By Mike Lindblom / The Seattle Times
A week after Sound Transit’s governing board approved a $375,000 payout to departing CEO Julie Timm, the agency last Friday was still keeping the full document from public view.
Timm, who said she’s leaving after 16 months to care for her ailing father back East, is to be paid the year’s salary, while agreeing to provide on-call services in 2024.
The Dec. 15 board decision, referred to by Sound Transit board members as both a mutual agreement and a severance package, has raised questions about whether Timm is leaving voluntarily or if she was coaxed out. The agency also didn’t publish the full “transition services agreement,” mentioned in the single-page board motion approving her severance, or provide the agreement on request.
As some details remain undisclosed, board Vice Chair Dave Somers said in an interview last week that some board members were frustrated with Timm’s performance.
“There were differences between the board and Julie in how to structure the agency,” Somers said, though he said Timm’s family needs are the main factor. “I believe you take all these issues together, and she decided the best path forward for her, professionally and her family.”
“She was not terminated. She chose to leave,” said Somers, who is also the Snohomish County executive.
Somers participated earlier this month in a closed-door annual performance review, which will not be completed, he said. That came on the heels of an unflattering report by outside experts, who said Sound Transit staff weren’t moving quickly enough to cut red tape and hire new executives to ride herd over a dozen future rail and bus projects, mostly being delivered late, and with roughly $4 billion a year in capital spending ahead.
Timm’s departure was by “mutual agreement,” said the Dec. 15 board motion, which gave her last day as Jan. 12. Timm is taking previously planned holiday vacation, and didn’t reply to a follow-up interview request Thursday. In a previous interview she described how family needs prompted her departure.
A Sound Transit spokesperson said early last week that the “transition services agreement” would be released later, in the course of fulfilling a Seattle Times public-documents request for that and other recent board-CEO communications. The disclosure staff estimated it would take four to five weeks.
The transit board’s decision — which came in a 16-0 voice vote as members praised Timm’s attention to riders — appears to be part reward, part investment in a smoother transition, and partly a reach for political tranquility.
Somers said the rapid board approval and full-year payout were prudent decisions. CEOs sign a non-disparagement clause anyway, but a generous agreement helps, he said.
“The board thought it was worth it, to keep things positive,” Somers said. “That’s my take on it, and it’s important that we try to keep the ship going as smoothly as possible.”
Timm has led the giant regional agency since September 2022, after moving to Seattle from the transit authority in Richmond, Virginia, whose bus network is comparable in size to Community Transit in Everett.
She earned respect for her focus on cleaning downtown stations and helping improve old escalators to 88% reliability. At the behest of board member Claudia Balducci of Bellevue, Timm wasted no time to prepare a Bellevue-Redmond starter line with eight light rail stations to open in spring 2024, before the full East Link route across Lake Washington is ready in 2025.
Here are three takeaways from Timm’s exit:
Drama awaits in 2024
The board will create a transition team, and meet with agency staff, who number approximately 1,600, according to a statement issued by Chair Dow Constantine, who is King County Executive.
Constantine declined to be interviewed about Timm’s departure and next steps. Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier, who has said in open session the transit agency is reforming too slowly, didn’t reply to an interview request for this story.
Board members will soon choose an acting CEO, said Somers. He said Constantine is talking about this with Brooke Belman, a longtime staffer who rose to deputy CEO and served as interim CEO in mid-2022.
Stephen Page, a University of Washington public policy professor, said he can understand a board seeking to retain and compensate Timm during the transition.
“Julie Timm clearly brought some strengths. I could see why you would want to have someone around to keep those customer-service priorities in front of the agency,” Page said.
Somers says unlike most separations, Timm will be a “very close consultant” to her successor. With the Northgate-Lynnwood light rail extension due in fall 2024, there’s no room for hiccups, he said. Timm is obligated to provide “monthly consultations upon request” to the board or CEO, according to the Dec. 15 motion.
Previously, Vice Chair Kent Keel, of University Place in Pierce County, said Timm would have survived the performance review, if she chose to stay. Her contract prescribed a 3.5% yearly raise, plus a potential merit raise of $3,750 to $18,750.
Leadership is expensive
Even before Timm was hired, the board struggled with a $6.5 billion shortfall as cost estimates spiked for future lines to Ballard, Tacoma and elsewhere, while near-term connections to Federal Way and across Lake Washington faced construction delays.
