Metro board members from Maryland signified their intention Thursday to oppose a proposed restructuring of the agency’s governing panel if substantial changes are not made, potentially thwarting a months-long effort to streamline the agency’s governance.
The proposed changes would shrink the number of board subcommittees from seven to four, potentially lengthen the terms of the current chair and vice chair by realigning the election calendar, and potentially allot increased responsibility to nonvoting members by allowing them to serve on an executive committee. It would also eliminate the position of second vice chair. Goldman stands to lose his post as chair of the panel’s finance committee if accompanying officer assignments are approved.
A testy exchange between Price and Goldman illustrated the tension over the restructuring proposals as they came up for a preliminary vote Thursday. Goldman, who is not on the governance committee, attempted to present a list of amendments to the proposed restructuring when he was abruptly cut off.
“As the chair I would ask that you hold that for the full board meeting,” Price said.
Goldman attempted once more to lay out his proposed amendments.
“As a member of the board I would like to, as a matter of personal privilege, state which amendments I will be making to my colleagues on the board,” he said. “Now unless you wanna shut down the discussion, Mr. Chair, I would appreciate the opportunity to go forward as a matter of personal privilege.”
Price seized on the opening.
“Yes, I’m going to shut down the discussion.”
In an email to reporters after the meeting, Goldman said he was prepared to offer the following four amendments:
1) Restore the position of Second Vice-Chair2) Provide that the Exec Committee must include at least one voting Director from DC, MD, VA and Feds.3) Provide that the 4 standing committees must be chaired such that members from DC, MD, VA and Feds chair each of the 4 committees; Each Compact jurisdiction with voting members has a committee chair.4) Provide that as a general rule each standing committee is chaired by a voting Director.
The restructuring was developed in private conversations and unveiled in board documents released Monday. Under the new structure, four committees would inherit the responsibilities of the seven current Metro board committees: Finance and Budget; Safety and Service Delivery; Business Oversight; and Capital and Strategic Planning.
The four subcommittee heads would form an executive committee responsible for overseeing the board’s ethics and tasked with responsibilities such as recommending candidates for general manager and inspector general, and conducting performance reviews of top officials.
Goldman believes the proposed changes give too much power to nonvoting members on the Metro board, in defiance of the compact governing the transit agency, he said. Metro’s board consists of eight voting and eight alternate members who represent D.C., Maryland, Virginia and the federal government.
Goldman outlined his concerns with the proposal in an email to board chairman Jack Evans that sought to delay Thursday’s vote, though the measure eventually advanced out of committee by a 2-1 vote — with one committee member absent.
“I would encourage the Governance Committee to defer action on these changes this month to allow the Jurisdictions time to review them and consider their implications for the operation of the Board and whether consistent with their view of governance under Compact,” Goldman wrote. “With their comments in hand, we can consider the changes in September. If the Committee approves them in the current form, I will have to vote against the Bylaw changes at the board meeting.”
While Goldman’s qualms with the proposal centered on the potential power structure, Harley said she was worried local leaders didn’t have enough time to digest the changes themselves.
“I think that the spirit of the changes to the bylaws … is coming from a good place,” she said. “However, I feel that the implementation of the spirit is something that I cannot support. I believe that the process of the implementation was not something that really took into account a full breadth of conversation with all of the jurisdictions and how they might be affected by some of these changes and as such I cannot stand behind the proposal.”
Evans fired back against that notion in comments after the board meeting Thursday, arguing board members have had three months to shape the proposal and were responsible for keeping leaders in their jurisdictions informed about it. Though the specifics became public Monday, the restructuring was the product of a series of discussions beginning with an April board retreat, and including recommendations from a recent Boston Consulting Group report to the board. Board members shouldn’t have been caught off guard by the measure coming up for a vote now, he said.
“In any organization I have ever chaired, there’s always those who want to delay,” Evans said. “There’s always y. So what I’m trying to do is to keep us moving forward to meet the deadline that we self-imposed back at the retreat.”
The proposed changes could also extend Evans’s terms from a year to 18 months by realigning board elections to match the agency’s fiscal calendar; Evans says the board is free, however, to elect someone else to serve the six-month term from January to July, when the new officer elections would take place.
“I serve at the pleasure of the board,” he said.
Evans declined to say Thursday what concessions he would consider making to avoid the prospect of a jurisdictional veto in two weeks. The full board expected to consider the measure when it meets July 27.