LA: Helena Moreno’s picks for RTA board sworn in, vow to improve New Orleans public transit

New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno’s appointees to the Regional Transit Authority’s board vowed Thursday to bring a fresh set of eyes to an agency that has faced a string of controversies in recent years.

The board of commissioners was sworn in at a special meeting Thursday and will be headed by Ann Duplessis, a vice president at Liberty Bank and a former state senator. Duplessis said the board plans to take a deep dive into the agency’s performance under RTA CEO Lona Edwards Hankins, who has led the agency since 2023.

“The first thing we’re going to do is really look at all the issues that we understand are out there,” Duplessis said in an interview after the meeting. “We will be evaluating all executive leadership.”

Other new members are Erika Mann, the Dryades YMCA CEO; Barbara Major, a community organizer and former RTA board chair; Nelita Manego-Ramey, a nurse and disability rights advocate; and Tyrone Casby Sr., Big Chief of the Mohawk Hunters and a former principal at L.B. Landry High School.

Returning to the board are Mitch Guidry Jr., who worked for the RTA for 40 years before becoming a commissioner, and Louis Colin, a former New Orleans Police Department officer and McDonald’s franchisee.

The seven-member board takes control of the RTA and its fleet of buses, paratransit vehicles, streetcars and ferries after a tumultuous few years. Moreno, who took office in January, has said she wants to see “major changes” at the agency.

Half of the board resigned and Jefferson Parish pulled out of the RTA in 2024 after a board-commissioned report faulted Hankins and other top leaders for failing to rein in an employee who improperly authorized roughly $1 million worth of construction work. The FBI later opened an investigation into the contract at the center of the controversy. The status of that probe is unclear.

Internal memos also raised concerns over lax oversight of change orders on a construction contract for the Canal Street Ferry Terminal. Auditors who produced the reports in 2022 and 2023 wrote that the lack of internal controls may have caused the agency to overpay as much as $5.8 million for that project.

The RTA's paratransit service has also been criticized by elderly and disabled riders and the federal government. The previous board in January approved a new software contract that RTA officials say will improve missed pickups and long trips, though it will take six months to implement.

Guidry, the lone vote against that contract, urged his new colleagues Thursday to consider instead upgrading the existing software.

“We need to do something to fix the system now,” he said.

In an interview after the meeting, Manego-Ramey, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, said improving paratransit is one of her top priorities.

“I’m very passionate about our riders who use paratransit,” she said. “I want to make sure we have reliable, consistent, accessible transportation.”

The RTA has had its share of successes under Hankins’ leadership. It has secured millions of dollars in federal grants, developed a fleet management and capital improvement plan and upgraded its financial management software.

Bus ridership has also rebounded since the pandemic, with the number of passenger trips in 2025 at about 113% of what they were in 2019. Hankins highlighted the metric at a City Council hearing last week, noting that nationwide, average ridership is at just 85% of what it was before the pandemic.

Moreno can appoint five board members, though only three of her nominees — Duplessis, Mann and Major — required City Council confirmation. Moreno selected the other two board members, Manego-Ramey and Casby, from a list of names supplied by the Orleans Parish legislative delegation. (Moreno initially announced Adler’s Jewelry owner Coleman Adler as one of her nominees, though his name was later withdrawn. Adler declined to comment Thursday.)

Duplessis, in the interview, said the board still needs to wrap its arms around the issues facing the RTA, but that she’d like to see the board articulate its own goals for the agency “sooner rather than later.”

“We have to figure out how to hear all the concerns that just are out there and still maintain a board governance role,” Duplessis said.

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