The Fine Print

DOT and the six-figure consultant contract

The Florida Department of Transportation is spending as much as $4.5 million as part of its effort to develop and implement what is known as the 2060 Transportation Plan.

Part of the money being spent by DOT includes hiring consultants to interview major landowners across the state and find about their development plans. The consultants are also supposed to come up with ways that the state could strike deals with these landowners to set aside land for what would most likely be toll roads.

The consultants include two former top executives from The St. Joe Company, the once-formidable real estate development firm that was forced to scale back its own efforts amid the collapse of the housing market.

Environmentalists aren't happy with this since it is part of the controversial decision to revive the "future corridors action plan" that they view as an effort to help open undeveloped portions of the state. DOT has countered by saying it is a good idea as part of its planning process to discuss with property owners possible options about reserving right-of-way for future transportation improvements.

The AP story on this effort is here.

The contract to interview landowners is worth up to $106,000, according to information from DOT.

The work includes:

• Conduct up to 20 personal interviews with major landowners to obtain their input regarding proposed statewide visioning and corridor planning activities. The purpose of the interviews will be to document existing development plans for each landowner’s property, including the status of sector plans, DRIs, and similar initiatives; to understand potential future development plans and the factors that may influence these plans; to obtain input on issues the Department should consider as part of its statewide visioning and corridor planning activities; and to identify legislative, policy, and regulatory changes that might facilitate public/private agreements between the Department and private landowners in support of statewide visioning and corridor planning activities.

As well as this:

• Prepare a draft strategic memorandum identifying potential linkages between sector plans, rural land stewardship areas, and other statutory land use planning activities and the proposed statewide visioning and corridor planning activities, including recommendations for changes to statutes, regulations, and policies.  Submit a draft strategic memorandum for review by the Department Task Manager and senior staff.   Prepare a final strategic memorandum upon receipt of comments from the Department.
• Prepare a draft technical memorandum identifying potential approaches to developing right of way dedication or reservation agreements between the Department and landowners to facilitate future transportation corridor development.  This memorandum should recommend a framework for model agreements. Submit a draft strategic memorandum for review by the Department Task Manager and senior staff.   Prepare a final strategic memorandum upon receipt of comments from the Department. Revise as directed by the Department Task Manager.  Develop a conceptual policy framework and business points to facilitate the development of sample agreements between the Department and landowners based on the approaches recommended in the technical memorandum.  Revise as directed by the Department Task Manager.

 

 

Who's responsible for the hike in Florida tolls?

Over the last few weeks there have been reminders that the tolls are going up on some 585 miles worth of roads.

Back when it appeared that Adam Hasner and George LeMieux were in the U.S. Senate race with Connie Mack I wrote a piece pointing out how Mack called tolls a tax and has been sharply critical of them.

Of course Hasner is now running for U.S. Congress and LeMieux this past week dropped out of the race.

But just a reminder about the origins of the latest rate hike:

This toll hike was authorized by HB 985, a major transportation bill that was approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature during the 2007 session. It mandates that the tolls be raised at least once every five years to keep pace with inflation. The money coming from this latest set of toll hikes will be used to push up the construction date of various road projects.

The bill since then has also become known as the legislation that authorized the millions used to construct the controversial First District Court of Appeal or the "Tallahassee Taj Mahal."

The vote was contentious in the Florida House where the final margin was 68-49 in favor of the bill and the roster of no votes included some Republicans.

Among the yes votes at the time: Hasner, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, U.S. Rep. David Rivera, State Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, Aaron Bean, and Rep. Will Weatherford.

The no votes in the House at the time: State Sen. Andy Gardiner, Sen. Maria Sachs (who is running against Bogdanoff), Keith Fitzgerald, Sen. Rene Garcia, and current U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross.

The vote was much more overwhelming in the Florida Senate where the legislation passed by a 37-2 margin.

The two no votes were two South Florida Republicans. The yes votes include then-Sen. Al Lawson (a candidate for Congress), Sen. Steve Oelrich (now a candidate for Congress), Sen. Ronda Storms (now running for Hillsborough County Property Appraiser), U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster, as well as Sen. Mike Bennett, then-Sen. Dave Aronberg and Sen. Mike Fasano.

And as former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson has shown: Toll hikes can sometimes show up in campaign ads.

 

The long and winding investigation finally reaches its end

Some 10 months after Gov. Rick Scott ordered an investigation into how and why emails were lost and deleted during his transition period state law-enforcement authorities have concluded that they have found no evidence that anyone did anything wrong.

A story about the conclusions reached in the report can be found here.

The report in essence says that top campaign officials such as Scott campaign manager Susie Wiles and Harris Media adviser Amy Brown knew that the Scott transition team email accounts were being shut down but no one realized that emails would not be preserved.

"Information obtained by FDLE during the course of this investigation would indicate that the decision to close the scottransition.com email accounts were made by Susan Wiles and Amy Brown without consulting Governor Soctt or any other GSTT (Gov. Scott Transition Team) member and with no intention of deleting data,'' states the report.

The report also says that top transition team attorneys such as Chris Kise and Pat Gleason told transition team members and Scott that the records were public but that Kise and Gleason did not receive the January 2011 email telling everyone that the transition email accounts were being shut down.

Here's a copy of the executive summary of the FDLE report:  Download Transition emails

The backstory here is that Scott ordered the investigation after The Tampa Bay Times first reported the emails were missing. That was followed by Associated Press stories that showed that some of the emails not initially turned over included ones sent directly from former Gov. Jeb Bush to Scott and his team. These emails included advice he gave to the governor and an email to Wiles where Bush complained about some of the people that Scott was firing in the governor's office.

But more tidbits could be forthcoming since the Scott administration has decided to put anywhere from 33,000 to 50,000 pages of transition documents on its Project Sunburst website. This includes material that was recovered during the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation.