Having attended Metro's Executive Management and Audit Committee meeting on the morning of 20 November, I came away with an earful about the AIG fiasco, budget problems and strange way that Metro works when it thinks folks are not listening. With the car companies preparing for their xmas gifts, one wonders if Metro and its transit brethren will get anything as well. . .
Over the next several days I will be posting excerpts from the minutes (which are not yet available on-line, but when they are can be found here).
And while all of the information to be meted out over the next ten days or so is important, the most timely one is about AIG and the leaseback deals. Metro CEO Roger Snoble and approximately 29 other transit agency CEOs were right behind the auto companies' CEOs, and in the same position: with hands extended. As we know, everyone came away empty-handed. But all that is changing for the motorcar manufacturers, and so we wonder what Roger will be doing now after having made these recent statements during the aforementioned Metro budget meeting:
"I do wanna report that, uh, I did go back to Washington, DC, on Monday and Tuesday [17-18 Nov]. I flew in C-32B, um, a totally miserable flight to Washington. Uh, we were in the same room on Tuesday as the [car] companies. Then I had this miserable flight back, although I was [unintelligible] in Seattle. . .
"We were in Washington to ask for a different kind of bailout than the auto manufacturers in that we just wanted to have a thorough government guarantee regarding these [AIG] lease deals, so that they could go forward as a [unintelligible], in the leasee's, uh, back out of this because of the technological glitch that, uh, these deals have.
"You know, we actually, uh, we actually, I think, got a better reception, maybe, than the auto companies did. I was joined by seven or eight other CEOs from other transit properties. We went up to the Hill and met with their committee staff members and some of the senators, and got a very warm reception, and, uh, found that they do have a very good grasp of our situation. We found nothing but a willingness to wanna help us. And I think some good things came out of that meeting."
-BusTard
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