(The Free Lance Star posted the following story on its website on October 4.)
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — The top man at Virginia Railway Express has resigned following an investigation into claims of mismanagement.
A VRE spokesman says Pete Sklannik Jr. resigned last night during a meeting of the two commissions that run the railroad.
He’s been on a leave of absence since early August, when unspecified allegations of mismanagement were first made. An outside auditor had been looking into the claims ever since.
VRE spokesman Mark Roeber said he had not seen the auditor’s report and did not know what was in it. The Washington Post quotes sources familiar with the report as saying it found examples of excessive spending by Sklannik.
Roeber said VRE attorney Steve MacIsaac told him there were no criminal findings.
“He said Pete apparently had been talking to the [VRE Operations] Board and had offered up a letter of resignation to bring this thing to closure,” Roeber said. “Apparently there was no special payout.”
Sklannik did not return a call last night.
MacIsaac, attorney for both VRE and Arlington County, told The Free Lance-Star last month that he agreed to head up the investigation after members of the Potomac and Rappahannock and the Northern Virginia transportation commissions asked him to.
The commissions, which operate VRE jointly, had “received complaints from different sources,” MacIsaac said.
“They said, ‘Yeah, just look into these,'” he said.
MacIsaac could not be reached for comment yesterday. He hired former Arlington County Manager Anton S. Gardner–at a rate of $1,900 a day–to assist him in the investigation.
Gardner serves on the staff of the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service and Institute of Government and is considered knowledgeable in urban and financial policy. It was unclear last night what the audit cost.
Fairfax County Supervisor Sharon Bulova, who chairs the VRE Operations Board, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.
But The Washington Post Web site quotes Bulova as saying Sklannik’s resignation was accepted, and there was no financial payout.
Sklannik was hired to take over the VRE in July 2000.
For the decade prior to that, he had worked for the Metropolitan Transit Authority on Long Island.
When Sklannik arrived, VRE was carrying about 9,400 riders a day on its Fredericksburg and Manassas lines. That number has ballooned to more than 14,000 now.
In addition to adding double-decker cars to the trains to handle the increased ridership, Sklannik battled often with track-owner CSX for permission to add more trains to the commuter schedule.
Passengers surveyed last October gave VRE an 89 percent overall approval rating.
Sklannik’s resignation should not have any effect on passenger services, Roeber said.
“VRE’s just committed to continuing to do its job,” he said.