DiCiccio rips City Council approval of pay to disgraced Valley Metro ex-CEO
By Paul Maryniak, AFN Executive Editor
Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio was on the losing side of an effort to reduce the city’s payment to Valley Metro because its board paid $180,000 in retirement benefits to its disgraced former CEO.
DiCiccio two weeks ago found support only from council members Jim Waring and Michael Nowakowski on his motion to hold back $62,000 from Phoenix’s normal payment to Valley Metro.
The amount represents the city’s share of some $180,000 that Valley Metro awarded Steve Banta, who resigned last year after disclosures that he had wrung up more than $315,000 in improper expenses. The state Attorney General is investigating Banta’s spending.
“I provided examples of how lower-level employees were sent to prison and had their monies taken away for this sort of behavior,” DiCiccio said after the vote.
“This council voted instead to give a golden parachute to Banta, a top-level person accused of much worse,” he added. “Valley Metro and now the city of Phoenix are condoning and rewarding his bad behavior. Low-level employees go to prison, those at the top get rewarded with more taxpayer money.”
DiCiccio also said, “This is not a conservative or liberal issue. It is a moral issue that should leave everyone frustrated and appalled at the different level of treatment for those at the top and for those at the bottom.”