It is the elected officials from almost all of the cities in the Phoenix Metro area that watched Valley Metro CEO Stephen Banta rip off the taxpayers and did nothing.
That includes all the members of the Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Glendale, Peoria, Gilbert, Chandler, Peoria, Tempe and other city councils.
And of course all the members of city councils that Stephen Banta took to expensive dinners paid for with our tax dollars.
Our View: Banta’s problem? He thought he deserved it
Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 7:52 a.m. MST December 8, 2015
Editorial: It doesn’t matter that embattled Valley Metro CEO Stephen Banta was paid well. What matters is his betrayal.
Frankly, we don’t care that Stephen Banta earned a handsome living running Valley Metro.
We don’t care that he enjoyed bonuses and other perks.
We don’t care that he was highly prized for his gilded resume when he took over Maricopa County’s transit system in late 2009.
No, we care about his betrayal.
We care that he broke faith with the people who hired him and the people he served. And as we watch as he stumbles through a scandal of his own making, it’s easy to understand what made it all happen.
Hubris.
Not just any sort of hubris, but a high-toned, rarefied self-regard that believes one worthy of all the better things — the elegant hotels, the starched linen, the fine wine and filet mignon — all when one is on the clock.
Now comes word that Banta and his wife may have been taking advantage of the generous leeway granted by Valley Metro overseers to travel to and from Portland, where they were trying to sell their old home.
That travel extended well beyond 2010 into the summer of 2012, as Banta and his wife, Ellen, charged Valley Metro at least $15,347 for 44 round-trip airfares between Phoenix and Portland.
Expense reports also reveal the Bantas charged Valley Metro $3,541 to rent vehicles 13 times when they returned to Portland.
David Leibowitz, Banta’s personal spokesman and the guy you hire to manage dumpster fires, said Banta told the Valley Metro board he was having trouble selling his home in Portland and requested and got board approval to continue traveling to Oregon.
“This was not a secret,” Leibowitz said. “When he incurred an expense, he reported it.”
But news of these expenses raised the eyebrows of Tom Simplot, the former Phoenix city councilman, who was then transit board chairman.
“I know there was a lot of leniency built into his transition to move to Phoenix,” Simplot said. “But the multi-thousand-dollar question is: How long was that supposed to go?”
News of the prolonged travel to Portland follows on the heels of earlier reports by The Republic’s Craig Harris that Banta had grown accustomed to flying first class, luxuriating in fine hotels and buying alcohol for himself and guests at restaurants while running the transit system.
And on at least 10 occasions, Banta was reimbursed for dinners that the people he claimed to have entertained on behalf of Valley Metro say they did not attend, Harris reported.
Before Harris’ story could go to press, Banta suddenly resigned. And it was obvious the looming newspaper expose provoked his resignation, said Phoenix Councilwoman Thelda Williams: “Absolutely, it had to do with the story.”
Banta released a statement that he was leaving Valley Metro in January to “pursue other and unique challenges in the transit industry,” not that he was beating a path from other and unique charges that he behaved badly.
Perhaps to demonstrate that hubris knows no bounds, he sought to rescind his resignation. Had he been successful — he was not — he might have gotten even more money from Valley Metro. His contract, a bottomless well of generosity, stipulated that if fired, he would receive a cushy severance package.
It’s our guess that Banta probably believes the rubes in Arizona don’t understand what it takes to run a world-class transit system.
So be it.
We do recognize hubris, and we know when it has run completely off the rails.