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High-Level Personnel Changes At Metro
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Scott has been criticized by some Metro directors for failing to aggressively manage health care costs and for allowing the job vacancy rate to climb to a level that has led to high overtime costs. That made it possible for more than 150 unionized workers to earn more than $100,000 last year.
Scott did not return calls to his home and cellphone placed through a Metro spokeswoman.
Salpeas was one of White's handpicked allies; the two worked together at the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in San Francisco. Last year, White expanded Salpeas's portfolio, making him Metro's most powerful senior manager.
"I completely understand that the general manager has to have his own vision for the agency," Salpeas said yesterday. He added that he was "personally satisfied" with the decision and looking forward to taking more than two weeks' vacation with his wife for the first time in his career.
Soon after he joined Metro in 1998, Salpeas brought on part-time consultant Wayman H. "Ray" Lytle, whom he knew from BART. Salpeas gave Lytle a sole-source contract of $100,000 that ballooned to more than $333,065 after 14 months. The Federal Transit Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation criticized Metro for hiring Lytle, and White terminated the contract.
Three years later, Metro paid more than $100,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim in 2001 filed against Salpeas by a woman in his department.
Last year, Salpeas told the Metro board that he had found a technological fix to reduce the growing problem of trains overrunning station platforms. Metro had been told by the FTA and the National Transportation Safety Board that it needed to fix the problem. Salpeas promised a significant reduction by last Christmas.
The problem got worse: Trains overran stations 688 times last year, up from 583 overruns logged in 2004 and more than double the 322 overruns in 1996, when the FTA first told Metro to fix the problem. Salpeas said he had misspoken and the overruns would not be fixed until this Christmas.
