So Ron Tober is going to retire.
This is clearly related to saving the half-cent transit tax. We saw this one coming months ago as well. The Uptown crowd very much wants Charlotte’s transit future to be about personalities and not issues. Hence the idea of tossing Tober under a bus in order to deflect public upset over CATS and its $9 billion transit plan.
Of course no one is going to admit that, least of all Tober. But recall that Tober already offered to resign last fall, ostensibly over the cost overruns in the South Blvd. light rail line. Pam Syfert grandly refused that gesture. Syfert would assume greatly responsibility for the project, we were told.
Now let’s look at what has transpired. Syfert is gone, Tober is going. Were this just a PR problem with some bad name ID then we might have some meaningful change. This is just a different marketing phase, however.
Just as Pete Gorman was brought in to give CMS a new face while continuing — to this point — to do what CMS has always done, so Tober is being shuffled off in order to give CATS a new public face.
And so CATS can continue to do what it has always done.
Tober was not the problem, so it follows that getting rid of Ron Tober is not the solution.
We need a new plan.
Bonus Observation: Tober today took a page out of Mayor Pat’s playbook by decrying how “vicious” criticism of him had become. I’ll double back and find some of Tober’s sneeringly dismissive comments of critics of CATS shortly, but Tober had ample opportunity to meet his critics half-way and declined to do so.
Update: Looking for a Tober replacement? Look no further than assistant city manager Keith Parker. Parker was a deputy director of CATS from 2000 to 2004. One of Parker’s chief doings was the $9 million trolley that turned into a $40 million trolley that no longer runs.
Perfect.