For guidance, Sound Transit is paying a total of $2 million in 2023 and 2024 for an eight-member Technical Advisory Group, led by former Bay Area Rapid Transit general manager (and former Seattle transportation director) Grace Crunican. She declined an interview request about the CEO change.
Recruiting is underway for a world-class, highly paid mega capital project delivery officer, with experience guiding multiple rail projects. The Technical Advisory Group called that role an emergency need in March. Group member Ken Johnsen aired the group’s frustration that Sound Transit staff were moving too slowly. The agency took until September to sign a recruiting firm for $600,000. The high-profile capital executive (the advisory group in March recommended three) is likely to arrive a year late, and then insist on significant changes, Johnsen said.
A few months before previous Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff departed, the agency entered a $200,000 contract for the national search that found Timm.
Larry Penner, a retired Federal Transit Administration executive in New York and now a columnist for Mass Transit magazine, suggests Sound Transit promote someone internally with local expertise in train operations, finance, construction and politics, to shorten the learning curve.
“I think it’s a tremendous waste of money to have a search firm to find somebody from the outside, when that money could be better spent in operations,” he said. Penner praised the Long Island Railroad, which hauls 260,000 daily riders, for choosing new interim President Robert Free, whose career began in station maintenance.
Somers said internal applicants will be considered, but the 30-year-old agency could need a fresh set of eyes. The board is certain to hire a talent-search firm again, he said, to allow national and worldwide reach.
“The complexity of this job is extreme because of many missions they have to carry out,” said Page, who has researched past leadership phases at Sound Transit. “The number of experienced, deeply qualified candidates is fairly small.”
Before Timm, the board approved a year’s severance pay worth over $379,000 to Rogoff, who was CEO from January 2016 to May 2022, based on contract language requiring the payout if the board decides to remove a CEO early.
At the time, most members praised him but some, in particular Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, faulted Rogoff for not reporting bad news about rising costs soon enough. Under board rules, a two-thirds supermajority of its 18 members was required to extend the CEO’s contract.
British Columbia TransLink did not provide extra salary or transition duties to CEO Kevin Desmond, when he resigned on positive terms Feb. 5, 2021. (His 2020 pay was $519,861 Canadian.)
Penner said he’s never heard of a departing CEO getting a full-year pay.
“That’s not a good way for transit agencies to convince elected officials, taxpayers and riders about the benefit of voting for transit projects,” Penner said.
The board’s not directly accountable
For anyone dissatisfied with the CEO payout, or other topics like route decisions, project delays or personal safety — or for people happy with Sound Transit’s 2021 Northgate line — there’s no recourse through board elections. Most are appointees.
The only direct referendum happens when voters face transit tax measures, such as ST3 in 2016, which won 54% of a combined three-county vote, or the winning campaigns of 1996 and 2008.
The next recourse would be county executive elections for King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Each holds an automatic board seat by statute and they appoint 14 other board members (the 18th being Washington’s state transportation secretary) from the ranks of city and county elected leaders. Sound Transit is just one job on their plates, and a topic rarely highlighted by campaign challengers.
Sound Transit officials constantly hear public feedback via board meetings, neighborhood forums, nonprofits, lobbyists and business coalitions.
The last two CEO searches were so secretive the board named only the winning applicant. Not even the finalists were revealed, except to about four dozen “stakeholders” from transit agencies, business groups and nonprofits who signed confidentiality agreements to participate in online interviews.
Somers said the board hasn’t decided yet whether to repeat the same method, but he believes exposure would discourage some CEO candidates, fearing reprisals at their existing jobs.
George Erb, secretary of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said these closed searches, though legal, shut out valuable information from whistleblowers, neighborhoods and the public. Even with stakeholder talks, “it’s still an exclusive process where Sound Transit is choosing the people it hears from,” he said.
Page, the UW professor, said the transition provides an opportunity to restore confidence in the direction of the agency.
He said the CEO must be solid in all three main areas: capital projects, operating a complex rail network and customer service.
“Improving customer experience without maintaining capital equipment is a fool’s errand,” he said. “We’ve got more fare ambassadors but we don’t actually have a train that runs without frequent maintenance delays.”
On that note, a long-planned replacement of worn-out tracks near Westlake Station will crimp downtown service to every 30 minutes, and irritate passengers, for three weeks starting Jan. 13. Fortunately for Timm, her tenure ends the day before.
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