Metro is slated to add four federal appointees to its board of directors as part of a long-sought funding agreement passed in Congress, butfederal officials do not seem to know who the appointees will be or when they will join the transit agency.
The question of timing looms large as Metro is facing some of its biggest hurdles ever at a time of some of its greatest instability.
Federal law calls for expanded Metro board
The law that authorized $150 million a year over 10 years for Metro calls for expanding the authority’s board to include:
» “… 4 additional Directors appointed by the Administrator of General Services, of whom 2 shall be nonvoting and 2 shall be voting, and requiring one of the voting members so appointed to be a regular passenger and customer of the bus or rail service of the Transit Authority.”
The agency is losing its general manager, will have a weakened leadership team with six empty slots and will be switching chairmen as it grapples with back-to-back budget crises totaling $215 million, fights its largest union in court over pay raises and faces the threat of federal edicts on how to improve safety in the wake of the deadly June 22 train crash. Metro is supposed to increase its 12-person board to 16 members with four federal appointees in exchange for receiving $150 million from Congress. The money has been authorized and appropriated.
But the General Services Administration, which is supposed to appoint the federal members, has not been able to say how it plans to pick the members or even give a timeline. GSA press secretary Caren Auchman told The Examiner she had no answers.
Meanwhile, Metro officials say they have heard nothing from the GSA about who the new appointees will be or when they will arrive.
Meanwhile, Metro officials say they have heard nothing from the GSA about who the new appointees will be or when they will arrive.
Metro board member Christopher Zimmerman said Metro has yet to receive the federal money. But he said the money and the appointees are on different, independent tracks.
The law does not specify any timeline on when the appointees need to join the board. However, the legislation did spell out strict timelines on when Metro needed to expand cell phone service to its underground Metro stations.
