Rantz: Why cowardly Sound Transit CEO Rogoff blew us off

Sound Transit CEO Pete Rogoff is a coward. That, we already know, which is why we were perplexed when his people reached out to us to schedule an interview with him at 4:30 a.m. on Monday 19.

My producer and I both expressed our surprise because Rogoff doesn’t talk to local media allowed to editorialize. He’s scared he’d get called out for his notoriously poorly run agency, Sound Transit. I prepared for the interview, though I figured he’d cancel at the last minute.

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He canceled at the last minute, 3:55 a.m. to be exact.

Rogoff is the national spokesperson for the American Public Transportation Association. He’s sounding the alarm that federal dollars may be cut off for public transportation projects. As the CEO of an agency that squanders hundreds of millions in overruns, I guess Rogoff is a good person to speak to the importance of a federal blank check.

But when he realized who he’d be talking to, Rogoff decided to pull the plug and the organization that booked the interview, News Generation Inc., lied to us. I asked Jeff Gibbons, who booked the interviews for Rogoff, whether or not all the interviews were canceled and he said: “I don’t know.” That’s cute.

There are many reasons he might not want to talk to me. Perhaps, and I suspect this is it, he knew I’d ask him some tough questions about how poorly run Sound Transit projects are. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to explain why the Sound Transit Board shouldn’t be elected. Perhaps he thought I’d bring up comments he allegedly made about employees, reportedly saying they “are just so f*****g lazy.” Or his dig at small-town mayors. Maybe he couldn’t answer some basic questions about the projects he oversees.

Now, Rogoff doesn’t need to talk to me. I don’t take it personally. Plenty of people won’t talk to me because they know I ask tough questions. State Senator Manka Dhingra? She runs from our requests. The Seattle City Council? With the exception of Kshama Sawant, its members deny our requests through the gatekeeper, Dana Robinson Slote. So, it’s not like I have a thin skin being denied.

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But Rogoff’s people reached out to us, not the other way around. And if you’re that incompetent in booking interviews, imagine the incompetence on display with complex projects that, if they go wrong, could lead to injuries or deaths.

And if you’re not willing to talk to me — even if I’d give you the answers in advance, since you refuse to answer some basic questions — perhaps the public should be alarmed at what you’re hiding.

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