TTC facing more PR troubles
Posted March 7, 2010 7:32 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s the last thing the TTC needs…another bad news story, this one concerning a possible conflict of interest leaving the tax payers on the hook.
The Toronto Star is reporting that a senior TTC official helped his long-time female friend, an amateur photographer, get a plum contract taking photos of public meetings and proposed building sites.
Transit City Project Manager John Cursio recommended his friend for the job, then personally approved payments of public money to her totalling at least $50,000 over the past year.
The TTC told the Star that its a conflict that should have been declared by Cursio but wasn’t. Though the woman received payments, there is no contract setting out the terms of the job. Cursio, a Project Manager overseeing part of the ambitious new project to build eight new light rail transit lines, has been off work since the star raised the matter.
This is just the latest in a string of bad news for the TTC. Several cell phone pictures and videos shot by riders have been released over the past several weeks showing employees sleeping or leaving a busload of passengers to get coffee.
