{"id":2456,"date":"2020-02-14T10:30:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T17:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456"},"modified":"2020-02-14T15:28:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T22:28:47","slug":"sandag-executive-director-hasan-ikhrata-fails-to-produce-but-expects-the-world-in-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456","title":{"rendered":"SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata Fails to Produce but Expects the World in Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Written by Nicholas Vetrisek<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata is causing massive controversy with a comment he made at a Metropolitan Transit Service board meeting in December.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere is one planning agency in the region; that\u2019s SANDAG,\u201d Ikhrata said. \u201dThere are two transit operators, and I hope they become one soon, NCTD and MTS. And we both plan, they operate, they work back and forth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ikhrata later told reporters that combining the two is merely his vision\u2014but that is precisely the problem. This is a major project that would require a major mobilization of resources and this is all to appease a man whose entire career with SANDAG thus far has been a complete and utter failure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Lie-or-truth.jpg\" width=\"282\" height=\"169\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From electric buses to the Purple Line rail project that has yet to be built, SANDAG has a long line of projects that are either completely arbitrary or nowhere near finished, but Ikhrata wants to add yet another expensive, likely unneeded initiative to the heap.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite his zeal for the project, the rest of San Diego does not seem to be on board with his \u201cvision.\u201d When he tried to propose the idea to North County mayors, they expressed disapproval. They were particularly bothered about the fact that TransNet tax revenues are down dramatically and Ikhrata still wants to start an entirely new project. In addition, they were also annoyed at the fact that he went to them without even speaking to NCTD first. Needless to say, they were not fans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Naturally, he did what any other unelected bureaucrat in his position would do: completely ignore them and keep going until he finds someone that will buy his snake oil. When speaking on the rejection, he said \u201cit made me think I was on to something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rest of the reactions varied greatly in their severity. NCTD Board Chairman Tony Kranz expressed skepticism by saying \u201cit would not be easy to merge two agencies together. It would not be impossible, but it would require a significant amount of planning to make it work effectively,\u201d later saying that \u201cany time you start tinkering with transit agencies, the reality is you have a significant amount of people who depend on transit currently in place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MTS spokesman Rob Schupp gave his idea a much less charitable interpretation. \u201cOh, I think Hasan was just kidding. We don\u2019t have a comment on that.\u201d When someone in your own organization thinks that you are joking, it really shows the stupidity of the idea. Some vision.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Nicholas Vetrisek SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata is causing massive controversy with a comment he made at a Metropolitan Transit Service board meeting in December.\u00a0 \u201cThere is one planning agency in the region; that\u2019s SANDAG,\u201d Ikhrata said. \u201dThere are two transit operators, and I hope they become one soon, NCTD and MTS. And&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata Fails to Produce but Expects the World in Return - San Diego News Desk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata Fails to Produce but Expects the World in Return - San Diego News Desk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Written by Nicholas Vetrisek SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata is causing massive controversy with a comment he made at a Metropolitan Transit Service board meeting in December.\u00a0 \u201cThere is one planning agency in the region; that\u2019s SANDAG,\u201d Ikhrata said. \u201dThere are two transit operators, and I hope they become one soon, NCTD and MTS. And...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"San Diego News Desk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-02-14T17:30:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-14T22:28:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Fired.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"San Diego News Desk\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Logo-SanDiegoNewsDesk-Article.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Logo-SanDiegoNewsDesk-Article.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"San Diego News Desk\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/\",\"name\":\"San Diego News Desk\",\"description\":\"Your Source for News in San Diego\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Fired.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Fired.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456\",\"name\":\"SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata Fails to Produce but Expects the World in Return - San Diego News Desk\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-02-14T17:30:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-02-14T22:28:47+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata Fails to Produce but Expects the World in Return\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5bed4fc07270caa9fa05a8b26be4751\"},\"headline\":\"SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata Fails to Produce but Expects the World in Return\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-02-14T17:30:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-02-14T22:28:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#webpage\"},\"wordCount\":433,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=2456#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Fired.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5bed4fc07270caa9fa05a8b26be4751\",\"name\":\"San Diego News Desk\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/05062ed7eb31bfe5ee9233a235e7d2e2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/05062ed7eb31bfe5ee9233a235e7d2e2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"San Diego News Desk\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?author=3\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}