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Former District Department of Transportation boss Gabe Klein just moved to Chicago this week, and already, two high-ranking DDOT officials are leaving the agency.
Leah Treat, deputy director for resource management, and Karina Ricks, associate director for the policy, planning, and sustainability administration, will both be resigning soon.
WAMU’S David Schultz broke the news on Twitter; DDOT officials confirmed it to City Desk afterwards. Treat will follow Klein to Chicago, where he has been installed as the commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation under now-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Ricks will “spend more time with family,” having “expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of” DDOT, according to Schultz’s Twitter account.
Schultz expanded on his tweets in a comment on a Greater Greater Washington post:
Out of fairness to Ricks, I feel I should expand upon what she said to me. She was referring to the lack of a permanent director at DDOT. As you are all aware, Mayor Gray still has not put forth a nomination for a permanent DDOT director. Ricks said this has left many career employees feeling as if they are in a sort of ‘purgatory.’ However…Ricks made it abundantly clear that she is very proud of all that DDOT has accomplished in the past ten years. She also had nothing but complimentary things to say about everyone still working there, including and especially interim director Terry Bellamy. She says the main reason she is resigning is to spend more time with her family.
Mayor Vince Gray terminated Klein, an Adrian Fenty pick, in December 2010. Terry Bellamy has served as the agency’s interim director since then; nearly five months later, Gray has yet to appoint a permanent replacement for Klein.
Of Treat and Ricks’ departures, DDOT spokesperson John Lisle says, “The timing is coincidence, but they’re leaving for different reasons.”