Innamorato revamps Pittsburgh Regional Transit board with four appointees

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato seems ready to put her stamp on public transit with four appointments to the Pittsburgh Regional Transit board to replace four members with expired terms.

Innamorato, who took office in January, on Friday morning announced the appointments, which include replacing Chairman Jeffrey Letwin, who has served on the board for more than 18 years, and John Tague, a strong advocate for riders with disabilities. The other two board members who will be replaced are Michelle Zmijanac and Ann Ogoreuc.

All of the outgoing board members had terms that expired in September, but they remained on the board until Innamorato took office.

Two of the appointees, attorneys Tia McClenney, who replaces Letwin, and Emma Shoucair, who takes Zmijanac’s seat, are direct appointments whose terms begin immediately. The appointments of Bobbie Fan, a member of Pittsburghers for Public Transit who replaces Ogoreuc, and retired attorney Tom Burgunder, who replaces Tague, must be approved by Allegheny County Council.

The board holds committee meetings June 20 and a board meeting June 28, when a new chair likely will be named. Innamorato couldn’t be reached for comment on the changes.

McClenney is an associate at Reed Smith, where she advises Fortune 500 companies as part of the firm’s Global Complex Commercial Disputes Practice Group. Shoucair specializes in election law and serves as the anti-gerrymandering political lead for RepresentUs, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan nonprofit organization focused on ending political corruption in the United States.”

Fan is a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human Computer Interaction Institute. She also serves as the data justice project director at Urbankind’s Black Equity Coalition and chairs the research committee at Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Burgunder, who is visually impaired, serves as president of Golden Triangle Council of the Blind and has been involved in advising PRT through the Committee for Accessible Transportation, particularly with the upcoming upgrade to the Belasco light rail stop in Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighborhood.

In an interview, Burgunder said he was a longtime bus rider before he moved to Mt. Lebanon six years ago and now relies more on the light rail system. Filling Tague’s advocacy role will be a challenge, he said.

“Obviously, I’m going to have to grow into those shoes,” he said. “Certainly as an attorney, my training leads me to ask questions, and I will ask a lot of them.”

Burgunder said the major issues facing the transit agency are capital projects such as improvements scheduled over the next five years on the light rail system and the installation of the Bus Rapid Transit system between Oakland and Downtown Pittsburgh that started last fall. He also cited the “crying need” for additional employees, not just vehicle operators but also maintenance and other personnel, to keep the system operating without missed trips.

Letwin said he’s proud of his tenure on the board, beginning under former County Executive Dan Onorato and continuing through the terms of Rich Fitzgerald. He was involved with the extension of the light rail system through the North Shore Connector from Downtown Pittsburgh to the North Side, the financial difficulties created by state funding shortfalls 15 years ago, and as chairman for the hiring of CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman and a revamped leadership team that has bold plans for the future.

Letwin said he doesn’t want to leave the board after years of learning how public transit works, but he said it is “important for [Innamorato] to have her people in place.” He noted that no other county boards have term limits, something put in place more than a decade ago when the state Legislature had concerns about oversight at the agency.

“I didn’t want to see my term end,” he said. “I got caught in the crossfire. I knew nothing about public transit when I was appointed, but I think I learned a lot and I’m still available if there is any way I can help.”