Congressional indifference
to what many voters see as a problem may stem from the emergence of a new culture on Capitol Hill
in which Members no longer see themselves as statesmen debating the lofty principles and issues of the day,
but rather as sales clerks serving influential constituents and lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions and box seats at ball games.
However they may disguise these actions as legitimate constituent services governed by the principles of democracy,
these actions can in fact cause considerable
harm to the nation and to the people of their states and districts.
legislative director for Mica,
the top Republican on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
and ONE of OUR TWO Deltona Representatives.
John Mica(R) to pitch road once again:
The congressman will meet with Volusia leaders,
who are skeptical
about a toll road to the coast.
Jun. 24--DeLAND -- Despite the Volusia County Council's refusal to study a toll road through the rural heart of the county, U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, is not giving up on the idea of a road that would link Seminole County to Volusia's east coast.
Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
By PHIL DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jun 16,
ESTERO,
BUT No local officials sought the earmark,
which calls for a study.
Sometimes, local earmarks can create controversies. This year, Feeney, R-Oviedo, wants $4 million to study
how to widen parts of S.R. 46 to four lanes between S.R. 415 in
would encourage sprawl along the rural corridor.
"Build it, and they will come," said Deborah Schafer.
She said four lanes would enable large area landholders, such as
Miami
Corp., to plot new subdivisions.
A national watchdog group and a candidate looking to unseat Rep. Don Young,
R-Alaska, are urging the U.S. House of Representatives ethics committee to get
to the bottom of the Coconut Road earmark.
GEORGE WILL: The road to a GOP minority -- a Florida road project shows
why
Republicans will remain in the minority
George Will | Washington Post Writers Group
February 10, 2008
LEE COUNTY, Fla. - Coconut Road near Fort Myers looks like any other concrete ribbon near housing developments, golf courses and shopping malls in this state's booming southwest. But like another fragrant slab of recent pork, the $223 million
"Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, Coconut Road leads to somewhere darkly fascinating.
It runs straight into Washington's earmark culture of waste, corruption and anticonstitutional deviousness.
Today the road ends at a chain-link fence, beyond which flows the river of traffic on Interstate 75. The earmark that would have built an interchange to connect Coconut Road to I-75 was, like the bridge, smudged with the fingerprints of Alaska's Republican Rep. Don Young, who in 2005 was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
But this story involves more than one political vulgarian's wretched excesses. It also illustrates how Republicans earned their most recent and coming drubbings.
On July 29, 2005, the House and Senate passed legislation granting Lee County's request for $10 million for "widening and improvements for I-75" to facilitate evacuations during hurricanes. But on Feb. 19, 2005, Young had been in Bonita Springs near Fort Myers, collecting $40,000 in campaign funds. The contributors included developer Daniel Aronoff, a prolific supporter of Republicans and owner of about 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The value of that land would be enhanced if Coconut Road were connected to I-75 by an interchange that would be adjacent to 1,200 of Aronoff's acres
When the legislation reached the president on Aug. 10, 2005, the language about widening I-75 had been mysteriously deleted and replaced by "Coconut Rd. interchange I-75/ Lee County." So $10 million was to be spent for a project neither the House nor the Senate voted for, that Lee County did not want, and that someone unknown wrote into the legislation. But the Constitution says: "Every bill ... shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate" before it becomes law.
Young at first said the local congressman, Connie Mack, asked for the change. Mack denied that. In January 2006, Young, who subsequently changed his tune, warned Lee County that it could not spend the $10 million for the widening project it requested. Young says local residents requested the interchange project instead. But many residents, not including the developers who are Young's benefactors, oppose it for environmental and traffic reasons.
There are two mysteries: Who surreptitiously perverted the will of Congress?
And why is Congress not angry and eager to identify the culprit? It seems reasonable to suspect that the answer to the first question is: Young or an agent of his. The answer, or answers, to the second question probably is, or are: Because Young is powerful -- and perhaps also because such violations of legislative due process have been committed on behalf of other members.
