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This article says it all...corruption from top to bottom at these unelected, unaccountable toll authority boards. Now they want the taxpayers to pay for their personal legal bills for the FBI investigation into their conflicts of interest!
NTTA agenda item seeks legal payments for board members
MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER
Dallas Morning News
December 17, 2011
At least one North Texas Tollway Authority board member is asking his colleagues to agree to spend public money on his legal fees in an ongoing matter.
The revelation came late Friday in a board agenda published in advance of the final meeting for 2011, scheduled for next Wednesday.
The one-line mention, agenda item 31, is posted for discussion in open session. It reads: “briefing and possible approval of a director’s request for indemnification under 366.258.”
That number refers to a section of Texas law that says an authority “may indemnify one or more of its directors or officers for necessary expenses and costs, including attorney’s fees, incurred by the directors or officers …” The request isn’t spelled out, but there is an ongoing FBI investigation of possible conflicts of interest among current and former board members. That investigation was revealed in October, buried deep in a bond-sale disclosure.
NTTA spokesman Michael Rey said he doesn’t know which director is asking for the money. NTTA board chairman Kenneth Barr did not respond to interview requests Saturday.
The legal-fees request was not in the meeting agenda initially sent out by NTTA to the public and the media at 9 a.m. Friday. It was added late Friday afternoon, but the revamped agenda was not sent out in the same way.
Rey said that as jampacked as the agenda is, he didn’t think it was necessary to send another public notice. He also said that the change is on the NTTA website.
Also on Thursday’s agenda is a closed-session board briefing on the FBI investigation and “any other legal developments” that happen between now and Wednesday.
Other items on the agenda:
The NTTA board is being asked to extend contracts through 2012 for the legacy firms. The companies, including engineering firm HNTB and the law firm Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, have long done much of the authority’s work.
NTTA staff members, led by former HNTB executive Gerry Carrigan, have asked the board to approve contracts that will allow the agency to pay HNTB $10.4 million in 2012 for general engineering consultant services.
Locke Lord would get an extension as NTTA’s outside law firm, a role it has had since 1953. McCall Parkhurst & Horton LLP will get an extension as bond counsel. Their contracts apparently don’t have maximum amounts associated with them.
There’s a briefing and possible action for setting a new schedule for when the legacy firms will have to compete for their long-held places. Barr has vowed that a new procurement schedule will be put in place soon, and that all the contracts could be bid before the end of next year.
Rey said late Friday that the details of the briefing materials on staff proposals for procurement schedules were still in the works and will be available next week.
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The board could take action on a resolution changing the toll-rate schedule on the Bush Turnpike Eastern Extension, which is set to open this month.