AC Transit general manager resigns

AC Transit General Manager David Armijo resigned Thursday, effective immediately, after only three years on the job, bus agency officials said.

AC Transit, which provides bus service to parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, did not disclose the reason that Armijo, 55, resigned. The agency said in a news released that Armijo announced his resignation in a letter provided to its board of directors in which he said his tenure at AC Transit was “one of the most satisfying of any of the positions I have held during my 30-year career in transit.”

AC Transit said Jim Pachan, its chief operations officer, will serve as temporary general manager while the board begins a national search for a new permanent general manager. The bus agency initially hired Armijo to head its search team for a new general manager, but board members asked him to submit his own name after a number of other candidates were interviewed and some refused to accept reduced pension packages.

When AC Transit hired Armijo in February 2012 it said he had more than 30 years of experience in government and was an expert in aviation, toll roads and the public transit industry. It also said he had served as chief executive for transit agencies in California, New Mexico, Texas and Florida.

Armijo’s previous job before being hired at AC Transit was as chief executive for the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority in Tampa, Fla. He was fired from that post in 2011 but AC Transit didn’t provide details about his dismissal.

In April 2014, AC Transit’s chief financial officer, Lewis Clinton Jr., was charged with four felony counts of grand theft for allegedly taking more than $500,000 over a six-year period from the Allen Baptist Church, one of Oakland’s largest and most prominent churches. Clinton is awaiting trial on those charges.