The following story was first printed in Friday morning’s Daily Post. If you want to stay on top of local news, pick up the Post in the mornings.
BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer
A former Caltrain executive and a former contractor are facing felony charges after they allegedly arranged to have living quarters built in the Burlingame and Millbrae train stations.
Joseph Vincent Navarro, 61, of Newtown, Penn., was Caltrain’s deputy director of operations while Seth Worden, 66, of Oceanside, was a station manager for TASI, the company that is contracted to run the train line.
In 2019 and 2020, Worden and Navarro worked together to construct small apartments in the two train stations where the men would live when in town for work, according to District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. Navarro told Worden to hire contractors to remodel
an unused office in the historic Burlingame train station to add a kitchen, shower, heating, plumbing and security cameras, Wagstaffe said.
In order to avoid any scrutiny, all invoices were kept below a $3,000 threshold, so Worden’s spending did not have to be approved by anyone else at TASI or Caltrain.
Worden did a similar scheme in 2019-2020 to remodel part of the Millbrae station for his own use. He was caught by Caltrain employees in 2020, Wagstaffe said.
“They were taking advantage of Covid. No one was around at that time,” Wagstaffe said.
Navarro lived at the Burlingame train station until an anonymous tipster called Caltrain about it in 2022.
All told, about $50,000 of Caltrain’s money, which is funded by taxpayers and train fares, went to the two projects — $8,000 for the Millbrae “renovations” and $42,000 for Burlingame.
Worden made his first appearance in court on Wednesday where he pleaded innocent after being charged with felony theft of public funds. Navarro will face the same charges when he is arraigned on April 29.
“The misuse of public funds for private use is a violation of the law, Caltrain policy and the public’s trust. Caltrain investigates every claim of such misconduct, and in cases where there is evidence of unlawful conduct by an employee or a contractor, we immediately act to rectify the situation and hold the individuals who are responsible accountable,” Caltrain Executive Director Michelle Bouchard said in a statement.
We’re arresting guys who built two apartments for a total of $50,000? Let’s put them in charge of building affordable housing throughout California doing the same thing they’ve already accomplished. First step seems to be not to allow any municipalities or governmental agencies to have a say.
This represents the normal corruption at Caltrain-SamTrans. They just got caught. These agencies don’t provide the public with much benefit. But the employees are doing things like this.
Glad I voted for that Caltrain tax. Happy to see my tax dollars spent this way.
I hope the investigation by the DA looks at who else knew about these homes at Caltrain. I doubt this was done by just one or two guys. Did other Caltrain employees know about it and they just looked away? And nobody from management went to these empty train stations just to check on things from time to time? I guess Caltrain management thinks we’re all stupid.