“He was a perfect fit to become the face and voice of PSTA,” wrote PSTA CEO Brad Miller today in his weekly “Transit Update” email newsletter that is sent to several thousand recipients who chose to receive it. Miller was writing about PSTA Public Engagement Manager Bob Lasher, who is retiring after 21 years with PSTA.
Miller alleged that Lasher’s “strong background in public speaking, television, and copywriting” is what made Lasher a “perfect fit to become the face and voice of PSTA” immediately after he was hired in 2005.
The Guardian breaks the news that Lasher’s officially promulgated status as “The Face and Voice of PSTA” is now likely to cause intense embarrassment for PSTA.
Lasher’s LinkedIn profile shows that he has chosen to display LinkedIn’s “Pronouns” field, which is an optional field, and that Lasher made his pronouns “Whatever pisses off MAGA” (screenshot below with the relevant text highlighted).
“Whatever pisses off MAGA,” the pronouns selected/specified by Lasher, are obviously not pronouns. Lasher’s flippant choice of his pronouns also risks undermining PSTA’s extensive DEI efforts, which include staff being allowed to specify their pronouns in official communications. Through his actions, Lasher confirms what many already think: that people demanding to be called by certain pronouns is a deeply unserious effort aimed at controlling speech.
PSTA’s DEI efforts are already under fire from various political directions. Our recent article highlighted Miller’s long record of using PSTA as a tool to advance Democrat Party causes, especially LGBT+ issues. Lasher joins the ranks of those using public agency for political messaging by coming out of the closet as a full-throated anti-Trump activist for Democrat Party causes.
Lasher, who claims to be a “Public Relations/Marketing professional” in his LinkedIn profile, has been a reliable manservant to Miller even since Miller became the head of PSTA in 2011. The following example supports such a claim.
“It’s extremely concerning that taxpayer dollars could be spent [by PSTA] for what I believe is to advocate for a tax increase,” said Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, in April 2014 ahead of the Greenlight Pinellas sales tax hike that was on the ballot that following November. The measure was trounced at the ballot box with 62% of voters voting NO.
Brandes chaired the Senate’s transportation committee and said that he thought “PSTA may have crossed over a line. I want an investigation to see if that is the case or not.” Brandes asked the Florida Department of Transportation’s inspector general to investigate how PSTA is spending public money to “inform” voters about the tax hike.
“PSTA has always, and continues to conduct its Greenlight Pinellas educational outreach with full transparency and in full compliance with the law,” Lasher responded in a statement. Lasher is not an attorney.
Just four months later, PSTA repaid $354,000 in “Transit Security Grant Program” funds to the federal government after DHS and FEMA determined that PSTA had charged “unallowable costs” to the program.
The detailed 5-page letter from FEMA to PSTA with that finding also contained a cease & desist demand directed at PSTA, revealed that PSTA had misused over 80% of the grant money to push for a tax hike rather than to increase rider security awareness, and flatly stated that “these costs charged to the grant are hereby disallowed.”
After PSTA implemented its new bus network on October 26, 2025, early data shows that ridership declined 17% year over year in its “local bus” fixed route category.
“Facts are stubborn things,” Lasher wrote in a LinkedIn comment last year. “Apparently stupidity is even more stubborn,” he continued, ending with a 🙂 emoji.
Facts are indeed a stubborn things, including facts about Lasher. Maybe that is why Miller wrote (see below image) that “PSTA celebrates” Lasher’s retirement? Did Miller really mean that PSTA staff celebrate that Lasher is retiring?
If so, then for once the wordsmiths at the self-promoting marketing organization that is PSTA may have accidentally revealed the truth. Or not. It’s hard to know the truth when unaccountable habitual liars at PSTA charged with “communications” also are incompetent, in addition to their many other failings.
As always…the Guardian reports and the readers decide. Please like our Facebook page to find out when we publish new stories.