Fortunately, Senate rules enable an obdurate individual to force the institution to sit up and take notice. One such mechanism is a "hold," by which a senator can halt a bill. Freshman Sen. Tom Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican who happily has not learned the Senate ethic of playing nicely with others. He has put a hold on the bill that corrects technical problems in the 2005 highway bill. On Dec. 18, he announced that he will block that bill -- and its slew of earmarks; that will get members' attention -- if the bill "does not require a full and open investigation of the events leading up to the unauthorized revision of congressionally passed legislation." Coburn demands "a select committee, comprised of members of both the House and Senate," because "secret, improper and unauthorized changes to congressionally passed legislation call into question the integrity of our entire constitutional and legislative process."
Seven weeks have passed and nothing has happened. Young, 74, one of whose former aides pleaded guilty to bribery charges involving the jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is the subject of an FBI investigation concerning another matter, and faces strong opposition to a 19th term. Last week two more House Republicans -- the total is now 28 -- announced their retirements, evidence that Republicans do not expect soon to end their minority status that began 17 months after the Coconut Road earmark alteration.
In his State of the Union address, the president vowed to veto any appropriation bill "that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half." Coburn tartly notes that although Congress hardly needs 5,500 earmarks -- half of last year's total -- the president's goal would be met if Republicans themselves quit earmarking. That fact goes far to explain the Republicans' current and future minority status.
George Will's e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com
CENTRAL FLORIDA The Area In Brief
Judge signs secret order on X-way
December 4, 2007
ORANGE COUNTY - -Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Belvin Perry issued an order Monday, but he couldn't tell the public what it said.
The order stemmed from arguments to keep sealed at least parts of a grand-jury report about the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority. A hearing on those arguments last month was closed.
A grand jury ended its secret deliberations and issued the report, known as a presentment, in October. At the time, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar criticized political fundraising within the agency and said he hoped the report would get "an ethical ball rolling" in Florida.
State law requires that Monday's order be sealed for 30 days, during which appeals can be made to the district court in Daytona Beach. So it will be next year before the public has a chance to see what may be an edited version of the grand jury's conclusions.
Or the whole report could remain a secret.
Mark Schlueb, Henry Pierson Curtis, Bianca Prieto, Christopher Sherman, April Hunt, Sarah Lundy, Kristen Reed and Rachael Jackson of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Nov 25, 1:03 PM EST
X-way's
Keen used post for fundraising, records allege
Dan Tracy | David Damron and Jay Hamburg, Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted
Former
expressway Chairman Allan Keen pressured consultants at the toll-road agency to
raise money for political candidates he backed, newly released court documents
allege.
Among those Keen used his expressway influence to support was Orange County
Mayor Rich Crotty, who replaced Keen as chairman of
the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, according to sworn testimony
made public this week.
The records
became public as part of an ongoing criminal probe by Orange-Osceola State
Attorney Lawson Lamar. He began investigating the authority last year amid
allegations of mishandled toll money and has indicted former authority
marketing consultant Ron Pecora on a bribery charge. Pecora has denied wrongdoing.
The fundraising allegations were contained in statements from a Pecora employee who worked on the authority account and
Bryan Douglas, who worked for Pecora and then became
the authority's marketing director, but has since resigned. They were
interviewed under oath by investigators and attorneys working for Lamar and the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
E-mail to Keen and a call to his attorney went unanswered Wednesday. Pecora would not comment.
Crotty said Wednesday that he never pressured or
questioned Keen about whom he would tap to raise funds for his campaign.
Keen long has been an active GOP fundraiser. Crotty said Keen brought $20,000 of the $100,000 that Crotty was credited with contributing to the 2004 campaign of President Bush.
And Keen was among a number of individuals with expressway contracts and ties
who were top contributors and fundraisers for Crotty's successful 2006 mayoral campaign.
They included Pecora; expressway board members
Orlando Evora and Arthur Lee; the agency's lead
attorney, Ken Wright; expressway lobbyist Tre' Evers;
and influential agency right-of-way attorney C. David Brown. All told, the
200-plus finance-team leaders helped Crotty amass
$737,076 in contributions, according to county records. Crotty easily won re-election last year against two lesser-known and vastly underfunded candidates.
"All I know is there are a number of go-to people for contributions who
were on my committee, and Allan Keen was one of them," Crotty said. "He was one of many." He said he has no clue whether Keen used
toll-agency connections to aid his campaign.
"I have no specific information about that," Crotty said, adding that, "When it comes to fundraising, everybody uses their own
Rolodex."
