Press Release

Press Release
Contact: Kathleen Cha, 510/464-7922, kathleenc@abag.ca.gov
December 31, 2009 Leah Zippert, 510/464-7995, leahz@abag.ca.gov
For Immediate Release Halimah Anderson, 510/464-7986, halimaha@abag.ca.gov

Oakland, CA…The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the region’s planning agency and council of governments, has elected new officers. Union City Mayor Mark Green has been elected ABAG President for a two year term beginning January 21, 2010, and Marin County Supervisor Susan L. Adams, Ph.D, RN is slated to become Vice President. They follow in the footsteps of outgoing President Rose Jacobs Gibson, San Mateo County Supervisor, who will officially turn over the gavel at the January 21st Executive Board Meeting in Oakland.

Incoming President Mark Green says, “I look forward to serving the Bay Area over the next two years and will be taking ABAG's regional message into each county. The new decade will demand a higher level of regional cooperation as we try to solve some vexing problems in housing, planning, transportation, the environment, and in the economy. All of us will be required to look at the way we do things through a different lens.”

Incoming ABAG President Mayor Mark Green brings an outstanding history of public service to regional leadership. He has served as Mayor of Union City for sixteen years, first elected in 1993. Prior to becoming Mayor, he worked in the insurance industry for over two decades and served in various city government positions since 1986 as planning commissioner and park and recreation commissioner and as Union City councilmember from 1991-93. Mayor Green is currently Chair of ABAG’s Regional Planning Committee and serves on ABAG’s Executive Board, Administrative, and Legislation and Governmental Organization Committees. He is Chair of the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency and vice chair of the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority and the Bay Area Hazardous Waste Management Facility Allocation Committee. He is a board member of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and East Bay Economic Development Alliance. A native of Peoria, Illinois, he has lived in the Bay Area since 1971 and graduated from University of California, Berkeley.

ABAG Vice President-Elect. Susan L. Adams currently represents the 1st District on the Marin County Board of Supervisors and in her second four-year term serves as Marin County’s Director of Emergency Services. She also serves on a number of boards and commissions including the Children’s Health Initiative Task Force, the Disaster and Citizen Corps Council, the Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health Task Force, the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo), ABAG’s Executive Board and Regional Planning Committee (RPC), and the state and national Associations of Counties (CSAC and NACo) serving as Vice-chair on the Health Steering Committee of NACo. Supervisor Adams serves on a state Task Force for Criminal Justice Collaboration on Mental Health Issues. Supervisor Adams was born and raised in San Francisco. Adams completed her master's degree in nursing at UCSF as a maternity clinical specialist and a women's health nurse practitioner. Her clinical practice and research focus was child bearing women with a special interest in addiction and recovery during pregnancy and motherhood. Dr. Adams received a doctorate from UCSF in 1998 with her research and dissertation work focused on the experiences of pregnant women and new mothers who were using crack cocaine.

On becoming ABAG Vice President, Supervisor Adams says, “ABAG is our Bay Area’s premiere regional planning agency and I look forward to working with President Mark Green over the next two years on a broad spectrum of regional issues that will help enhance the links between land use and environmental quality of life in the Bay Area. With my background in health care, the lens I use is the link between a healthy planet and healthy people.”

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Founded in 1961, ABAG is the regional planning agency for the nine counties and 101 cities and towns of the Bay Area and is recognized as the first council of governments in California. ABAG is committed to leading the region through advocacy, collaboration, and excellence, and providing planning, research, and member services to enhance the Bay Area’s quality of life. .