Chronicle: METRO’s Wilson may be out

Board meets Friday

Steve Hawley, May 06, 10.

Frank Wilson, METRO’s president and CEO, is expected to depart the agency as soon as Friday, according to the Houston Chronicle. Wilson has been heavily criticized by Mayor Annise Parker, who recently appointed five of the nine METRO board members, and the board is expected to ask for his resignation.

Another Chronicle article states:

No doubt, [METRO] want[s] to avoid another bruising public spectacle and protracted legal fight. Wilson would probably prefer showing himself the door rather than being kicked to the curb.

METRO would have to pay Wilson roughly $741,000 to buy out the last two years of his contract, significantly less than the $1.6 million that Parker’s transition committee had estimated. Wilson has managed the agency since 2004.

Wilson and METRO have come under fire lately from political leaders and lawsuits. Parker has waged a war of words with David Wolff, the former chair of METRO’s board and a staunch defender of Wilson, over the agency’s mission. Since 2004, under the leadership of Wilson and Wolff, METRO has cut a number of lightly-traveled bus routes, restructured the fare schedules to eliminate steep discounts for affluent riders, and raised its fares. In the process, METRO increased its operating ratio - the return on every dollar of investment - from 13 percent to 21 percent, helping make it one of the few transit agencies nationwide that is financially stable right now.

But in February, Parker told the Chronicle, “I’ve been concerned that Metro has been drawing the line in the wrong place. They’re too concerned with the bottom line and not concerned enough that their job is to provide transit to people who really don’t have any other option.”

Most recently, Parker and Wolff have clashed over Wilson’s leadership. Wolff told the Chronicle that Wilson “is being fired for political reasons,” adding that Parker “knew so little about Metro that she had to have 40 people study it for three months before she knew what was going on.” Parker strongly disputed those claims, denying that she has used METRO for political purposes.

METRO is also dealing with a potential snag in federal funding, since it used federal funds to purchase two rail cars from Spain, possibly violating the Buy America rules. Parker says that the decision could jeopardize $900 million in federal grants, although US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the Chronicle, “[W]e are committed to this project.”

In July, Wilson told the City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that METRO had to buy rail cars from Spain because no American companies manufacture light rail vehicles. However, he said that using stimulus money to buy rail cars from Spain would free the agency to spend other money locally. METRO had initially hoped to use the stimulus funds for preliminary work on the new light rail corridors, but the Federal Transit Agency ruled that the funds could not be used for that purpose.

Lisa Falkenberg at the Houston Chronicle writes:

At this point, one would hope that the assembly location for two rail cars won’t derail an entire $900 million grant application. Is there a way, for instance, to renegotiate the Spanish deal, or perhaps pay for the cars with local funds instead of federal money?

Wilson has also had to contend with two lawsuits alleging that he is an “autocratic leader who rewarded loyalists with extra pension benefits while punishing, marginalizing or firing employees who disagreed with him,” and alleging that he spent agency funds on an inappropriate relationship with his chief of staff. In the second lawsuit, no wrongdoing has been found, and the plaintiff’s attorney admitted he had no evidence to support the claims.

Falkenberg concludes:

Sure, Parker has probably benefitted politically from her tough stance on Metro.

That doesn’t change the fact that Wilson’s disregard for federal rules appears to have landed us in a heap of trouble. Yes, the guy was hired for his aggressiveness, to push the envelope, to be the pit bull who got rail built in a city full of skeptics, in the face of open anti-rail hostility from Congress members.

In this case, though, Wilson seems to have crossed the line from aggressiveness to hubris.

His arrogant style, marked by his disregard for transparency at Metro and lack of concern for building public trust in the agency, may cost Wilson his job later this week. Let’s just hope it doesn’t cost Houston two rail lines.

METRO board agenda (Friday, May 7, 2010)
2009 Houston Tomorrow interview with Frank Wilson

(Photo credit: Houston Chronicle)

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