Take the secrecy out of hiring of Sound Transit CEO

The Sound Transit board of directors will soon announce the name of a new CEO to lead the public agency with its $4-billion budget.

When the announcement is made, that person likely would have been hired hours or even days before the public will get to know who it is.

To add insult to injury, the public has also been shut out of any vetting process, including being able at least to participate or watch interviews conducted by Sound Transit board members. Not even the five finalists are being made public. That’s unacceptable.

Such process needs to change, and if the Sound Transit board doesn’t see fit to make the change, the state Legislature should.

For now, the public can pressure the board to do better with the ballot. Most of the board members are elected officials from King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. At least two board members have announced bids to run for King County executive this year.

Voters who value transparency may be locked out of the process when it comes to Sound Transit, but they should demand each board member justify the process to their respective constituents. 

The board says state law allows for secrecy in the CEO hiring. But just because the law allows secrecy doesn’t mean there should be. In fact, Section 1-B of Sound Transit’s Code of Ethics states board members should devote their best efforts to “conducting the public’s business openly and, to the maximum extent consistent with existing law, resolving doubtful cases in favor of public access.”

The operative word is “public,” a word the Sound Transit board, along with the boards of regents at the University of Washington and Washington State University, clearly don’t value. The universities also recently hired new presidents with the same cloak over the process.

 Like UW and WSU, Sound Transit claims that shielding job candidates from the public helps assure the best qualified candidates are among the potential hires. But the secrecy doesn’t stop after the CEO is announced. The four other finalists for the job that pays up to $675,000 will remain a mystery so that the public can’t compare qualifications with the winner. So much for board accountability. 

King County Executive Dow Constantine is among the five finalists for the CEO job. As county executive, he has grown in power and influence, including as a member of the board for Sound Transit. In fact, Constantine, who has recused himself from the process, has appointed 10 of the 18 Sound Transit board members who will vote on his application; that’s 10 board members with obvious conflicts of interest. 

Sound Transit is in the throes of a major rail expansion, a combination of projects for which the agency turned to the public for approval.

Now it’s time for Sound Transit to trust the public and adhere to its own code of ethics that further states: “It is recognized that high moral and ethical standards among public officials and employees are essential to the conduct of government.”