Proposal to give Henrico seats on GRTC board advances

A proposal that would give Henrico County three seats on the GRTC board of directors – granting it equal board representation with the two owners of the system, Richmond and Chesterfield – earned unanimous approval from the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Feb. 23 and could be approved by the Richmond City Council Feb. 28.

The proposal would expand the transit company’s board from six seats to nine and (at Henrico’s request) allow as many as two appointees from each of the three localities to be elected officials from those jurisdictions. All six current members of the board are non-elected officials from Chesterfield and Richmond.

Henrico officials have sought representation on the board for years and made a formal request for seats last year. The county is not purchasing an ownership interest in GRTC, however. Richmond was the sole owner of GRTC when it was formed in 1973, but Chesterfield purchased half in 1989; Henrico had an option to become a part-owner then, too, but ultimately declined.

On Wednesday, Chesterfield supervisors voted to adopt revisions to the GRTC articles of incorporation and bylaws that would grant Henrico three seats and make other adjustments to the structure of the GRTC board. In Richmond, the same revisions earned the recommendation of the city’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation Standing Committee Feb. 22, which advanced the plan to the City Council for consideration next week.

The revisions also would require that at least two board members from each of the three localities be present to constitute a quorum and that the same number vote in favor of a motion in order for it to earn approval.

Once the Richmond City Council has adopted the articles of incorporation revisions related to Henrico joining the board, the current GRTC board of directors and the State Corporation Commission also must do so before they can take effect. Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas intends to appoint two members of the county’s board of supervisors and one non-elected county employee to the board. All board members would serve one-year terms.

In an evaluation of the proposal to add Henrico officials to the board, Richmond Public Works Director Bobby Vincent, Jr. wrote to city council members that regional cooperation would be an important component of the transit company's future.

"It is imperative that there be a coordinated effort between the jurisdictions when it comes to decision-making for GRTC," he wrote.

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Henrico purchases its transit service from GRTC on an annual basis and has done so since it began participating in 1975, but county officials want a say about how the organization operates – especially now that the county is set to become the largest local funder of the entity by the 2023-24 fiscal year. That will occur as a result of the county’s contribution to the new Central Virginia Transportation Authority continuing to grow.

(The CVTA collects funds from an additional regional sales and use tax of 0.7% and a wholesale gas tax of 7.6 cents per gallon on gasoline and 7.7 cents per gallon on diesel fuel in each of its nine participating localities; 15% of the CVTA’s overall annual revenue is dedicated to GRTC.)

As important as it is to Henrico officials to add representatives to the board, they are equally pleased with the idea of having elected officials serve on it.

“The [current] board at GRTC, they’re not elected officials,” Henrico Public Works Director Terrell Hughes told the Citizen. “Who are they accountable to? Now that there is money going to GRTC – a large portion of it from Henrico County – there’s a request for an accountability.”

In his report for the city, Vincent agreed.

"Currently, as structured, GRTC Board and its CEO can act independently of the jurisdictions that completely subsidize the operations of GRTC and in the City of Richmond's case are one of its owners/shareholders. Without Richmond effectively representing the transit riders' voice, their voices can be silenced when it comes to major decisions that can adversely impact them."

About 80% of GRTC riders are Richmond residents and 75% of its routes are in the city, according to Vincent.

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Although the county and GRTC previously had a written agreement detailing the terms of the county’s purchase of service, the two entities currently are operating without such an agreement, according to Henrico Public Works Assistant Director of Transportation and Development Todd Eure.

That’s because they were in the process of revising an existing 10-year agreement when COVID hit in 2020, and subsequently their arrangement generally has been framed by language in the law that created the CVTA, Eure told the Citizen. That law dictates the annual contribution Henrico will make – about $13 million during the current fiscal year and an estimated $14 million in the coming one.

Three Chopt District Supervisor Tommy Branin has been a vocal proponent of Henrico joining the GRTC board and last year complained publicly that the county had no oversight powers over the agency. He and other officials lamented, for example, that the county had spent more than $230,000 alone to clean up trash at GRTC stops along the West Broad Street and Laburnum Avenue corridors in 2020, without reimbursement from the transit company.

But just as there is no written agreement documenting the county’s purchase of service from GRTC, neither is there one related to ancillary responsibilities, such as trash collection. That duty is a shared responsibility, Eure told the Citizen, with GRTC typically cleaning Pulse stations and the county performing normal little cleanup at many others on a monthly or biweekly basis as part of its overall countywide trash collection efforts.

Henrico officials are hoping to expand GRTC service within the county later this year, to serve the new Amazon facility under construction adjacent to Richmond Raceway, Eure said. It’s not yet known whether that stop will be served by extending a city route, tweaking another existing service line in the area or providing micro-transit service, he said.

Subsequent service expansion is planned along the Route 1 corridor north to the Virginia Center area within a year or two after that, possibly in phases, he said. The timing will depend in large part upon when the GreenCity development and new development projects at Virginia Center are completed, he said.

Much also will depend upon the availability of bus drivers.

“GRTC told us ‘If you wanted to extend service now, we literally can’t do it because of the bus driver shortage,’” Eure said.