Interim SANDAG chief executive to resign rather than return to position as deputy CEO

Coleen Clementson, the longtime deputy at the San Diego Association of Governments who stepped in to serve as interim CEO once the former executive resigned, is herself leaving the agency during a time of tumult.

Clementson announced during the board meeting Friday that she was leaving the regional planning agency known as SANDAG on June 14, just before the incoming chief executive officer will assume his new role .

The SANDAG board voted last month to hire Caltrans executive Mario Orso to take over for Hasan Ikhrata, who left the organization late last year amid a scandal over the toll-collection system that serves the 10-mile section of state Route 125 in South County.

Clementson was named interim CEO early this year and directed to get to the bottom of the flawed fee system.

In the months since, the agency has retained a new vendor to manage the tolls for up to $30 million over the next seven years while also agreeing to study doing away with the tolls altogether .

Meanwhile, federal agents are investigating SANDAG business practices, although it is not clear what specifically they are reviewing.

SANDAG already has set aside $500,000 for outside lawyers to represent the organization in the federal investigation.

Until Friday, it was expected that Clementson would resume her duties as a deputy CEO once Orso took over as the new boss.

But during a discussion of the plan to potentially stop collecting tolls along state Route 125, she told the board that she would be leaving the organization June 14.

In addition to the departures of Ikhrata and Clementson, chief financial officer Andre Douzdjian also will leave SANDAG.

Douzdjian was responsible for the toll-collection system, which was faulty as long ago as 2017, although officials did not inform the SANDAG board until last fall.

Clementson told the board that she only learned about the years-old problems with the toll-collection software in October, when Ikhrata alerted the board.

The wave of resignations at the $1.3 billion planning agency leaves Ray Major as the longest-serving executive. Major was a finalist for the job that was eventually awarded to Orso.

Clementson, 57, received a base salary of $271,500 in 2022, according to the Transparent California database of public-sector salaries.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .