Too Cozy by Half? Constantine’s New Sound Transit Job Smacks of Classic Cronyism

The Seattle Times this week reported that Sound Transit’s Board of Directors plans to appoint King County Dow Constantine as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of our region’s critically important light rail-bus service agency. The report by transportation reporter Mike Lindblom, however, did not include one significant detail that powered this choice.

Constantine is a member of the board that will make the appointment. The four-term county executive has himself appointed some of the members that will vote to place Constantine in the job. Claudia Balducci, a member of the King County Council, whom Constantine named to the Sound Transit Board, enthusiastically praised Constantine. She noted rightly that he is local and very familiar with the challenges confronting the agency.

Balducci, by the way, is a candidate to replace Constantine as King County Executive in this November’s election. Constantine has announced he will not run for a fifth term. No, he is now running instead for this new job at Sound Transit.

There is a case for replacing the outgoing CEO with someone well versed in the financial and operational troubles plaguing Sound Transit. There is also a case for bringing in an experienced transit executive who would bring a fresh, independent look at how best to fix ST’s problems.

The board rejected that approach. As Balducci told The Times, an outsider would need time to become familiar with Sound Transit’s problems. This could slow down the work necessary to right the Sound Transit ship. Constantine, Balducci suggested, will step right in and keep matters moving.

OK. But in which direction? Former Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff told Lindblom: “If you ask me what’s the most important for the new CEO, it’s imperative to posture the agency so they can come clean with riders, taxpayers, and voters, as to how far underwater the entire capital program is currently.”

Therein lies the unmentioned advantage to seating the local Constantine in the CEO’s chair. Himself a member of the board that is supposed to watchdog Sound Transit finances and operations, Constantine will be perfectly positioned to cover for — that is to protect — board members from criticism, from exposure of its failures (his included) to keep the agency out of trouble. So, this hidden benefit plays much less to the public interest than to the politicians responsible for the trains, busses, and stations now plagued with problems.

The impending appointment of Constantine is a classic American County Courthouse political maneuver. It surely is worthy of a political science case study. In the vernacular, it is one more instance of “You scratch my back. I’ll scratch yours.”

The Sound Transit Board, Lindblom reported, conducted its executive search behind closed doors, refusing to name the four other finalist candidates. So we Sound Transit riders and taxpayers do not know who might have been a better choice. Balducci and her fellow ST Board members prefer their colleague Constantine.

All this reminds one of the comment by Inspector Renault in the 1943 classic movie Casablanca. When Renault is handed the bills for his food and drinks at Rick’s Café, he smiles, looks into the camera and says: “They give me the bills. I tear up the bills. It is very convenient.”