Metro’s board of directors has responded to recent criticisms of how it governs the agency — by forming a committee. A regional task force and the agency’s official riders’ representatives had offered recommendations on how the agency could improve in the wake of the deadly June 2009 Red Line train crash. Both reports offered pointed, yet differing critiques of the 14-member board of directors.
“The recommendations are worthy of full deliberations,” said Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins, who is expected to take over the Metro chairmanship in January.
The directors are forming a permanent committee of board members to look into governance issues. The panel, whose members will be chosen by the chairman, is tasked to come up with bylaws within 60 days on how committees should be structured and how the chairmanship should rotate. The chairman switches annually, but one recommendation called for longer terms to promote continuity.
The board also agreed to create an orientation program for current and new board members. That will be especially relevant following the resignations of longtime directors Christopher Zimmerman and Gordon Linton. More shuffling of the deck also is expected, bringing in new faces.
In response to additional critiques, the board said it plans to treat its ongoing search for a permanent general manager as a search for a chief executive officer. Both the reports from the Riders’ Advisory Council and the Greater Washington Board of Trade and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments called for the agency to seek a chief executive officer-style leader who has more autonomy in day-to-day leadership of the transit system.
Finally, the board has asked its attorney for a legal opinion on the role that the board’s alternates play and whether it could change the veto power that jurisdictions currently hold.
D.C. Councilman and board member Jim Graham said the board was responding well to the calls for reform, reacting without defensiveness. “We’ve demonstrated our good faith and our open-mindedness in reviewing our structure,” he said. “We are flexible and we are open and we are willing to improve.”
But most changes would not begin before Virginia, Maryland and District officials are expected to weigh in early next month on the outside reports’ recommendations. The governors of Maryland and Virginia and the D.C. mayor gave their transportation leaders 45 days to make a plan for reforming Metro. Those changes and other more substantial reforms could mean changing the compact that formed the agency, which requires the legislatures in all three jurisdictions to pass identical bills.
