RTA board member steps down under cloud

A Regional Transportation Authority director mired in legal trouble over a $91,000 state grant resigned Wednesday.

The Rev. Tyrone Crider, senior pastor at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Chicago, said in a statement that “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the RTA and its mission.

“I am also personally proud of my years of service with the RTA. In the interest of not distracting from that important work, I am resigning my position as an RTA board member effective immediately.”

The Illinois attorney general’s office took Crider to court in 2011, stating that he misused an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity grant intended to encourage children to stay in high school and enroll in college.

Crider, acting on behalf of a group known as the Pastors Network, received the grant in 2001. But he failed to provide officials with audits or documentation as required or do the work stipulated in the grant agreement. Instead, Crider “engaged in the expenditure of grant funds contrary to the express and implied terms of the grant agreement,” prosecutors said.

A Cook County judge sided with the attorney general’s office earlier this year, according to court documents.

Crider was appointed by the Cook County Board. He was placed on the RTA board in 2008.