The UTA Board announced at a special meeting Thursday it would begin searching for a new general counsel immediately. Members also voted unanimously to retain Pett as a consultant and to guarantee her at least $50,000 worth of business over the next year, based on an hourly rate that has yet to be determined.

"Great mission, great people, and I still expect to contribute," said Pett, who's been at the agency for eight years. "I'll be happy to help, but I want to help others [foster transit] also."

Pett, whose UTA salary is $229,000 a year, is joining the law firm of Snell & Wilmer. At the Phoenix-based firm, she hopes to facilitate transit programs in other cities in the West while continuing to live in Utah.

UTA Board President Orrin T. Colby Jr. said the agency has enjoyed an extraordinary period of leadership stability, with a management team that has been intact for more than seven years. UTA will miss Pett, he said.

"Clearly we lose a lot of expertise," he said. "Clearly, we have lost an excellent administrator, not only an excellent attorney."

Colby said that salary was not an issue in the contract negotiations, which began in September. He also said that there were no changes to the contract of UTA General Manager John Inglish, whose $267,000 salary became the subject of controversy last spring.

UTA appointed Bart Simmons to be its acting general counsel until Pett's permanent replacement is found. Colby said he expected the search to take a few months.

For light rail and some of the other big projects Pett worked on, the focus has begun to shift from legal issues to engineering ones, she and Colby said.

One of Pett's highest-profile efforts led to the 2002 deal that allowed UTA to buy rights of way from Union Pacific Railroad that stretch from Brigham City to Payson and out to the western Salt Lake Valley. Colby called the purchase "the transit deal of the century" and said it sets the stage for the next century of regional transit.