One of Pecora's former employees specifically
identified the law firm Shutts & Bowen, the
authority's general counsel, and PBS&J, the agency's general engineering
contractor, as among the consultants to whom Keen turned for fundraising help.
"They get paid a lot of money and you know they make a lot of money with
the expressway authority and so, you know, not doing things the way that the
board might want them done or the chairman might want them done, might reflect
in them not getting a job in the future," testified Christine Pain, who
spent up to 20 hours a week at the authority while working for Pecora.
Shutts & Bowen attorney Scott Glass -- who often
handles authority assignments -- said he was never asked to give money, but
could not speak for others. Wright, who is the managing partner of the
Kathe Jackson, PBS&J's spokeswoman in
Pain said consultants were not asked to help with elections in
Keen, she said, wielded great influence with the consultants, many of whom have
multimillion-dollar contracts with the authority.
"The chairman has this power and influence over decisions," Pain
said.
Douglas, who often worked with Pain, also testified Keen turned to expressway
consultants to help with fundraising.
"Keen was using consultants for fundraising, particularly Pecora . . ."
"I think it would be hard to find a consultant at the expressway authority
at one point that didn't, you know, wasn't involved in political
fundraising,"
The public records also allege Keen, who joined the authority in 2001 and
resigned in January, sought $2,600 worth of free or "comp"
theme-park tickets from Pecora, and that Pecora's firm did several hundred dollars' worth of
public-relations work for Keen's development company
for which he never paid.
Pecora is charged with giving the theme-park tickets
to Keen, who turned them over to a friend's family visiting him from
Dan Tracy can be reached at 407-420-5444 or dtracy@orlandosentinel.com.
David Damron can be reached at ddamron@orlandosentinel.com
or 407-420-5311. Jay Hamburg can be reached at jhamburg@orlandosentinel.com or
407-420-5673.
Our position: The Orange mayor is the only elected official
needed on toll-road board
February 3, 2008
There's no doubt the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority needs to change the way it does business -- but stacking the board with elected officials is not the answer.
The Orange County Council of Mayors wants the Legislature to change the authority's board to give elected officials a majority of seats. Council members argue the restructured board would be more accountable if more of its members had to face voters back in their hometowns.
The problem with this idea is that a board made up of politicians is too likely to put politics
ahead of public policy.
The expressway authority, with all its faults, has been successful at building important roads. To do that, authority members have to make tough decisions about where to put roads and when to increase tolls. An appointed board -- with strong ethics policies and the Orange County mayor serving as permanent chairman -- is less likely to cave to political pressure.
Currently, the board consists of the Orange County mayor, the district secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation and three members appointed by the governor.
Certainly there have been problems. Too often, governors doled out authority appointments to political cronies as rewards for their support. The board has been dominated by developers or others who have a stake in opening up more land. It's not surprising that there have been a number of controversies over the years.
It all reached a new low last year. Then-Chairman Allan Keen resigned after the authority's slipshod spending habits came to light. Orange County Comptroller Martha Haynie issued a harsh report on the authority's finances, and State Attorney Lawson Lamar's government-corruption unit investigated its political fundraising.
But if fundraising is a big problem on the board, would adding three more elected officials who rely on campaign contributions solve that problem? No. It would make it worse. And elected officials may be tempted to steer roads toward -- or away -- from their cities unjustifiably.
Mrs. Haynie already has brought changes in the way the authority does its business. And Orlando Mayor Rich Crotty has done a great job cleaning up the authority as its chairman since Mr. Keen resigned.
The one permanent change the Legislature should make this year is to require that the county mayor serve as authority chairman. The county mayor answers to all of Orange's residents. And once Orange County passes a tough new ethics law, he or she will have to meet the highest standards in the state. There's also no reason the authority can't impose tougher ethics policies for its members.
Reform the expressway authority, for sure, but don't weaken it in the process.
EDITORIAL
Too little control
Our position: The blistering audit of toll-road agency proves
board was too passive.
Orange County Comptroller Martha Haynie is on target when she says that the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority
has displayed a "shocking lack of
accountability, unnecessary spending and waste" in its operations. It has been so
sloppy that an audit her office released Tuesday couldn't even say how many
millions of dollars might have been misspent.
