SEPTA board leader Pat Deon is stepping down after 24 years

Pasquale “Pat” Deon, a Republican heavyweight from Bucks County, is in the last days of his 24-year tenure as chairman of the SEPTA board, a job he thrived in as a connected and clever behind-the-scenes politico.

Deon, 65, announced at a February 2023 board meeting that he would leave at the end of his latest five-year term, in his trademark terse way, almost as an afterthought.

“I’d like to thank everybody at SEPTA. It’s great doing this job. I have enjoyed it for over 20 years,” he said at the time, before shifting to approval of the minutes of the previous month’s meeting.

Deon, who is known to many locals for the chain of Bucks County beer distributors that bear his name, is credited with helping to put SEPTA on a sounder financial footing than it was in 1999 when he became head of the board. He also has used political skills honed over years as a major fundraiser and collector of personal IOUs to broker deals among lawmakers and governors of both parties in Harrisburg, stabilizing state funding for public transit.

He said in an interview with KYW Newsradio that he was proudest of his role in a 2007 law that required the Pennsylvania Turnpike to give $450 million yearly to PennDot for highway projects and public transit operating support — and a 2013 revision that earmarked all of the money for transit.

Those funding sources dried up last year. Deon will leave office with his final big priority undone as the state legislature failed to pass a proposal to allocate a greater share of the state sales tax to pubic transit, generating $295 million a year, $190 million for SEPTA. The agency projects annual deficits of $240 million when federal pandemic aid runs out in the next few months.

SEPTA executives say Deon’s deep Republican ties have been crucial as he made the case for public transit’s value to Philadelphia, its suburban counties — and the state economy — to Republican lawmakers, many from rural areas, who controlled both the state House and Senate for 20 of the 24 years of Deon’s tenure as chairman.

“It’s just that Southeast Pennsylvania, especially Philadelphia, is viewed by some of my Republican friends as a place that money goes to die,” Deon said in a brief interview after that February meeting. He also noted that many listened and wanted to help.

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SEPTA, a state agency, is governed by a 15-member board. Suburban governments appoint a total of eight members. Philadelphia has two representatives on the board, one picked by the mayor and other by the president of City Council. The governor appoints one member, as do the majority and minority leaders of the state House and Senate.

Though led by Republican Deon for the last two decades, SEPTA’s board changed to Democratic control in 2019 for the first time since the agency was created in 1963 — though it’s not overtly partisan. Decisions are made behind closed doors and votes unanimous at public meetings.

The SEPTA board meeting Jan. 25 will be Deon’s last. Board vice chair Kenneth Lawrence Jr., a Democrat elected to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2017, will assume his duties until a new leader is chosen next month. Lawrence, who did not run for reelection in Montgomery County, is considered a strong candidate for the top role on SEPTA’s board.

The Democrat-controlled Bucks County commissioners have not yet chosen a successor for Deon’s seat.

“At the beginning of the year [2023], I started realizing that you know I’ve been here a long time. It’s time,” Deon told The Inquirer in the interview last February. “I want to be out and about.”

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