By Kathryn Reed

John Andoh no longer has a job in Lake Tahoe.

For the last two years he has been transit administrator for the South Shore’s bus system. On Friday, the attorney for the South Tahoe Area Transit Authority told Andoh to pack his things and be out by 5pm.

John Andoh

Andoh said his initial reaction was an “enthusiastic, great.”

“I’ve been advocating for executive leadership since July of last year,” Andoh told Lake Tahoe News while he was still on the clock. “The agency was getting too big to warrant a person like me at the top.”

When Andoh was hired it was as an associate planner. His background is in transit and planning projects for those entities.

In his short tenure he has had to handle restructuring the entire system, working with one agency that abruptly left and bringing in another to operate the bus system known as BlueGo, watch the budget grow from $422,000 to $5.9 million per year, and consolidate seven contracts into one.

“It’s definitely been a good experience,” Andoh said.

He will continue on with the part-time work he’s done for a couple of Bay Area cities while he’s been in Tahoe. He is also in the running for two transit coordinator positions —  one in Southern California, one in Washington.

He was given two weeks severance pay.

According to Andoh, Transit Resource Center, the people the STATA board listened to in closed session last week per the city of South Lake Tahoe’s request, will operate the system in the interim. He described the company as a consulting firm that does short range transit plans.

Nancy McDermid, chairwoman of the transit board, deferred comment to board member Stacey Dingman. This, McDermid said, was so a uniform message was presented.

Apparently the board’s united message is silence. Dingman didn’t return calls, nor did South Lake Tahoe’s representatives Bruce Grego and Rick Angelocci.

South Lake Tahoe City Attorney Patrick Enright did not return a phone call, as it is a furlough Friday for the city. So the question as to whether the meeting was noticed properly can’t be answered, nor is it known if out of closed session the board properly reported out its actions. Nor is it known what direction STATA is going in, how long the firm Andoh mentioned will be on board, or what cost savings if any are part of the changes.