The transgressions included lax oversight of contractors, questionable
purchasing policies and open-ended or nonexistent contracts for work. The only
thing surprising here is that Ms. Haynie actually
found these things "shocking."
The authority has been mired in controversy for months over its lack of
accountability concerning contracts. The board was chaired by Allan Keen, who
resigned in February amid a flurry of allegations involving his heavy-handed
control of the agency.
But where were the rest of the authority's board members during
all this sloppy mismanagement? They seemed content to let Mr. Keen drive the
car while they slept in the back seat.
So now what? Well, Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty,
who replaced Mr. Keen as expressway chairman and asked for the audit, has vowed
to reform spending practices, and some changes are in place.
But no one should be fooled that changing accounting practices means the authority
suddenly will be acting in residents' best interest. It could do even greater harm as it goes about locating new
toll roads.
Right now the agency is studying the "feasibility" of five major
expressway extensions. These highways would stretch
across vast tracts of undeveloped -- and environmentally sensitive -- land. They could spur development of hundreds of thousands of
acres in the rural areas. In fact, developers have lined up to meet with the
agency's staff -- and are being welcomed with open arms.
Where is the board's oversight on that? Or will it simply wait passively to
rubber-stamp the recommendations? If so,
For instance, the road authority now allows interchanges three miles apart in
rural areas. That makes these roads magnets for development in all the wrong
places, areas that might please developer pals but don't have the schools,
police and other services to support the growth.
Why doesn't the board set a policy now that interchanges need to be at least
five to 10 miles apart? That would show at least that it wants the highways to
be used for transportation rather than gifts to developers.
Board members who believe that this oversight isn't needed are kidding
themselves.
Waiting for the next blistering audit won't do.
Mica to pitch road once again:
The congressman will meet with Volusia leaders, who are skeptical about a toll road to the coast.
Jun. 24--DeLAND -- Despite the Volusia County Council's refusal to study a toll road through the rural heart of the county, U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, is not giving up on the idea of a road that would link Seminole County to Volusia's east coast.
Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Florida considers road leases to private entities for big money
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Faced with a $2.5 billion budget shortfall over the next two years,
Florida leaders are considering selling 50-year leases on some state toll roads and bridges in exchange for large sums of cash from private investors.
In a preliminary study, the Florida's Department of Transportation estimated a 50-year lease on Tampa's Sunshine Skyway Bridge could be worth $1.3 billion if investors were allowed to set tolls at "market rates."
The study used the example of the SunPass toll, which would double in the first, fourth and 10th years of the deal, climbing from 75 cents to $5 within a decade on the Skyway.
"We won't do it unless it is good for the state,"
Gov. Charlie Crist has said.
COCONUT ROAD I-75
INTERCHANGE FUNDING FLAP
RELATED ARTICLE: A
Mack daddy of a controversy: Congressman is linked to land owner east of
proposed I-75 interchange (6/15/07)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Phil
Lewis: Follow the I-75 money: From local to national news and back
(6/9/07)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Coconut
Road interchange funding took winding path to approval (6/9/07)
- RELATED ARTICLE: $10M
for I-75 interchange gets national attention (6/7/07)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Brent
Batten: House rule temporarily forces the attribution of earmarks
(9/21/06)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Editorial:
Coconut Road interchange (4/23/06)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Money
a motivator in I-75 earmark? (4/16/06)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Coconut
Road interchange study back on (3/18/06)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Congressman
might have answers about mystery $10M for Coconut Road interchange
(2/19/06)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Tom
Hanson: Lee MPO’s $10 million mistake could get worse (2/1/06)
- RELATED ARTICLE: Phil
Lewis: Pork? Waste? Power play works for us (8/14/05)
A few days after Democratic candidate Diane Benson wrote
to committee heads Rep. Doc Hastings, D-Wash., and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones,
D-Ohio, urging an investigation; the group Taxpayers for Common Sense made the
same request.
And on the eve of a today’s Metropolitan Planning
Organization meeting to consider rejecting the earmark, a legal opinion
solicited by AgriPartners says the earmark is perfectly legitimate.
