Metrolink chief, under pressure since Chatsworth crash, could be moved aside

The head of Metrolink could be moved aside and a new, interim chief executive named to run Southern California’s regional commuter rail service as early as Friday, The Times has learned.
 
The agency’s board has scheduled a special, closed-door session to discuss CEO David R. Solow’s position, as well as a new management job being created to oversee a major safety improvement project, records and interviews show.

Details of the potential shake-up remained under wraps, and the board still must take action to proceed.

But it appeared from records and interviews that the new position, reporting to both the new CEO and the board, would be filled by Solow, who has been under intense pressure since last year’s deadly Chatsworth collision.

The Times reported last month that Solow’s future leadership role with the five-county rail service, which carries about 1 million boarders per month, had come into question.

At least one high-profile board member, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said he had lost confidence in Solow’s ability to provide the leadership needed, given the array of financial and safety challenges confronting the agency.

Other board members said Solow at times appeared overloaded by the demands of the job, which intensified substantially after last year’s head-on collision that left 25 people dead and 135 injured.

Some board members also expressed frustration last month over Metrolink management’s handling of a proposed fare increase, coming just three months after the last ticket price hike in a region battered by recession.

A Metrolink spokeswoman said Solow would not comment on the closed-door session or possible management changes.

The new executive job — listed on the agenda as “Advisor: Interagency Initiatives” — appears designed to maximize what some board members have said are Solow’s strengths.

“He’s a great technical person,” said board member Art Brown.

While declining to discuss Solow’s status, Brown noted the new position would be responsible, among other things, for overseeing deployment of a pioneering $200-million collision avoidance system, known as positive train control. Such a braking system could have prevented the Chatsworth crash, officials have said.

Metrolink has committed to an ambitious schedule to have the system up and running in 2012, years before a groundbreaking federal law last year required it for the rest of the nation. “Because PTC is such a priority, they want someone knowledgeable in that position,” he said.

If the changes are made, the board is expected to name a temporary chief executive and begin a search for a permanent replacement.

-- Rich Connell

Photo: Glenn Koenig. Credit: Los Angeles Times

More breaking news in L.A. Now:

Authorities say fatal shooting of renowned attorney was a homicide

Testing L.A.’s magnet schools: Are you satisfied?

Democrats expected to tap John Perez as next Assembly speaker today

Roman Polanski asks California appeals court to dismiss child sex case

Lobbyists’ gifts to state officials’ families must now be disclosed

Comments

[ferenc]

could be moved aside?doen't anyone in the us government have any GONADS anymore?it's ok, let the poor ah keep his job. one less unemployed, looks good on paper.

[Brian]

I thought Metrolink was not generating enough revenue to offset its current expenses? That was the argument behind their last attempt to raise fares. Now they want to establish a new high paid management position? I highly doubt Mr. Sokow will be taking a pay decrease to fill this new role. Did Metrolink try and pull a fast one on riders to fund this new position? Sure seems like it. It sounds like the board needs to be shown the door, right behind Mr. Sokow.

[RAW]

And that's how that goes: high paid CEOs paid w/ taxpayer funds aren't ousted. They are moved laterally, into a newly created, highly paid position with half the responsibility. Continue that and you get to what most government entities morph into: huge, sprawling organizations that employ hundreds of highly paid people with very little to do. Because everytime you can't fire someone, you create a new job with less to do...
If only taxpayers finally would have a say: get a clue and learn to fire incompetent execs or those that just don't fit the job description. Corporate governance for taxpayer funded entities: it remains a dream...

[Evangeline Shaw]

David Solow is the jerk who refuses to install seat belts in the trains. Southern California has now been through four major Metrolink crashes (Placentia, Burbank, Glendale & Chatsworth) with major physical injuries to passengers, let alone multiple deaths.

Safety engineers and crash reconstruction engineers insist that these passengers would not have been so terribly, permanently injured if Metrolink had installed seat belts in the train cars.

However Solow won't listen.

Solow moved heaven and earth to avoid being deposed after the Burbank crash, because, among other reasons, he didn't want to have to answer questions about his knowledge about the need for seat belts as a safety measure.

Good job Dave. More than 100 passengers have been severely injured since you ducked out on your deposition concerning passenger safety issues.

As a result, it is now unbelievable that the buffoons running Metrolink are giving him only one job: Safety.

This is just further proof that California has descended into the status of a tragic, ironic, bankrupt Banana Republic.

[James B Osborn]

No other regional commuter train system comes even close to the deadly record of Metrolink. Metrolink, under the poor leadership of David Solow and board chairman Keith Millhouse, has had a policy of always blaming its victims or dead train engineers and never, never looking inwards to see if any of its policies (or lack of) are instead to blame for its deadly record.

James Reason, stated:

"Rather than being the main instigators of an accident, operators tend to be the inheritors of system defects created by poor design, incorrect installation, faulty maintenance and bad management decisions. Their part is usually that of adding the final garnish to a lethal brew whose ingredients have already been long in the cooking."

Millhouse and Solow are bad cooks and need to go.