A sea change for SFMTA?

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s June 15 announcement that Executive Director Nathaniel Ford will leave his position June 30 has been met by nearly universal acclaim.  Of those commenting on San Francisco Chronicle’s sfgate website, many railed against both Ford’s severance package totaling $384,000 and the $300K annual salary paid to him at the time of the termination.

Most of the public wrath towards Ford arises from the eternally troubled performance of Muni, the city’s public transportation system.  Fed-up citizens voted in 1999 for a local proposition demanding that Muni increase its on-time performance to 85%.  During Ford’s five-plus-year tenure, Muni reached a high of 75% on-time delivery performance at the beginning of 2010.  Its latest on-time rate sits at just over 71%.

San Franciscans are all too aware of the administrative headaches that plague Muni managers.  A prolonged economic downturn, decrepit rail lines, long-past-their-prime vehicles and a driver force that is as likely not to show up for work as it is to do so--and to behave unprofessionally while on the job--are the operational norm for Muni.  An announcement of a June 7 press conference and rally in defense of a whistle-blowing Muni driver states that Executive Director Ford is himself “in court here and in Atlanta for sexual harassment . . . and financial malfeasance.”  Reading between the lines of MTA’s decision not to keep Ford as its Executive Director, it is easy to imagine that his personal troubles have as much to do with his departure as the agency’s public performance.

The public transgressions of Muni’s outgoing director are more than matched by SFMTA’s internal administrative wrongdoings.  News stories about the state of the agency routinely refer to “employee gripes and suggestions.”  Such reports tend to focus upon the daily, ongoing struggles between bus drivers, parking control officers and a demanding public. But there is also a longstanding internal tension within MTA that adds to employee demoralization:  MTA’s coddling of rogue employees at the expense of the overwhelming majority of its truly civil civil servants.

SFMTA recently fired a 19-year veteran parking supervisor for blowing the whistle on a fellow supervisor.   City and County government is defending him in three concurrent legal cases (two assault charges and a federal sexual harassment complaint).  This employee has also been accused of attempted ticket fixing and the illegal use of a state disabled parking placard.  Additionally, he is the subject of a restraining order secured by a subordinate whom he attacked.

Rather than provide their nominal services, MTA’s equal employment opportunity, human resources and worker's compensation offices are often involved instead with mitigating the financial and legal responsibility of employees who have a propensity to misbehave in reprehensible ways.  (These actions mirror the transit operators union, who defend any and every driver who is accused of betraying the public trust.)  At the Department of Parking and Traffic’s General Enforcement Division, for example, employees have suffered severe emotional breakdowns due to workplace harassment.  Such harassment can come from many directions:  administrators, directors, managers, supervisors or peers.  After years of such abuse, these employees have then had to suffer the slings of the agency’s apparatchiks, who work to deny them their legal employment rights.  Having worked at SFMTA/DPT for five years, I have first-hand knowledge of this history. 

Ford’s departure presents a golden opportunity for the City and County of San Francisco to bring the SFMTA in compliance with existing workplace law.  One of those named in news reports as a possible successor is Deputy Executive Director Carter Rohan.  Rohan is responsible for the agency’s EEO office.  If he were to be interviewed for the job, one of the questions that should be asked is “What would you do as executive director to reverse SFMTA’s support of workplace injustices?”

Any answer other than “I will make it a top priority” should not be accepted.  The San Francisco public and its civil servants deserve nothing less.


Update:  Carter Rohan has announced his resignation from SFMTA. SFMTA's Executive Board has appointed Debra Johnson as Interim Executive Director.  In her role as MTA Director responsible for the Agency's Human Resources, Labor Relations and Workers Compensation offices, Ms. Johnson signed the termination letter of whistleblower DPT Supervisor Vidalina Pubill on behalf of former director Ford.