Florida legislators have said the Coconut earmark was a
generic pledge to improve I-75 when they voted to approve the massive federal transportation
bill in 2005. An independent investigation requested by Sanibel vice mayor
Carla Johnston, who chairs the Metropolitan Planning Organization, claimed the
earmark was altered after it got Congressional approval and before it landed on
President George W. Bush’s desk.
The Taxpayers letter, like numerous local and national
news accounts, traces activities back to a Southwest Florida fundraiser held a
few weeks before the bill’s passage. The event, hosted by the Southwest Florida
Transportation Initiative, put $40,000 into Young’s campaign account.
Part-time Naples resident Daniel Aronoff — owner of
AgriPartners — was one of many Southwest Florida developers and landowners and
SWFTI members who paid $500 to spend time with the man who had chaired the
House transportation committee. Attorney Jack Schenendorf is former chief of
staff for that committee. In a statement sent to MPO members Thursday he says
it’s not unusual for the recording clerk to make changes between the time a
bill passes and when it hits the President’s desk.
Schenendorf also said there’s slim chance the bill could
be changed to dedicate the $10 million to the interstate instead of the
interchange.
“If the funding for the Coconut Road project were to be
repealed, Florida would lose $10 million,” Schenendorf wrote. “There have been
three separate attempts to pass technical corrections legislation. Each attempt
has failed.”
The debate is heating up as MPO members meet today to
consider eliminating the Coconut study, again. When former deputy assistant
secretary for the labor department Darla Letourneau did an investigation
reporting the timing of the earmark change and outlining the technical
corrections process on Aug. 17 the MPO voted to eliminate the Coconut study.
The vote came without required public notice and
committee consideration, however, so the debate must take place anew this
morning.
In a statement made Thursday in conjunction with
Schenendorf’s opinion — the first word from Aronoff on the issue — AgriPartners
spokeswoman Liz Hirst said the opinion was requested after Letourneau’s
non-authoritative report.
“The interchange has been part of a long-term state
transportation plan for more than a dozen years,” the statement says.
Aronoff owns 4,000 acres at the potential interchange
site, including the 1,200 acres through which an interchange would run.
Mention of a Coconut interchange was actually made well
back into the 1980’s, in the state’s original I-75 master plan and various
other planning studies. It did not appear in 30-year construction plans,
however, before the earmark.
At this morning’s meeting the MPO will first be asked to
rescind the Aug. 17 votes to eliminate the Coconut study. They could then
choose to immediately take the votes again, since advertising and committee
requirements have been met.
The mystery surrounding a $10 million earmark for a Coconut Road interchange continues even as Congress tries to redirect the funding toward Interstate 75 widening.
A bill that would restore the original language in the earmark, which should read “Widening and Improvements for Interstate 75 in Lee and Collier counties,” is languishing in the Senate for reasons that are not immediately clear.
A report by a Washington D.C. publication last week quoted Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as saying he is confident the change will be approved in December. Mica could not be reached for comment.
If there is any movement on the issue, which is included in the technical corrections bill, it would be news to other members of Florida’s delegation, their staff said this week.
Sen Mel Martinez’s press secretary last heard that someone placed a hold on the bill, meaning a lawmaker objected to a motion to proceed with the legislation.
If that is the case, the objection would require 60 votes from the Senate to override.
“Procedurally it’s a significant road block, especially with so little time left in the session this year,” said Ken Lundberg, press secretary for Martinez.
But a spokesman from the Senate’s Environmental and Public Works Committee said it is not accurate to say there is a hold on the bill. The committee is overseeing the technical corrections bill. Negotiations have to take place before the bill can proceed but discussions are continuing with the goal of moving it forward as soon as possible, the spokesman said.
That would be good news for some local leaders who worry they may never see the funding.
Bonita Springs City Councilman Ben Nelson has asked about the bill’s status but hasn’t been able to get a clear answer.
“It’s almost a bigger mystery now than it was before,” Nelson said,
referring to the mysterious way the earmark
for a Coconut Road interchange
found its way into the 2005 federal transportation bill.
Many speculate that Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, placed the earmark in the bill after a lucrative visit to Southwest Florida. During the visit, a wealthy landowner named Daniel Aronoff held a fundraiser for Young, which netted him at least $40,000 in campaign contributions. Aronoff owns and has had plans to develop land east of where the proposed intersection would be located.
When congress voted on the federal transportation bill in 2005, members believed they were giving $10 million for widening and improvements to I-75.
