1. Joseph J Lhota is an American public servant and a former politician who served as the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and served as New York City deputy mayor for operations from 1998 to 2001.
34 Facts About Joe Lhota
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Joe Lhota was the Republican nominee in an unsuccessful bid for the 2013 election for Mayor of New York City.
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Joe Lhota was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Jackie and Joseph "Joe" Lhota, a New York City police officer.
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Joe Lhota was the first member of his family to attend college, graduating with honors from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business with a degree in business administration in 1976.
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Joe Lhota worked there for two years before entering the Harvard Business School.
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Joe Lhota specialized in public finance, serving state and local governments throughout the United States.
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In 2002, Joe Lhota became executive vice president of Cablevision, as well as president of Lightpath, a fiber-based telecommunications company that offered telephone and high speed data services to businesses throughout the New York area.
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In early 2014, after his mayoral run, Joe Lhota was appointed as senior vice president, vice dean, and chief of staff at NYU Langone Medical Center, in charge of "government outreach", emergency preparedness, and business planning.
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From 2002 to 2015, Joe Lhota served as a member of the board of directors of First Aviation Services, Inc In 2015, FAVS became a private company.
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In 2014, Joe Lhota became a board member of Cablevision Systems Corporation and was chairman of its audit committee until the company was sold in June 2016 to Altice USA.
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In 2016, Joe Lhota became an independent member of the board of directors and chairman of the audit committee of MSG Networks.
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In 1994, Joe Lhota joined the administration of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, where he held several positions over Giuliani's two terms.
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On October 20,2011, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo nominated Joe Lhota to serve as chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest mass transit provider in the United States.
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Joe Lhota was responsible for New York City Transit's Fastrack program, which saw more than $16 million in productivity gains in 2012, by concentrating and targeting subway station maintenance efforts.
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Joe Lhota headed efforts to make information about the MTA and its services more accessible to its customers through its website and apps.
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Joe Lhota granted pay raises to managers at the MTA.
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When Hurricane Sandy devastated much of the New York metropolitan area in October 2012, Joe Lhota shut down the MTA in advance of the storm and moved the system's trains to high ground to avoid damage from the storm surge.
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Joe Lhota directed the MTA to provide regular details and updates to the public on the recovery efforts via social media and local news channels.
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Joe Lhota resigned as head of the MTA on December 31,2012, to explore running for mayor of New York City.
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Joe Lhota said he wanted to lower the General Corporation Tax, phase out the Commercial Rent Tax, reform the Unincorporated Business Tax, and lower the hotel tax.
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Joe Lhota proposed a tax incentive program to allow private sector developers to build mixed-use housing to incorporate affordable units.
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Joe Lhota planned to improve education in New York City by doubling the number of public charter schools, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.
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Joe Lhota participated in a School Choice Rally organized by Success Academy Charter Schools to protest Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio's proposed rent requirement for the city's charter schools that were operating in public school buildings and ban on further co-location in public school buildings.
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In June 2017, Joe Lhota was nominated by Cuomo to return to Chairman of the MTA.
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Joe Lhota remained at NYU Langone, as he would not be the day-to-day executive of the MTA; that role was instead filled by Veronique Hakim.
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Cuomo ordered Joe Lhota to come up with a reorganization plan for the subway within 30 days.
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Joe Lhota's plan involved removing seats from subway cars, consolidating the subway's scattered operations, managing escalators and elevators, and repairing damaged and critically important signals and tracks.
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On November 9,2018, Joe Lhota resigned his position as chairman of the MTA, effective immediately, without having taken his $1-a-year salary.
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In July 2019, it was revealed that Joe Lhota did resign in a letter to Cuomo due to a state ethics committee decision that he had too strong a potential conflict of interest.
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Joe Lhota defended his support for pro-choice and same-sex marriage as not only being in sync with New York City's socially liberal outlook but consistent with Jeffersonian republicanism or democracy and its intellectual premise in classical liberalism.
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Joe Lhota called for expulsion of Donald Trump from the Republican Party after Trump's remarks about banning Muslims from entering the United States.
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Joe Lhota later left the party in protest of Trump's policies.
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Joe Lhota revealed in 2021 that he was now a registered Democrat.
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Joe Lhota endorsed Kathryn Garcia for first preference in the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, with Eric Adams and Andrew Yang as his second and third picks, respectively.