Driving Excellence Through Nojay's No Show Leadership

There is little doubt that the 415 plan came from DDOT's COO Bill Nojay. After all as the Chief Operating Officer it would be part of the overall plan to keep things moving, marketed, and measured. It stinks of marketing through performance indicators. A solution that would come from a person who is watching numbers, instead of riding on the buses to know how they are working. Mr Nojay didn't ride the buses. He was busy in one of these ways:

• At home in New York state working on details for his radio show
• Making public appearances in preparation for his run for state representative in New York's 133rd District, (which was declared May 13 2012)
• If in Detroit at his desk Mr Nojay would be going through the performance measures, creating scenarios for change based on those measures, meeting with City of Detroit COO Chris Brown, or Beau Taylor (Chris Brown's assistant handling transportation and public lighting), and perhaps making a visit to the bus terminals to consult with Ryan Gallivan (another Envisurage/TransPro employee contracted to DDOT's executive management team).

At several April Detroit City Council sessions Stephen Boyle asked if they knew Bill Nojay was holding a job in Avon, New York as a Tea Party radio host through WSYL. The information came as a surprise, but was followed up on.

When Bill Nojay was asked at a May 9, 2012 Detroit City Council meeting to be accountable in his position the response was clearly not commitment to the job. The following is from The Michigan Citizen:

Councilmember Ken Cockrel, Jr. asked DDOT Chief Operating Officer Bill Nojay whether he could effectively serve DDOT when he’s only in Michigan part-time.

“Only time will tell,” Nojay, who’s employed by Envisurage, replied. 

The conflict of holding the DDOT position was evident before he was even considered for the position. By his principals as a staunch right-wing Tea Party radio host and public presenter he represents a set of interests in system that is clearly against the people of Detroit. The Tea Party agenda of minimal government and advocating free markets is basically the underpinning of being an anarchist. In such a system those that have a defined need for social services (more of a socialist approach) would be diametrically opposed in belief of how a system such as public transportation would operate. The mere fact he is considered involved in public transportation seems problematic, because his belief system would further the direction to privatize social services such as public transportation and place it in the hands of the free market (aka privatization, sold into corporate hands).

Bill Nojay is one of Envisurage CEO Mark Aesch's proteges as it began in May 2011. Mark Aesch wrote a book about using performance measurements to turn around public transportation, called Driving Excellence. The book has had questionable reviews, yet Mr Aesch continues to gain speaking engagements as a self-proclaimed transportation expert. Each engagement offering additional support to future engagements. From the text of Driving Excellence the management delivered at DDOT seems to be very contradictory. The first steps being the elimination of transportation for anyone with need from midnight to 5am on major routes, and 8pm until 7am on secondary routes.