Mysteriously,
after Congress voted on the bill but before the president signed it into law,
language in the earmark was changed to read: “Coconut Rd. interchange I-75/Lee County.”
The Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization went back and forth on whether to accept the funding, finally voting to send it back to Congress to change the language.
Members hoped the money could be used for the ongoing widening project.
But not all members of the MPO were confident that the funding would find it’s way back to Southwest Florida.
“A lot of us suspected that the process would be pretty nebulous,” Nelson said.
“We know the money is suspect but the process is extremely bizarre
and putting the money back into that situation,
you have a pretty good chance of not seeing it again.”
If the money indeed returns, Nelson and some others would like to see it used to improve the Bonita Beach Road/I-75 interchange.
But that decision will be up to the MPO, said Director Don Scott.
In the usual process, members of the MPO would have to vote on how to use the funding.
Other options include extending the widening of Interstate 75 and improving interchanges in Cape Coral.
Original plans called for I-75 to be widened between Golden Gate Boulevard in Collier County to State Road 82 in Lee County. However, a lack of funding forced planners to trim the project. The problem is, another $10 million would only be enough to extend one lane one mile, Scott said.
Instead, the county could use the money to purchase needed right of way for the funding, he said.
The Senate has not passed a technical corrections bill since the federal transpirations bill was approved in 2005. Still, local officials remain optimistic that the bill will pass before lawmakers break in December.
“We hope it get’s done by the end of the year,” said Jeff Cohen, spokesman for Rep. Connie Mack. “Our objective is to make sure the money gets back to the original intent.”
If the change doesn’t happen this year, it can always be pushed through next year, said Sanibel Councilwoman Carla Johnston, who sits on the MPO.
“It’s in the self interests of both parties not to go into 2008 with this hanging over their heads,” Johnston said. “What matters is that the leadership in both parties are indicating that they are willing to make a change.”
Florida considers road leases to private entities for big money
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Faced with a $2.5 billion budget shortfall over the next two years, Florida leaders are considering selling 50-year leases on some state toll roads and bridges in exchange for large sums of cash from private investors.
In a preliminary study, the Florida's Department of Transportation estimated a 50-year lease on Tampa's Sunshine Skyway Bridge could be worth $1.3 billion if investors were allowed to set tolls at "market rates."
The study used the example of the SunPass toll, which would double in the first, fourth and 10th years of the deal, climbing from 75 cents to $5 within a decade on the Skyway.
"We won't do it unless it is good for the state,"
Gov. Charlie Crist has said.
Opponents worry Florida drivers could get a raw deal over the long-term because private investors would make big profits from aggressive toll hikes. And they fear privatization could hurt the poor.
"Take Alligator Alley. For many people, that's the only way to go from east to west Florida and vice versa," said Sen. Mike Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican who is chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. "It would be controlled by a private entity that could raise tolls ad nauseam. It could make it unaffordable for people to travel."
A law passed this year allows Florida to lease roads operated by the Transportation Department, but not by Florida Turnpike Enterprise. The turnpike's system's roads, including the Veterans Expressway and Suncoast Parkway, can't easily be leased because they're all part of a system that's tied together financially.
That leaves four roads: Alligator Alley, the Sunshine Skyway in Tampa Bay, the Pinellas Bayway and a state-owned stretch of the BeachLine Expressway (formerly the Bee Line) in central Florida.
But the upkeep costs of the Tampa Bay area's toll bridges would lower the price that investors would be willing to pay for them. Officials say Alligator Alley, the long, flat road through the Everglades, could be the most lucrative choice for privatization.
Leasing Alligator Alley, which runs between Naples and Fort Lauderdale, could bring in $500 million to $1.3 billion depending on how high the toll could rise - either to $6.75 or a $10 in the first decade.
For the Skyway, a more politically palatable deal would raise tolls by 50 percent starting in the first, fourth and 10th years, rather than doubling it. In a decade, Skyway drivers would be paying $3.50 in cash or $2.50 via SunPass. More price hikes would follow in the next 40 years.
Rep. Gary Aubuchon, R-Cape Coral, co-sponsored the legislation this year that allowed the leasing toll roads.
---
Information from: St. Petersburg Times, http://www.sptimes.com