VICTORIA — When Metro Vancouver voters turned down a regional sales tax to fund transit improvements earlier this summer, TransLink boss Doug Allen made excuses for his organization because it “was not on the ballot.”

He now explains himself by saying “I was in the storm” of controversy that followed the vote. But he continues to maintain that the main factor in the defeat was that “people did not want to impose a tax on themselves.”

“If you’re going to go to voters, I would give them choices as to how to fund it,” Allen told me during an interview on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV. “So, you want to fund it with a sales tax increase? With property tax increases? Some hybrid? But it wouldn’t be a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ in my view.”

Would “none of the above” be an option?

“No, it would not.”

I caught up with Allen last week as he was winding up a six-month posting as interim CEO-come-troubleshooter at the regional transportation authority (TransLink chief financial officer Cathy McLay takes over as interim CEO). Before the scheduled handoff early next month, he intends to call it as he sees it to the organization and its overseer governments.

Heading the list is advice that will echo the calls of many a TransLink critic. “The oversight of TransLink is extremely complicated,” said Allen, underlining competing roles of the province, the council of mayors and the appointed board of directors. “I like things relatively simple. So everyone, not just the CEO, but everybody knows who they’re accountable to.”

But he rejects calls for the organization to be handed over to a board dominated by mayors or other politicians. “I don’t support having elected officials on board because they’re in a conflict of interest,” said Allen. “I like the model where you have regions actually recommend or appoint people. You bring people on against very good criteria as to what you need. That’s what BC Ferries does, by and large. And that’s what the Vancouver Airport Authority does and I think those particular models work.”

His doubts about the mayors are partly grounded in their disappointing performance on the plebiscite. “The mayors did a very good job of developing this 10-year investment plan. But you still have to go out publicly, in unison, saying, ‘This organization is pretty good for these reasons. It can deliver. Let’s get on with it.’ I didn’t hear enough of that.”

Instead, some of the mayors have been sniping at TransLink on a regular basis. “And I think that’s what has to change,” said Allen.

He also put the provincial government on the spot for the contradictory structure it has imposed, such as saddling a transit authority with responsibility for the Pattullo Bridge and the regional road system.

“The core business of TransLink is transit and what we’re trying to drive, in my judgment, is ridership,” says Allen. “But we play a fairly important role in bridges and roads. ... That’s when you look at the mandate, you might say, ‘Well there may be a better way to organize this.’ ”

Next item on the to-do list is a new funding formula to replace the $250 million or so that would have been raised annually by the regional sales tax.