His base pay will be $298,000, but he has eligibility for up to "$337,000 when all compensation is taken into account." We got excited hearing that last bit, thinking "maybe they'll let him take an old bus home for free or something!" But then we hear that he's getting the usual city official package of "relocation expenses, a city car, up to 25 vacation days a year and transitional housing for the first three months he is in San Francisco", so we can see that 39K in those expenses right there.
We're not the only ones raising our eyebrows at such a high salary in wake of fare increases and s**tty service (too many stories to link to! It's like Sophie's Choice!), and drivers union President Bill Sisk expressed concerns that the drivers' union was not invloved in the selection process.
But listen to this:
Ford said his first priority would be making Muni better for riders. He will be using the system to get to work every day, he said. “Clearly we have some financial challenges,” he said. “But we have a goal of developing [the system] to its maximum. It has to be safe, it has to be clean and reliable, and it has to be safe for customers.”
This sounds kind of cool, as there have been many days we've ridden the N and wished an executive from Muni were there to share our pain. We'll also note that Ford's most recent position was with
We've always been impressed with MARTA, but have ridden it precisely four times in our lives. We know that there must be some SFist readers out there with an Atlanta pedigree -- Ford's been with MARTA since 1997, have any of you ridden MARTA during his tenure there? If so, what are your thoughts? Is he worth the big bucks? Let us know in the comments!
