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DEL.ICIO.USListening in on the DOT board: Just ‘cause you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The board that governs the Georgia Department of Transportation convened itself over the phone late Friday afternoon.
And there was no mistaking, even without the help of body language, that this is an agency that feels itself under siege.
You know that a deal is brewing among Gov. Sonny Perdue, House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle to reorganize the myriad of state transportation agencies.
It’s the price the governor has set for his support of increased funding to address the state’s failure to address traffic congestion in metro Atlanta and elsewhere.
Details have yet to surface, but signs point to the designation of a supreme umbrella agency that would not be the semi-independent (and largely dysfunctional) GDOT — which currently receives the bulk of state and federal funding.
Through this new system, the Capitol triumvirate would assert control of transportation policy, and its billions of dollars, by diverting authority and cash away from GDOT. That could be done slowly or in one fell swoop.
Friday’s conference call focused on two pieces of Senate legislation — each involving an erosion of DOT clout.
The first was the TSPLOST proposal put forth by Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga), which would permit groups of counties — metro Atlanta in particular — to band together to levy a one-cent sales tax to address traffic needs. (The House is working on an approach employing a statewide sales tax, to be unveiled Wednesday.)
DOT Commissioner Gena Evans informed her board that S.B. 39 and its companion measure, S.R. 44, would permit these transportation districts to choose which state agency holds their money: GDOT, the State Road and Tollway Authority, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority — whatever.
So, little by little, GDOT could be cut out of all construction and planning. She continued:
Evans: One thing that worries me a little bit. Let’s say we have 10 of these [transportation districts]. We would set up 10 different trust funds for 10 regional programs.
That’s going to be a tremendous operational issue for us to try and work through, because needless to they’re going to be standing at our doorstep saying, here’s our local money, it’s in your trust fund, we want our projects to procede immediately.
Board member David Doss: You’re going to have GDOT, SRTA, GRTA— and anyone else, I guess — competing with one another to get that money. Let’s say there’s 10 of them around the state like you just said. GDOT’s running three of them and SRTA’s running four of them and GRTA’s running three of them. How are you going to deliver a statewide transportation system with a hodge-podge of projects and a hodge-podge of agencies, all with their finger in the pie?
Evans: That’s a good question.
Doss suggested the DOT board jump into the fray. Two other board members, Dana Lemon and Steve Farrow, warned that it would be unwise to step between the Senate and the House.
Replied a frustrated Doss: “I think if you want to stand on the sideline you ought to stay home. This sitting on our hands and saying — ‘Hey, guys, y’all do whatever you want to us, and we’ll be happy, we’ll just take whatever you give us’ — I don’t think that shows much leadership.”
Said Lemon: “That’s a bigger fight than we’re able to take on at this time, simply because of the nature of the board. At this time, I’m not sure we’’d be able to come up with a consensus on what approach would be best.”
Discussion moved on to S.B. 40, a bill sponsored Senate President pro tem Tommie Williams (R-Lyons). Williams has said the bill is intended to address private-public initiatives only.
Chris Tomlinson, the DOT’s general counsel, announced to the board that the measure “is designed to reduce the powers of the department, specificlally the board and chief engineer.”
The measure would allow the State Road and Tollway Authority to take control of “any project SRTA wanted to approve,” the DOT attorney said.
Much of the language is devoted to the conduct of public-private partnerships, he said. But the language of the bill “makes it broader than just those projects,” Tomlinson said.
Lemon, who chairs the DOT board’s legislative committee, indicated there would be no neutrality on this measure.
“I believe we’re going to have to come out with a public position on this bill, and we’re going to have to do it sooner rather than later,” she said.
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