A member of Metro’s board of directors, who is accused of helping former board chairman Jack Evans cover up an ethics violation, has resigned.
In a letter sent Friday to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Corbett Price said he is resigning effective immediately. He cited to an upcoming surgical procedure and personal family matters as the reasons for his resignation.
“My past level of commitment and dedication to the WMATA Board and the wonderful organization it represents cannot be sustained, so I have made the only appropriate decision,” the letter reads.
Mayor Bowser, who appointed Price to the job in 2015, reacted in a statement.
“Corbett has played a critical role in building a more stable and financially sound WMATA, a system that is able to focus their attention on safety, reliability, and capacity,” Bowser wrote.
“Going forward, there is more work to do around making Metro more transparent and accountable to the jurisdictions and residents it serves, but I am grateful for the foundation Corbett has helped lay that will allow us to do just that.”
But Price and Evans are accused of bullying Metro employees to keep quiet about the results of an investigation that found Evans broke Metro’s conflict of interest rules.
“It was a very tawdry bit of behavior that really disqualified him, I think, from continuing to serve,” Councilmember Mary Cheh told WTOP. “I’m really glad he did the right thing, because … I was fully prepared when we came back from recess to introduce a resolution to have him removed.”
A spokesperson for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan also released a statement in response to Corbett’s resignation.
“Governor Hogan was the first to call for this corruption to be rooted out of WMATA. He is not satisfied that we have gotten to the bottom of it and will continue to push for investigations and audits,” said spokesperson Michael Ricci, in the statement.
“With the billions of dollars invested, Marylanders—and the entire region — still deserve much more accountability and transparency from WMATA.”
