More than two dozen East Bay elected officials asked the AC Transit board of directors on Monday to censure Joel Young, an at-large member of the bus agency\u2019s board of directors, over a recent finding that he\u2019d engaged in gender-based harassment. The officials also claimed in a public letter that Young had engaged in \u201cmultiple acts of misconduct over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The October 5 letter<\/a> signed by 33 officials, including Oakland councilmembers Zac Unger, Janani Ramachandran and Charlene Wang, and Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas, condemned Young\u2019s conduct, saying it was \u201cpart of a pattern\u201d that has surfaced intermittently over the course of his career. They cite accusations<\/a> of domestic violence by a partner in 2011; a police report filed in 2012 by Jason Overman, then an aide to Oakland councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, claiming that Young had threatened and spit at him<\/a>; and Young\u2019s previous censure by the board in 2013 for violating ethics bylaws<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the letter focused on his conduct last year with fellow board member Sarah Syed, who represents AC Transit\u2019s Ward 3, which now covers parts of central and north Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n As The Oaklandside reported last month<\/a>, an independent investigator found that Young had subjected Syed to \u201cunwanted physical contact\u201d during a board meeting recess in September 2025. In a video released by AC Transit<\/a>, Young can be seen putting his arms around Syed, which Jean Walsh, the Ward 2 director, told us was strange, as Young and Syed are not friends and have been combative over the years. The unwanted touching, the investigation by Oakland law firm Meyers Nave found, violated AC Transit\u2019s gender-based harassment policy.<\/p>\n Walsh said she witnessed the contact and found it \u201cinappropriate and kind of creepy.\u201d<\/p>\n Young did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement to The Oaklandside last month, he said that he had been seeking to offer \u201ccomfort and support\u201d during a remembrance of fellow director Christian Peeples, who had died<\/a> several weeks earlier. \u201cI respect that her experience was different from my intent,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n The letter, whose signatories include the current mayors of Berkeley and El Cerrito, a former mayor of Albany, and city councilmembers from multiple cities, said that a failure to censure Young for his conduct would send the wrong message to women everywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWomen should be able to serve their communities without enduring harassment, intimidation, or unwanted physical contact, and without having substantiated findings minimized or mischaracterized,\u201d they wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n The group called for Young\u2019s removal from committee and agency appointments, including his seat on the 22-member Alameda County Transportation Commission, where he serves alongside Bas, one of the letter\u2019s signatories. Among its tasks, the commission helps distribute funds to county transit agencies and sets long-term transit development priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n We reached out to the signatories who represent Oakland, including Bas, Ramachandran, Unger, EBMUD directors Andy Katz and Marguerite Young, and BART director Victor Flores. None responded before publication, but we\u2019ll update this story if they respond.<\/p>\n El Cerrito\u2019s mayor pro tem speaks out<\/p>\n Rebecca Saltzman, El Cerrito\u2019s mayor pro tem and a former BART director, organized the letter. \u201cAC Transit faces challenges that require a rider focus,\u201d she said in a public post<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s not possible while Young\u2019s misconduct goes unaddressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Saltzman told The Oaklandside in a phone call today that she and a few other elected officials drafted the letter after AC Transit issued a statement<\/a> in support of Young last week by four of the agency\u2019s directors, including board president Diane Shaw, which suggested there wouldn\u2019t be further action on the matter. That couldn\u2019t stand, Saltzman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to ensure this behavior doesn\u2019t happen again, by Director Young or by anyone else,\u201d Saltzman said. She noted that while it\u2019s an \u201cuncomfortable thing\u201d to do, censuring is \u201ccommonplace\u201d when a public official engages in behavior that is not condoned by the public agency they serve.\u00a0<\/p>\n Saltzman made the AC Transit investigation into Young public last month when she submitted the report\u2019s two-page cover letter to the Alameda County Democratic Party\u2019s central committee ahead of their meeting to endorse general election candidates, including in AC Transit\u2019s Ward 3 race. That race, thanks to redistricting, now pits Young, an Oakland resident, against challenger Adriana Valencia, a tech product manager who lives in Temescal. The committee ended up endorsing Valencia. (Syed, due to the same redistricting, is running for reelection in Ward 4, which now covers much of East Oakland; the committee endorsed her against her challenger, the educator Gabriel Morales.)<\/p>\n Developments over the weekend suggest that the officials\u2019 public statement about Young may have affected his professional standing.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Sunday, the American Public Transportation Association did not elect<\/a> Young as chair of its executive committee and board of directors. He had been nominated<\/a> for the role on September 8, before the harassment letter became public. Young was unanimously elected<\/a> at this time last year as the APTA\u2019s vice chair during its annual TRANSform conference in Boston. <\/p>\n Paul P. Skoutelas, APTA\u2019s president and CEO, said in a statement to The Oaklandside that Young withdrew his candidacy for chair and that the board then swapped in another candidate.<\/p>\n