Amid speculation that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to appoint one of his top deputies to lead the Chicago Transit Authority, three CTA board members said Wednesday that they support a national search for a new president, echoing calls made by transit advocates and signaling the mayor could face more opposition to his plans for the role.
Three of the seven members, including one appointed by the mayor, said they back the nationwide search during a sometimes heated CTA board meeting.
Johnson is rumored to be planning to appoint John Roberson, his chief operating officer, to lead the agency, a post that has been vacant since former President Dorval Carter stepped down in January after facing years of criticism. The CTA board must approve any mayoral appointment.
Board members Rosa Ortiz, Roberto Requejo and Neema Jha all indicated at the meeting that they support a nationwide search. Ortiz and Jha were appointed to the board by Gov. JB Pritzker. Requejo was appointed by Johnson.
A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
At the meeting, Ald. David Moore, 17th, made comments in support of Roberson and told board members not to be a “backbiting snake.”
Moore, who was Roberson’s boss when Roberson served as his chief of staff, spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. He praised Roberson’s capabilities and experience in various roles in government, including at the city’s Department of Aviation and in his current role as chief operating officer.
“When we had this challenging but successful Democratic convention that everybody raved about, it was John Roberson who quarterbacked that thing,” Moore said.
Moore suggested that if board members want a nationwide search they should make it policy to do so. “Get 26 members of the City Council to pass a resolution that says going forward, there’s got to be a search every time,” he said. “Don’t change the rules in the middle of the game.”
Later, Moore told board members to “work with the mayor that put you here.”
“Don’t be a backbiting snake,” he said.
Moore has previously said he believes race is a factor in the opposition to Roberson. He argued that Black candidates for top city jobs have to be “not one, not two, but three times better.”
“Why do I have to do a whole search when I got a qualified person?” he asked in an interview with the Tribune last week. “I don’t need to waste that time. I need this person in there, getting on the ground, working, doing the job.”
Several board members made their disapproval of Moore’s unscheduled comments clear Wednesday. While discussing Moore’s comments, the three board members said they support the national search.
“No one here deserves that kind of treatment,” Ortiz said about Moore’s comments. “I am also an advocate to make sure that we have a national search so that we can find the best and brightest.”
Requejo, who was appointed to the board by the mayor, said he is “concerned” about how the appointment process has unfolded. Crain’s Chicago Business previously reported that Requejo echoed calls for a thorough search internally.
“I’m very concerned about this either/or, us versus them, zero sum game that has taken this city nowhere,” Requejo said Wednesday. “I do support a national search, but more important than that, I support a process where we are partnering and collaborating with the mayor’s office, with the governor’s office, to get us the best possible candidate to be the next president.”
The mayor told Block Club Chicago Monday that his office has already completed a nationwide search for the next president, although it was not clear exactly what that search entailed. The Tribune previously reported that the mayor’s office quietly conducted such a search and that state Rep. Kam Buckner was offered the top job but turned it down.
“We were always in the process of finding someone,” Johnson told Block Club this week. “It looked like any other national search.”
The board members’ call for a nationwide search echo those made by transit advocates and some aldermen. The appointment process is unfolding as the agency faces a still-unresolved fiscal cliff and uncertainty regarding the structure of its governance, which state legislators are debating in Springfield.
Suspecting Roberson’s appointment was imminent last month, a coalition of top transit advocacy groups across the city released a statement calling for a nationwide search and greater transparency in the appointment process.
The group demanded an appointee with experience running a transit agency and said the mayor should make the pick after the 2025 spring General Assembly session, at which they hope the CTA’s financial future will be addressed.
At a hastily scheduled special board meeting Thursday, transit riders and advocates again pleaded for the CTA board to conduct a thorough search for a new president with transit experience. Kyle Lucas, executive director of Better Streets Chicago — one of the advocacy groups that has called for a nationwide search — urged the board to “resist any process shrouded in secrecy and hurriedness.”
The board took no action after last week’s meeting, meeting in closed session for about an hour before adjourning.
In an interview last week, Ald. Daniel La Spata, chair of the City Council’s pedestrian safety committee, told the Tribune he wants a nationwide search.
“Anyone that I’ve talked to demands leadership that has transit experience, transit vision and transit passion,” he said. “That’s what they want, and they want to see that leader come out of a comprehensive nationwide search.”
La Spata, 1st, added that while Roberson has long been involved in government, he does not seem to have that transit-specific experience. A group of 12 aldermen, including La Spata, called on Johnson to conduct a nationwide search in a letter published last Wednesday.
“After years of falling standards, we owe it to Chicagoans to find the right person who has the expertise, vision, and heart to meet this current moment,” the letter said.
