It’s “Lose Lhota” time at the MTA.
A senior Metropolitan Transportation Authority executive last week directed staffers to purge Joe Lhota’s name, photo and signature from the agency’s web pages.
Lhota announced he was stepping down to consider a run for mayor late last year – departing much earlier than expected, just like his predecessor Jay Walder.
“As of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday January 1st, Mr. Lhota will become a ‘past MTA Chairman,'” wrote Paul Fleuranges, senior director of corporate and internal communications, last Thursday. “Like we did when in 2011 when we ‘Wiped Walder’ from the web, so too will we have to ‘Lose Lhota.'”
Fleuranges quipped, “Unfortunately, we’re getting good at this.”
Lhota was chairman for slightly less than one year. Walder stayed for just two years before leaving to run an international conglomerate based in Asia.
The web-purge directive appears to encompass more than the “MTA Leadership” section, to include things like project descriptions in which Lhota is cited.
“This is the kind of idiocy these guys concern themselves with,” one MTA staffer said. “Why would they even bother? What’s the point?”
The staffer joked, “It’s like the friggin’ politburo getting rid of Khrushchev.”
MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said the authority was in a no-win situation.
“If we didn’t take the former chairman’s name and photo off various portions of the website, you would beat us up for being behind the times,” said Lisberg.
