y ago

Nice. What voters actually want are executives that pay lip service to climate goals and all this mumbo-jumbo bullshit about public transport, but in reality, no one wants to ride the fucking bus. We want roads, more roads, bigger roads, better roads. Sounds like she didn't get the message. "There’s a culture of wanting to build more, and get it done quickly, despite the policy direction that sort of forces us to take a deeper look at the public benefits of those projects,” she said in an interview." Sounds like Caltrans is one the few agencies that is actually still able to get fucking shit done, as opposed to endlessly wringing their hands about social justice and burning taxpayer dollars to do it, while making no appreciable progress on social justice whatsoever and funneling money to their scumsucking friends in nonprofits who know the right words to say to get in on the scam too.

_uhtu 3y ago
No one wants to ride the bus because the entire public transport budget is slashed to go to more roads, bigger roads, all of which is doing nothing to help traffic and making climate change worse?
- gedy 3y ago
  Frankly, the reality is bus system in California is mostly for poor people, including sketchy types that middle class people don't want to be around. Transit budget won't really change that.
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    Not really true at all in SF.
    - gedy 3y ago
      Point taken, SoCal seems to be particularly like this and source is from the LA Times. Exception is commuter trains.
  - kstrauser 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

notamy 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20231014193229/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-13/caltrans-whistleblower-says-demoted-block-freeway-expansion https://web.archive.org/web/20231014193229/https://www.latim...

jeffchien 3y ago

StreetsBlog has a better article: https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/09/19/caltrans-shakeup-is-a-bad-sign https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/09/19/caltrans-shakeup-is-a... It sounds like she was caught in the crossfire between Friedman and CalTrans. If it's like her fight against CA HSR, Friedman might just want the funds to go to Metrolink improvements in Burbank than any alternatives for Davis and Sacramento: https://cal.streetsblog.org/2022/05/05/letter-to-speaker-rendon-stop-blocking-bullet-train https://cal.streetsblog.org/2022/05/05/letter-to-speaker-ren...

omneity 3y ago

Is this a case of Pournelle's Iron Law at play?

lasermike026 3y ago

There is absolutely no future for privately own cars in the United States and the world. It's over, accept it, and cars are gone.

cyanydeez 3y ago
Pretty sure the same kind of fun buttery will apply to cars, if it's not already here.
ilyt 3y ago
[flagged]
Spivak 3y ago
Even if you're right I'll be dead before I see them even 20% gone.

doormatt 3y ago

>She said she told him she was thinking of filing a whistleblower complaint with the state auditor. A complaint could trigger an investigation. Mistake number one. You either file a complaint or you don't. You do NOT warn them.

nemo44x 3y ago
I almost dropped my phone when I saw that but. I mean, you have to fire her on principal if anything at that point. It reminds me of when some tech or media company (I forget) fired a bunch of mainly younger employees because they were upset HR wasn’t there for them when addressing their complaints with the company. Like, who are these people? Whistle blowing is anonymous for a reason.

api 3y ago

So California can build things after all: roads. Imagine if it’d been someone opposing a rail line or an affordable housing development who got demoted. That’d be progress.

jeffbee 3y ago
> So California can build things after all: roads. Yeah, for obvious reasons. The Caltrans budget this year is $21 billion and the High-Speed Rail Authority only gets $1 billion. That is why the railroad won't be done until 2175.

karaterobot 3y ago

> Her attorney called her demotion an attempt to “chill whistleblowing content.” Why does the article focus on her gender so much? The quote about speaking up in meetings with men seems misplaced if the allegation is that she was demoted for threatening to be a whistleblower, and not for gender-based discrimination. If she'd been speaking up at meetings for years and only got demoted after threatening to trigger an investigation, it feels odd to introduce this angle to a narrative where it doesn't fit. Not saying it isn't true, but that I cannot see how that thread connects to the larger story.

throwaway5959 3y ago
Are you getting upset that an article used a female pronoun to describe a female that identifies as a woman?

patrickhogan1 3y ago

The sad thing here is even if she did the right thing the outcome of her protest is California gets less dollars from the federal infrastructure bill due to her trying to slow the building down, because the infrastructure bill dollars get used up by states that can implement public works projects faster. Her protest doesn’t lead to less climate change, because we all breathe the same air. Her protest only leads to California having worse off roads compared to neighboring states which will utilize the funds until they are gone.

r00fus 3y ago
I disagree. It’s like the arguments that buying a new ICE car doesn’t add carbon to the atmosphere because if you didn’t that someone else would. A false narrative. Yes CA would have gotten less freeway dollars but more freeways just cause more traffic due to Jevons paradox. We don’t need freeway expansion. We need more mass transit.
- patrickhogan1 3y ago
  The Infrastructure bill designates a specific amount of funds from the federal government for public works endeavors, with a particular portion allocated for road projects. $110 billion has been earmarked for roads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_... When the government earmarks funds for a purpose, they are typically spent for that intent. The road projects funded by this bill will be realized, although potentially less in California if faced with continued opposition.
  - r00fus 3y ago
    Repave or expand local roads don’t widen freeways.