Quentin L. Kopp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quentin L. Kopp
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Quentin Lewis Kopp (born 1928) is a American politician and retired judge. He served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and in the California State Senate. Kopp ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of San Francisco in 1979 against Dianne Feinstein. Kopp advocated for a controversial and costly extension of BART to SFO which was completed in 2003. In 2009, Kopp is embroiled in controversy over his efforts to de-fund plans to bring California's high speed rail system to its planned terminus at downtown San Francisco's Transbay Terminal.
Contents
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* 1 Background and personal life
* 2 San Francisco Board of Supervisors
* 3 San Francisco Mayoral bid
* 4 California State Senate
* 5 San Mateo County Superior Court Judge
* 6 Advocacy for BART extension to SFO
* 7 California High Speed Rail Authority
o 7.1 Chairmanship
o 7.2 Attempt to de-fund Transbay Terminal and Anaheim Station
* 8 Quentin L. Kopp Freeway
* 9 References
* 10 External links
[edit] Background and personal life
Kopp was born in 1928 in Syracuse, New York). He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1949 and later from the Harvard Law School. Kopp is married to the former Mara Sikaters and has three children: his eldest son, Shepard, works for Mark Geragos' law firm. His second son is a musician who goes by the name Stark Raving Brad and lives in San Francisco. His daughter Jennifer is the executive director of the Napa Valley Grape Growers Association.
Kopp was elected to partisan political office as an independent politician, rather than as a member of a political party. For a time, Kopp held a time slot as a radio talk show host on KGO-AM, a popular talk radio station.
Kopp had his home phone number and address listed in the local phone book and was well known[citation needed] to answer at any reasonable hour. Personal replies to letters were common.[citation needed]
[edit] San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Kopp was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1971 and served until 1986, representing the conservative West Portal neighborhood.
[edit] San Francisco Mayoral bid
After his colleague and political ally, Dianne Feinstein, lost the mayor's race in 1975, she agreed not to run for mayor again and support Kopp's bid for mayor in 1979. However, in 1978, mayor George Moscone was assassinated along with civil rights leader Harvey Milk at City Hall, making Feinstein, then President of the Board of Supervisors, the new mayor.
In 1979, Kopp ran for mayor against Feinstein, but narrowly lost in a runoff election. This election also featured Jello Biafra (singer for the punk band The Dead Kennedys) and Sister Boom Boom (Jack Fertig). After this election, Kopp successfully authored a bill to require all future candidates for office in SF to be listed under their given names, so that "there'll be no more Sister Boom Booms."
[edit] California State Senate
In 1986, Kopp ran for California State Senate as an independent in a heavily Democratic district straddling south San Francisco and northern San Mateo counties. Republican distaste for the Democratic nominee (then Assemblyman Lou Papan) led them to financially support Kopp, who went on to win by just 1 percentage point. He won reelection in 1990 and 1994. Term limits prevented Kopp from seeking reelection in 1998.
[edit] San Mateo County Superior Court Judge
In 1999 then Democratic Gov. Gray Davis appointed Kopp to a judgeship in San Mateo county. He served in that capacity until his retirement in 2004.
[edit] Advocacy for BART extension to SFO
During his time in the California State Senate, and afterward, Kopp, together with Mike Nevin, helped push through the BART extension to San Francisco International Airport with an airport station[1]. In 1994, Kopp qualified an advisory ballot measure in San Francisco, Measure I, which advocated for a station inside the International Terminal. This resulted in the BART extension being built as a triangle, with the vertices being the San Bruno station at Tanforan Shopping Center, and not on the Caltrain Right-of-Way, Millbrae (Caltrain terminal) and SFO International Terminal. To get to all the stations on the extension, the BART train has to reverse at least once. The alternative rejected by Kopp was single station at San Bruno, California where the SFO People mover, BART and Caltrain would share a common station.
The extension of the SFO People Mover across to the station was to be paid for as part of the traffic mitigation for the new International Terminal.
[edit] California High Speed Rail Authority
[edit] Chairmanship
Currently, Kopp serves as the Chairperson of the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA).[2] As Chairman he is attempting to lead efforts to develop a high speed train network linking northern and southern California with trains capable of traveling at up to 220 mph (350 km/h).[2]
[edit] Attempt to de-fund Transbay Terminal and Anaheim Station
On 28 January 2009, without informing the CHSRA board, and sans any vote, Kopp sent a list on Rail Authority letterhead to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein of "projects that CHSRA has identified...which can currently be commenced." The list purposefully omitted[3] any requests for funds for two shovel ready projects: The Anaheim Station and Transbay Terminal extension in San Francisco, which would also serve as a key connection for transit riders arriving from the East Bay, following the decision to align the rail line through the South Bay and Pacheco Pass rather than the East Bay and Altamont Pass. Both the Anaheim Station and Transbay terminal projects had environmental review work completed based on input from the Authority.
At the 5 March, 2009 board meeting of the Rail Authority in Sacramento, when it became clear that another rail authority board member had obtained a copy of Kopp's letter, Kopp tried to hastily cure the record. He departed from the Board's meeting agenda and attempted to conduct an ad hoc vote of those board members in attendance regarding a project list which was never provided to the public and without any advance notice, a maneuver that the Train Riders Association of California (TRAC) considers a clear and egregious violation of the Brown Act.[4]
[edit] Quentin L. Kopp Freeway
Interstate 380 in San Mateo County, a short, urban freeway connector, was re-named the "Quentin L. Kopp Freeway". The road was previously named the Portola Freeway by California's State Legislature, after Gaspar de Portolà.
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