My favorite defense however comes from "New Metro" President and CEO George Greanias, as related to us in this article from ChronBlog's Mike Snyder...
(Sunny outlook reverses at Metro, Mike Snyder, ChronBlog)
George Greanias, Metro's acting president and chief executive officer, said Metro remains financially healthy compared to other major transit systems. More than 80 percent of the nation's transit agencies are cutting service, raising fares or both, and seven out of 10 are projecting budget shortfalls, the American Public Transit Association reported in March.
That's sort of like saying you're in good shape because the Dr. has said you have 12 months to live while the other patients have been told they have 6 months remaining.
"Better than the other guy" doesn't mean much when the other guy is on life support.
Until Metro takes this problem seriously it's not going to go away. So far I've yet to see the leadership necessary from the "New Metro" board that convinces me they have the visionaries steering the ship to do so.
1 comment:
Snyder must be feeling terrible that the newspaper had no choice but to report the two-week old news about METRO's deteriorating financial condition (likely characterized as "negative" coverage by METRO's monitoring firm), given the sloppy-kiss blog post BEFORE the story appeared and AFTER the story appeared.
It sure would be nice to have a reporter on that beat who had less empathy for PR staff at METRO and more of a connection with taxpayers and transit users who depend on watchdog/critical journalists -- but that isn't really the way the Chron generally rolls on that beat.
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