A defiant CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. on Thursday lashed out at City Council members demanding his ouster, calling it part of Chicago’s sordid “history of attacking and trying to bring down” African American leaders.
Carter said he has “done what I need to do” to improve the CTA, bolster hiring and ridership decimated by COVID and restore service to pre-pandemic levels, all while ignoring “opportunities to go elsewhere” and earn more money.
In exchange for that dedication and commitment to an agency he has served for much of his lifelong career in mass transit, Carter said, he has become a target. His life has been made miserable.
More than half the Council — 29 out of 50 members — have signed on to a non-binding resolution demanding that the embattled CTA president either resign or be fired by Mayor Brandon Johnson. They’re joining Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who appoints three of the CTA’s seven board members, in demanding a leadership change before the Illinois General Assembly will even consider giving the four Chicago area mass transit agencies — the CTA, Metra, Pace and Regional Transportation Authority — the money to avert a $730 million fiscal cliff.
“When I sit here in front of a City Council that has been given an ordinance basically calling for me to be fired, there are a lot of things that go through my mind. Some of them are not very pleasant. … You ask yourself, ‘What did I do to warrant being singled out to be fired?” Carter said.
“As an African American man, this city has a history of attacking and trying to bring down their African American leaders. I know that because I’ve been here and I’ve seen it. What I would hope is that we would try to support them. What I would hope is that we would work together to find a way to support our agency and make our agency better. What I would hope is that we would work in a collaborative way to address the real problems that you hear the customers talk about.”
But Carter’s surprise offensive did not sit well with some of the alderpersons who are leading the charge for his ouster.
Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said he understands the “frustration” Carter has experienced while essentially becoming a political pin-cushion as the CTA struggles to recover from the pandemic. But, Waguespack said, that’s no excuse for the defiant and combative tone Carter struck during Thursday’s hearing, his second this year after being mandated to make quarterly appearances before the Transportation Committee.
“We’re all accountable for the actions that we take or we don’t take. And we don’t make excuses about trying to make corrections, trying to examine what we’ve done wrong. We try to make those corrections. We try to move forward,” Waguespack said.
Carter said he believes he has “done what I need to do to deserve the respect that should come with the position that I’m in.”
The fact that he doesn’t get it — and, instead, has turned into a political punching bag while heads of the three other mass transit agencies get a pass — not only hurts, he said. It is infuriating.
“Over the course of the last year, I’ve had to deal with harassment, with personal physical threats, with racial epithets that have all been directed at me because I have been turned into a caricature. I have been turned into something that is less than a human being,” he said.
“I can tell you as an African American male, that bothers me a lot. It makes me angry. It makes me want to lash out. It makes me worry about the personal safety of myself as well as the personal safety of my family,” he added.
“No public official should have to go through that. There is no reason that I should have to put up with that. There are people who think it’s a joke. There are people who … create fake Twitter accounts with my name on it to get laughs for what they think is a funny situation. … There’s nothing funny about what I’ve been experiencing.”
Carter’s surprise offensive did not sit well with some of the alderpersons who are leading the charge for his ouster.
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th), one of Johnson’s staunchest City Council supporters, joined Waguespack and others in pushing back on Carter’s statements.
“I feel a little disappointed in your approach,” Fuentes said. “When we assume responsibility for a district or an agency, that comes with criticism.”
But, she quickly added, “No official should ever have to worry about their own safety or the safety of their family. And I apologize that that has happened to you.”
Waguespack told Carter he is “a little taken aback by your approach here today” and his colleagues and CTA riders probably feel the same.
“A lot of us have seen the same kind of … aggressive behavior in some ways by people in the city that, frankly, want to see things change,” Waguespack said.
“You talked about the people you worked for in Washington D.C. You’ve had to be held accountable there just as much as you do here. Elected officials are part of that chain of responsibility and accountability. … I don’t think we’ve been pushing too hard over the last few years to do much more than figure out what’s going on with the system and how do we hold all the people in the system — not making it personal, not one person, but the whole system — accountable for how it works or doesn’t work.”
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), prime mover behind the demand for Carter’s ouster, said Council members know how it feels to be attacked.
“It’s just a reality that, as people of color, it does feel a certain kind of way being on the receiving end of some of that feedback. … People step beyond the pale in some of what those attacks are. But I think that is separate from feedback when you’re talking about the service,” Vasquez said.
“To your point, the CTA is largely African American when you’re talking about the staff. And so, when we get complaints from workers about their treatment, we take that into consideration. … When we look at who makes the most complaints, per your survey, it’s the South Side of town.”
Ald. Daniel LaSpata (1st) said the buses he and his family ride on a daily basis are “always clean” and they “always feel safe.”
“If I have ever implicitly or explicitly criticized the performance of your agency or your job performance on the grounds of race, I would apologize for that and am willing to be held accountable for that. I do not believe that I have done so. But if I have, I accept the accountability,” LaSpata said.
Northwest Side Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) described himself as a “praise-in-public, scold-in-private kind of guy” who feels no need to “embarrass somebody in public to make myself look good.”
But, he said: “I am troubled by the way you started off today, President Carter, and the fact you think you’re being attacked [because of] the color of your skin. I’m one of the 21. I’m not one of the 29,” he said, referring to members who have demanded Carter’s ouster.
“I can assure you, while I don’t agree with the way they did it, that you are not being attacked because of the color of your skin. … I don’t believe that’s the reason. Many of the people on there — some are my friends, some are my enemies — but I can assure you that none of them are going after you because of the color of your skin.”