Metro officials say they are “weeks away” from meeting with a whittled-down list of potential candidates to become the transit agency’s general manager, and plan to name the new chief by the end of the year.
Board of directors member Jeff McKay said Tuesday that roughly 20 candidates are under consideration, and said he and other members of Metro’s search committee will begin interviewing prospects once the list is narrowed to “between six and eight” finalists.
“By the end of the year, and I think the announcement will come sometime in December, we hope to name a new general manager,” he said.
McKay said Metro is working with a private consultant to identify a short list of candidates for the position, which former General Manager John Catoe vacated earlier this year. Richard Sarles has been interim general manager since March, but has said repeatedly he has no intention of keeping the job.
McKay is one of four Metro board members comprising a search committee to find the agency’s next chief. The committee also includes Chairman Peter Benjamin and board members Neil Albert and Mortimer Downey.
The search for a new GM comes at a tumultuous time for Metro, which is combating massive budget deficits. The agency is also implementing systemwide safety upgrades in an effort to restore passenger confidence, shaken after last year’s deadly Red Line crash.
McKay said it was too soon to be discussing prospects for the general manager position, although WTOP reported that the chief executive officer of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency was in the running.
“I think it’s unfair and misleading to leak names at this point because we’re just not that far along,” McKay said, insisting that Metro’s search committee wouldn’t begin conducting a first round of interviews until next month.
“I think maybe there are some people at [Metro] that are a fan of this guy, so they deliberately put his name out there,” McKay said of Ford.
Neither McKay nor Downey would discuss Ford’s candidacy or that of any other prospect.
