BART Board elects Janice Li President and Mark Foley Vice President

BART Director Janice Li urged fellow Board members to “push ourselves to do more” as she assumed the Board Presidency December 15th following a unanimous vote to elect her to the leadership position.

Li, who represent District 8 in San Francisco, served as Board Vice President in 2022 and she thanked outgoing President Rebecca Saltzman for her tenacity, vision and effectiveness. Li pledged to seek “as much unity as we can” among the Board as the transit agency confronts extraordinary financial challenges in the years ahead.

“We are all pushing for the safest, most reliable, most well-run system with the most integrity”, said Li. “I’m asking you all for the willingness to do more, to do better, to try something new.”

Li is the first queer woman of color to be elected president of the board.

Director Mark Foley, who was elected Board Vice President, echoed her aspirations. “I think our priorities are clear. We need to focus on providing a world-class customer experience at BART,” said Foley. “Part of that is investing in our own future and identifying sustainable funding that we need as an organization to be successful for the next 50 years.”

President Li was first elected to the BART Board of Directors in November 2018 and was re-elected in 2022. Her district includes portions of San Francisco.

She was born in Hong Kong and moved to the U.S. at a young age. President Li works at Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based organization that has led Asian American civil rights advocacy for over 50 years.

Vice President Foley was first elected to the BART Board on November 6, 2018 and was re-elected in 2022. Director Foley represents District 2, which includes the cities of Antioch, Brentwood, Concord and other cities and unincorporated communities of Contra Costa County. 

A long-time public servant at the East Bay Municipal Utility District, Vice President Foley served as Board President in 2021 and Vice President in 2020.