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Two bits of free advice for everyone who doesn’t work for Tri-Rail: If you don’t want to quit, don’t tell your employer you want to quit and, if you want to keep your job, don’t hide critical information from your employer for years.
The above may also apply if you work for Palm Beach County Commissioner Maria Marino. At Marino’s first Tri-Rail Board meeting as Chairwoman, she rejected Steven Abrams’ resignation because he offered it after getting emotional and not being able to handle the pressure. I wonder how that would have played out for a female executive in today’s business world?
Marino also absolved Abrams of wrongdoing for covering up problems with the $70 million Miami Central project for the past three years because the problem started before, he was Executive Director.
Unfortunately, Miami Central may not be Tri-Rail’s only cover-up. Commissioner Raquel Regalado has ordered an investigation into Tri-Rail and announced some of her early findings at Friday’s Board meeting. Abrams cried foul. Apparently, not because the failures staff are covering up aren’t true but because an ex-employee must have been the source. It seems if you work for Steven Abrams, Teresa Moore, or Diane Hernandez Del Calvo, you are required to cover up failures and, if you become an ex-employee, you are expected to forget all the problems you know about.
In the end, Tri-Rail’s Board decided to let Abrams go. However, they failed to appoint an interim Executive Director and decided to keep Abrams on for another six months during the search for a replacement. The good news is Tri-Rail’s Board realized Diane Hernandez Del Calvo doesn’t have the experience to fill in as interim. The bad news is that the taxpayers of South Florida, can expect six more months of delays, cover-ups, and wasted funds to pay for a lame-duck Executive Director.
For an agency whose only job it is to run trains, it’s clear the leadership team of Abrams, Moore, and Del Calvo know nothing about the business of operating a train service. The best endorsement of Abrams’s knowledge of trains is that he rides the train on a regular basis. At least that makes him more qualified than Moore and Del Calvo as they don’t even do that.
Hopefully, as Commissioner Regalado’s investigation proceeds, the Board of Directors will soon realize that Teresa Moore and Diane Hernandez Del Calvo, are just as complicit in Tri-Rail’s many failures and cover-ups as Executive Director Steven Abrams. Unfortunately for Moore and Del Calvo, they won’t be able to say the problems started before they were hired as both have been draining taxpayer’s funds to cover their Tri-Rail salaries for many years.
The decision to keep Abrams at the helm for another six months doesn’t relieve the Board of their responsibilities. If they keep buying into Abrams, Moore, and Del Calvo’s excuses, they become just as complicit in Tri-Rail’s cover-ups and they will be the next that have to go to protect the taxpayers of South Florida.
Any questions or comments reach out to me 305.323.8206 or email grant@cnews.net
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