Your Bicycle Coalition: SDCBC – Part 1
By Andrew Woolley
Andrew Woolley is a San Diego resident and long-time bicyclist. This is the first of a four-part series about the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.
Earlier this year I sat down with Kathy Keehan, executive director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition (SDCBC), at the Coalition office in East Village. She was gracious enough to give me nearly three hours of her time during which we discussed the Coalition, its mission, its values, and its future. I was particularly interested in trying to really understand what the Coalition is trying to achieve; what is its purpose for being? I also wanted to hear the sales pitch: why should I join the SDCBC, and what would I get for my money? I wanted to find out what SDCBC has to offer the independent cyclist on the streets of San Diego (for the sake of full disclosure, I have been a member of SDCBC in the past, due to my now expired membership in the San Diego Bicycle Club, but have never joined independently).
Kathy Keehan has been involved with SDCBC since 1999 and currently serves as the Executive Director. When you call, she’s the one who answers the phone. She’s also the one who attends every transportation and development planning meeting or hearing. Kathy gives interviews to the press, speaks at private functions, organizes volunteers, directs the Coalition’s efforts, and keeps the entire process moving. Kathy says the volunteers are the energy that drives SDCBC, but she’s the energy that drives the volunteers.
The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition is a coalition of bicycle clubs and “at large” cyclists. The Coalition’s Board of Directors has 25 members; 16 represent various clubs in San Diego County, and nine are board members at large. In total, the Coalition has over 1,400 members. By Kathy’s estimates, about half that number are members by club affiliation, and about half are independent members. “The board structure is due in large part to historic artifact: the Coalition began as just that, a coalition of bicycle clubs,” she says. Clubs have specific issues (special events, specific routes) they need Coalition support for, and they benefit by having the voice of 1,400 citizens on their side. The Coalition benefits from club-affiliated membership by gaining increased numbers and by establishing a set income source that can be relied on year in and year out.
The income from membership is an important, but relatively small, portion of SDCBC’s annual budget. According to Kathy, SDCBC’s 2009 income included the following:
$8,000 – Club Membership Dues
$8,000 – Individual Membership Dues
$2,000 – Private Donations
$6,000 – Gifts
$26,000 – Education Program
$60,000 – Events (Bike the Bay & Tour de Fat)
SDCBC’s operating budget hovers around $100K per year. One third of the budget covers the salaries for the executive director, the education program director, and a newly created development director position. The rest of the budget is stretched to fund the Coalition’s education program expenses, the Newsletter, outreach efforts, office space (which is shared with Walk San Diego), and other overhead costs.
So what does your $25/year membership get you? “We give you a voice,” says Kathy. “Somebody is going to be there defending your interest, making sure that stuff happens for cyclists in the community.” Other benefits of membership include a subscription to the newsletter, discounts on Bike the Bay, and access to other opportunities to promote cycling in San Diego County.
“Were doing a lot of exciting work, doing a lot of fun things,” says Kathy. Some of her work, like spending countless hours in transportation and construction planning meetings lacks glamor, but Kathy believes that, “Without somebody being in that room representing cyclists, cyclists get over looked.” Kathy credits the SDCBC for, “800 miles of streets with bike lanes since the Coalition has come into existance. Those bike lanes didn’t just appear, we fought for those.” If the city’s cyclists are dissatisfied with the amount of accomplishment they see from the Coalition, Kathy says she understands. “Regular cyclists on the street get really frustrated because the pace of change is so slow,” she says. “Its a really hard thing. . . Society is like the titanic, and we’re trying to change the direction a little bit.”
In the next article we’ll examine the SDCBC’s Mission Statement, their goals, and some of the projects that Kathy and the Coalition’s energetic volunteers are working on currently (and the ones they aren’t). The third article will discuss several of the difficulties the SDCBC faces, and the reasons, both internal and external, for those difficulties. The final article in the series will describe ways in which you, the cyclists of San Diego, can help improve cycling in our city, both as a member of the Coalition, and as an independent citizen.