Three top Metro executives have given up their agency-issued vehicles after The Washington Examiner reported that top administrators at the transit agency were assigned cars.
General Manager Richard Sarles, Chief Financial Officer Carol Dillon Kissal and Assistant General Manager of Access Services Christian Kent no longer have dedicated Metro vehicles, having returned them to a pool of cars that can be used by other Metro workers, according to the transit agency.
The Examiner wrote in September that several top executives had agency-issued vehicles after Metro initially denied that any executives except for the police chief had take-home vehicles.
| Agency acknowledges another executive was assigned a vehicle |
| Metro now acknowledges that one of its executives had an agency-assigned vehicle for months, after failing to include him on a list of those assigned the cars. |
| Christian Kent, assistant general manager of Access Services, had an agency-owned vehicle assigned to him as of September, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said Tuesday. But he was not mentioned in September when the agency told The Washington Examiner which executives had vehicles assigned to them. |
| Stessel said that “from an administrative standpoint” it was under Kent’s name. “He used it during that period,” he wrote in an email, but noted it had “light use.” |
| Kent gave up the 2008 Chevy Impala in January, returning it to the pool of vehicles. “The vehicle is now used by MetroAccess fleet maintenance personnel in the field,” Stessel said. |
| Kent was not the only person the agency failed to mention when asked about executive vehicles. |
| In September, the agency initially denied that any of its executives were assigned take-home vehicles except for the police chief. Instead, Stessel had said that managers such as General Manager Richard Sarles had access to a pool of vehicles if needed. |
| But the next day, the agency acknowledged that Sarles and four other executives had specific vehicles assigned to them and could take them home. After questioning, it acknowledged that a sixth, the head of the bus division, also had one. Now, it is clear that a seventh executive, Kent, was assigned a car, as well. — Kytja Weir |
Then Sarles gave up his vehicle in September, after the article ran.
“He hardly ever used it,” spokesman Dan Stessel said.
Kissal then gave up hers in November, and Kent did so in January, Stessel confirmed.
“They both determined that the vehicles would be put to better use if shared,” Stessel said.
Now six members of the 16-member executive leadership team have dedicated vehicles — and most have job titles that could require them to travel around the system. They include the police chief, the chief safety officer, the deputy general manager, who oversees the system’s operations, the head of the bus system and the head of transit infrastructure, who oversees all track work. The chief of staff also has one.
The assigned vehicles are all SUVs: two Ford Escapes, three Ford Explorers and a Chevy Tahoe.
An additional 116 Metro employees have take-home vehicles, including 88 managers and superintendents, as reported by The Examiner last fall.
Metro officials have said that take-home cars are given to essential workers who must be able to respond anywhere in the agency’s 1,500-square-mile service area. Supervisors, for example, may need to travel before the system opens or to reach construction sites or tracks that don’t have direct transit service.
The agency has said it does not track the annual cost for the program.
It is not clear how much the executives have used the vehicles, though. The agency declined to provide mileage logs in a public records request, saying it would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” despite the fact that Metro has said its agency-owned vehicles are to be used only for job-related trips.
In September, Metro confirmed that Kissal, the chief financial officer, was among the executives to take her vehicle home occasionally, depending on “business need.”
