Mayor Vincent Gray's administration has yet to nominate a permanent leader for D.C.'s Department of Transportation, and now WAMU has learned two of its senior staffers are resigning.
Karina Ricks and Leah Treat, two top deputies at DDOT, will be leaving the organization they've worked at for a combined 22 years.
Ricks says the department's career employees are in a sort of purgatory, because Gray still hasn't chosen a permanent director, five months into his term.
Council member Tommy Wells, who chairs the transportation committee, says the city will miss Ricks and Treat, but their departures aren't a sign that DDOT is undergoing a mass exodus.
"I have a lot of confidence in the department," he says. "The department's not gutted. We still have a lot of good folks there."
A spokesperson in the mayor's office says this kind of staff turnover is normal when a new administration comes in.
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