Metro finds board chairman broke contracting rules

Metro’s former board chairman broke the transit agency’s own rules in getting involved in a land deal for some Metro property to sway a lottery contract with the District, according to an independent review commissioned by the agency’s board.

The report released Thursday said that D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, a ?longstanding Metro board member who also chaired the board, pressured some local businessmen who sought the District’s unrelated lottery contract out of bidding for a Metro land redevelopment contract between 2008 and 2010. Metro’s Board of Directors released the report by the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft on Thursday after meeting behind closed doors for hours.