Search for new TransLink CEO should be delayed: Vancouver-area mayors

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Several local mayors say that TransLink should hold off on hiring a new CEO because the board will never be able to attract a good candidate while the agency is viewed as a dysfunctional mess.

They agree with the province's new minister in charge of TransLink, former Langley city mayor Peter Fassbender, who said the search should likely be put on pause. Mr. Fassbender told CBC Radio in an interview Tuesday that "the organization should pause on the CEO search because the worst thing we can do is hire a CEO while we still have some of the key functional issues to deal with." Mr. Fassbender was unavailable for further comment.

TransLink has become the favoured target of public complaints in the last few years, as critics have focused on its high management salaries and delays in rolling out its electronic farecards. That criticism reached a frenzy during the recent plebiscite on a new tax for transit funding, which was decisively defeated, with many saying they wouldn't give money to what they saw as a poorly managed organization.

Even though many mayors don't think it's poorly managed, they do say TransLink is hobbled by provincial legislation that restricts its ability to raise money and puts it under the direction of an appointed board that is politically accountable to no one.

"Right now, I can't imagine a good CEO jumping to work in that environment," said Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart. "You could raise the salary but that's not enough. Fix it and then go out to the market."

West Vancouver Mayor Michael Smith and Delta Mayor Lois Jackson echoed that sentiment, adding that the proposed salary for the future CEO also needs to be straightened out before the search is concluded.

"We have to be able to commit to rules of engagement for an incoming CEO. That's Business 101," Mr. Smith said. "No sensible person would go in there until they know what they're up against."

He and Ms. Jackson noted that the mayors were supposed to have the final say in the compensation package, under changes made to TransLink legislation last year.

But the TransLink board hired a search firm, which posted pay details in late June that included a salary, bonus and benefits similar to the previous CEO's controversial compensation package.

The TransLink board, which hasn't had a representative agree to speak to the media for months, removed previous CEO Ian Jarvis from his job just before the plebiscite voting began in March. The agency is being run by an interim CEO, former deputy minister Doug Allen, until Aug. 10.

At least one mayor disagrees with delaying the hire. District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton, the former chair of the TransLink mayors' council, said the organization needs leadership now.

"You can't leave an organization rudderless. My understanding is there are quality people who have put in their names," he said.

But Ms. Jackson said she doesn't think it matters if there's a delay. "The house is not going to fall down because it's already fallen down," she said.

All the mayors say it's going to take more than a little tweaking to fix TransLink's problems, and they say it's really up to the province to make it work.

Mr. Stewart pointed out that TransLink did have an outstanding CEO, hired from New York, for a few years. But that CEO, Tom Prendergast, quit in 2009 and went back to run the New York system because he realized he couldn't do anything when it was really the province making the rules and controlling the money, Mr. Stewart said.

Mr. Fassbender, who has been in charge of TransLink for less than a week, hasn't made it clear yet how far he is willing to go to make changes at the agency. He was the chair of the mayors' council just before becoming an MLA, at a time when the council did a study on other models of transit-agency governance that might be more workable.