Central Arkansas transit agency to hear from exec search firm

Rock Region plans selection by April

Rock Region Metro plans to have a replacement for its departed executive director identified by April, officials for the transit agency said Tuesday.

Senior officials and board members for the Pulaski County transit agency are scheduled to hold their first meeting Dec. 13 with executives of the search firm retained to find a replacement for Jarod Varner.

The search firm is Waters & Company Executive Recruitment of St. Paul, Minn., a subsidiary of Springsted Inc., also based in St. Paul but with offices in seven other states. Waters & Co. is working under a $27,500 contract.

"We're confident the Springsted team will engage in a robust recruitment and assessment process to find the right person who will continue building on the authority's achievements," Bentley Wallace, chairman of Rock Region board's personnel committee, said in a prepared statement.

The search got off to a slow start after five proposals received in October in response to a request for proposals from Rock Region didn't meet requirements. The project was rebid, and three proposals for that request qualified.

Waters & Co. received a notice to proceed earlier this month.

The Dec. 13 meeting will "trigger them getting the information they need from this group, and they'll be able to start the process and go and start to advertise and attract and do whatever they do as an executive search firm," Wallace said Tuesday after the transit agency board's monthly meeting.

He said the existing senior staff led by acting executive director Wanda Crawford, who said she won't apply for the vacancy, are well positioned to continue projects begun under Varner's watch.

They include work related to grants and construction as well as two planning studies:

• A $175,000 transit-oriented development study to look at private development in the transit agency's main hub, the River Cities Travel Center at Capitol Avenue and Cumberland Street in Little Rock.

• A $100,000 streetcar strategic planning study.

More ambitious initiatives will have to wait for a new executive director, Wallace said.

"There may be projects in the future that we hope a new executive director might take on -- expansion of the system, another at dedicated local funding, those sorts of things," he said. "We won't jump back into those conversations until a new person is in place. It just makes sense to wait until we have that person."

Varner, who was hired in 2013, resigned in August to become a regional vice president of First Transit of Cincinnati, which contracts primarily with municipalities to run their transit systems. He drew an annual salary of $140,000 at Rock Region.

Under Varner, Rock Region, formerly known as Central Arkansas Transit, adopted its new name, began the transition to a bus fleet powered by compressed natural gas rather than diesel, launched a new website and real-time arrival information system, made free Wi-Fi service available on its buses and streetcars, created a strategic planning committee and began a program to expand and improve its network of bus-stop shelters.

Notably, the campaign to create a dedicated tax devoted to transit -- a one-fourth percentage point increase in the county sales tax -- was rejected by voters in 2016.

Had the tax passed, the agency would have expanded regular bus service and put in limited bus rapid transit routes on high-traffic corridors in Little Rock.

Bus rapid transit features larger buses with platform stops that foster development and has some portion of the roadway dedicated to the buses.

The agency draws most of its operating funds from its city and county partners, which Varner has said limits what Rock Region can do to improve service.

Of its $18 million operating budget for 2018, about $13.3 million comes from the cities of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Maumelle and from Pulaski County. Of that total, Little Rock contributes the largest amount, or $9.2 million.

Metro on 11/29/2017

Upcoming Events