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Metro Messy

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"The governor of Texas, Ann Richards, simply thought that Bill Agee had lied to her, and she was very close to Bill Clinton, and she told Bill Clinton, 'Don't give them any money.' And that's what happened," Salci grumbles.

Agee, then chairman of Boise, Idaho-based Morrison Knudsen, was a key player and partner of Bombardier's in Texas TGV. But the two firms were also rivals. Salci notes that MK defeated Bombardier on numerous contracts and says he warned fellow Bombardier officials that Agee was winning them through unscrupulous tactics.

And yet when Agee came to Salci in 1994 and offered him the presidency of MK's transit group, Salci took it. He couldn't resist the money -- $500,000, plus company stock and the allure of power.

"[Agee] made it clear to me that in five years he'd retire, and that I'd be one of two to three people in line to be his successor. Running one of America's largest companies was attractive to me. I knew I could never run Bombardier, because it was a family-controlled business, and they were all French-Canadians."

Salci became MK's number-two in March 1994. Later that year the Chicago Tribune quoted him saying the company had a profitable future. How wrong he was.

A few months later, media nationwide revealed that Agee was roiling company waters with more than his arrogant management style. He had underbid contracts, used company monies for personal extravagances and, as a result, racked up and hid from shareholders more than $200 million in losses.

In February 1995 MK's board fired Agee, leaving Salci to finagle some complicated financial maneuvers. He restructured the firm under the name Amerail, liquidated it and sold the remaining assets to a French company in 1999. That same year, Salci cashed in on an early retirement. He and his wife bought a home near two golf courses in Hilton Head. "I was pretty tired," he remembers.

Says consultant Tom Rubin: "This poor guy may hold some kind of record for being associated with snake-bit transit organizations."

"I can sum it up real simply," says Herb Dill. "I've been on this job 30 years, and I've been through some very rough times with Metro -- times where we've had contracts with almost no increases in wages. But overall, the mood and morale of the agency, right now, it's the worst I've seen in 30 years."

Dill is president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 788, which represents nearly all of Metro's clerical, mechanical and operational workers. That labor force is one of Metro's biggest expenses and an early target of Salci's cost-cutting. Salci is credited with lowering union absenteeism from 1,743 missed days in 2002 to 1,460 last year. At the same time, worker's compensation payouts have dropped from $6 million to $2.3 million.

"We have cut our operating budgets here between $12 to $14 million," Salci confirms, adding with a boastful air, "I've almost stopped keeping score."

Dill understands that Metro's management has a duty to keep costs down, but still, he notes, Metro and union leaders should be "partners in the adventure" of making taxpayers support Metro. The union, Dill adds, had an excellent relationship with Metro's previous director, Tom Irwin, who was known to appear at Metro garages at 3 a.m. and pick the brains of bus drivers.

"Mr. Salci's style," says Dill, "is completely different."

Many characterize it as unyielding and self-centered.

"I've seen Larry at meetings where he didn't treat people very respectfully. And I'm not talking about kissing the ring; I'm talking about common courtesy," says a local official who asked not to be named in this article. "You know, the difference between it's an 'I don't care who you are, I'm going to do whatever I want' approach, versus one that's more about 'we're all in this together.' We all have a stake in this thing. It's not Larry's transit system."

"He had no interest in working with anybody," agrees Veronica O'Brien, a Lindell Boulevard resident and St. Louis School Board member who squared off in court against Metro in a 2002 Cross County Collaborative-related property dispute. "And the way he talked to people wasn't just firm. He was outright mean. I found him to be incredibly and overly cocky."

Citizens and business owners affected by the light-rail extension complain their letters to Salci go unanswered, while former Metro employees say he ignores all but the highest-level employees. And ex-Cross County consultants claim Salci never visited MetroLink worksites.

"He has a half-a-billion-dollar construction project," grouses Dave Sampl, former Cross County deputy construction manager. "I would expect him to pop in every now and again, or at least have some meetings with the composite management."

Salci admits he's serious about his closed-door policy.

"To my senior managers, you bet [I'm accessible]. To anybody else that wants to walk in that door? Absolutely not. That's what was going on before I got here. I don't have the time," he says.

Salci can make gestures of rapprochement, but even those seem insincere, detractors say.

"When we were meeting with African-American contractors, Larry would be standoffish," says former commissioner Reverend B.T. Rice, who scuffled with Salci over minority business contracts. "He wouldn't make any statements or overtures saying, 'We want to reach out to you.'"

Local officials maintain Salci should rethink his M.O.

"The most important thing for a public official in a situation such as this one is to get out of the bunker. That's Larry's challenge," says Mike Jones, executive assistant to St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley.

Politics has proved another of Salci's stumbling blocks, and Dooley is but one politician with whom Metro's CEO has butted heads.

"He can be difficult," says St. Louis County Councilman Kurt Odenwald, who represents numerous neighborhoods affected by Cross County.

"It seems to me that it's been unnecessarily adversarial dealing with Metro," seconds St. Louis 28th Ward Alderman Lyda Krewson.

Even Tom Shrout of Citizens for Modern Transit thinks Salci could "be more attuned to the wishes and thoughts of some of the elected people, and probably accommodate them without making people mad."

But Salci seems wholly immune to such criticism. Dealing with needy politicians distracts him and wastes money, he contends. "Politicians here put their political self-interest above the public good."

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