PETITION CALLING ON GOVERNOR MURPHY AND THE NJ STATE LEGISLATURE TO MAKE THE FOLLOWING CHANGES WITHIN THE NEXT 60 DAYS:

(1) REMOVE PRESIDENT AND CEO OF NJ TRANSIT
(2) REMOVE DOT COMISSIONER FROM NJ TRANSIT BOARD OF DIRECTORS

1. FIRED- The President and CEO of NJ Transit must be relieved of his duties at the agency.  He has had 3 years to turn the agency around and there is nothing demonstrating improvement, There are countless examples beyond his resume that suggest he is in over his head and must be removed immediately.
2. FIRED - The Department of Transportation Commissioner (DOT) must be removed from the NJ Transit Board in entirety.  She is currently the NJ Transit Board Chairperson and is a bottleneck to success at the agency.  She has an inherent conflict of interest in her role as DOT Commissioner (road builder) and Chair of NJT (mass transit efficiency).

FROM THE AUTHORS, HERE IS WHY IT MUST BE DONE NOW:
NJ Transit: Corbett and Gutierrez-Scaccetti must go. New Leadership is needed

QUOTES PROVIDED FOR THIS PETITION:

Loretta Weinberg (NJ Senate Majority Leader) "I would hope that the administration would be supportive in helping to create such a Board because I think New Jersey Transit needs that kind of attention.  It can’t be overseen by the Governor, the Department of Transportation Commissioner, the Executive Director of NJ Transit, and this humongous bureaucracy that operate on its own."

Sen. Weinberg on Academy Bus and Senior Management "Academy bus points up to what is interesting.  This Senior Management reported that contract to the Board and asked for their vote, with apparently either an inability to know went wrong there, or, just not wanting to acknowledge what was going wrong there because they did not monitor that contract.  And on the heels of that, almost 2 days later you have the Attorney General launching an investigation and the Governor vetoing these minutes.  So, I would think that if the Governor chose to veto those minutes, appropriately so, that there would be some investigation internally to how this ended up on that agenda to begin with, and what had gone on with that contract, and when will the Board, in and open Board meeting, discuss this?"

Sen. Weinberg on Mask Enforcement "They finally issued a summons to someone who refused to wear a mask.  Now every day, and rightly so, we hear from the Governor, the importance of masks.  So, when you are on a bus for crying out loud, or a train, that’s where it’s got to be enforced.  These are the people who don’t have other alternatives.  So where was that gap here?  Why is it taking them so long to make sure that is a mandate in public transportation, to protect the worker who’s got to get to work?  These are essential workers and they should be protected as best we can.  So it’s another classic example of NJ Transit coming in the tail end when they should be leading where they should be.

Len Resto (NJ-ARP President) "This call for action is long overdue and requires the participation of New Jersey and swift action by our State leadership to ensure that it will be executed timely, put the agency back on track, and begin to deliver the quality service that NJ Transit riders deserve."

Nancy Erika Smith (Civil Rights Attorney) "NJ Transit needs a new CEO, but it will never function properly unless its HR, Legal and EEO Departments are revamped to stop facilitating retaliation against whistleblowers and victims of discrimination and harassment and to stop protecting corrupt and/or incompetent and/or racist executives"

Todd Barretta (Former NJ Transit Chief Compliance Officer, whistleblower) "In August 2017, I testified about my experiences and observations as NJ Transit’s first Chief Compliance Officer at a Joint Legislative Committee hearing.  During the intervening three years, the ignorance, arrogance, hypocrisy, patronage, coverup, gross incompetence and callous disregard to safety, reliability, and efficiency that I described has been commensurate with the substantial increases to both NJ Transit’s total funding and executive compensation.  The toxic culture of silence and retaliation that plagues the perennially embattled agency will not change until the toxic leaders are changed."

Ryan Felmet (Transit Advocate) "As a New Jersey resident you pay State and Federal Taxes, ride NJ Transit, or do all of the above.  That makes you a a stakeholder in the decisions that will impact our state for years to come.  Please treat this call for action as serious as it is for the viability of New Jersey's future."

SUPPORTING MEDIA OF NJ TRANSIT FAILURES
-Articles written by Petition authors-
1) NJ Transit Won't Kill Gov Murphy, But it Will Kill New Jersey (and the Economy) - by Ryan Felmet
2) Gateway Project Needs New Approach - by Robert Hale
3) NJ Transit’s Board must apply best practices to save beleaguered agency - By Len Resto

-Other Media Articles-
1) Former Internal Auditor Retired 2020 Alleges Agency and State Officials Ignored Major Red Flags
2) NJ Transit Attempts Gag Order Against Civil Right Attorney Nancy Erika Smith - In Relation to PTC Related Discrimination Lawsuit
3) NJ Transit train conductor died from COVID-19 due to lack of safety measures, his widow says in suit
4) FRA says NJ Transit is only railroad at risk of missing PTC deadline
5) NJ Transit Commuter left stuck on locked train for 90 mins during Pandemic - CEO Compares it to being stuck in traffic

MEDIA COVERAGE OF THIS PETITION:
NJ Spotlight News (video) - 12/7 - Len Resto calls for replacement of CEO and NJ Transit Chair within 60 days (petition highlighted)
Bergen Record - 12/8 - On the NJT Reform Bill 2.0 "Ryan Felmet, who used to commute from Summit before the pandemic and has become a transit advocate and critic of the agency, reiterated concerns he and peers penned in a recent NorthJersey.com op-ed and petition. He said the reforms proposed in the new bill would help, but that removing President and CEO Kevin Corbett and Chairwoman Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti from those positions would also accelerate potential progress. "This needs to be treated as urgent as any other topic in New Jersey," Felmet said. "It’s a fabric of our state. We are the most densely populated state in the United States, and we rely on NJ Transit, whether it be bus or rail, and it has severe impacts on our quality of life, as Senator Weinberg said, as well as on our economy.

Thank you and please contribute to a more prosperous NJ Transit that New Jersey deserves!

Len Resto, Ryan Felmet, Robert Hale, NJ Association of Railroad Passengers (NJ ARP) and all Petition Signatories