The Selection Process Behind Local Board Misconduct Allegations in Orange County, FL

It all started with a private meeting among three members of the
Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority board, according to <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2014-05-20/news/os-batterson-xway-d…; target="”_blank”">an
article last week in the Orlando <i>Sentinel</i></a>. The subject
of the informal meeting was the ouster of the executive director, which took
place at the next formal meeting.<br>
<br>
But after an investigation into the private meeting, a
grand jury indicted one of the three members for bribery and
soliciting compensation for official behavior. Lesson:  open
meeting act violations are sometimes related to government ethics and
criminal misuse of office violations.<br>
<br>

The alleged crime involved a deal raised by the Authority board
member, whereby the board majority that he said he controlled would
give the Authority's general-engineering contract to another company if that
company would hire some people he recommended.<br>
<br>
<b>The Local Board's Selection Process</b><br>
What is most notable about the situation is the selection process
for the local authority. The board member who was indicted was
selected by the governor. His majority of three (of five board
members) included another gubernatorial appointee and the individual
who runs the state Department of Transportation (DOT) in Central
Florida (automatically on the board) and who reports directly to the
head of DOT (a gubernatorial appointee).<br>
<br>
The minority on the board consisted of the mayor of Orange County
(automatically on the board) and another gubernatorial appointee,
but one who was originally appointed by the prior governor and spent
many years working as a trial attorney for the county and for
Orlando.<br>
<br>
<b>The Right Position for Someone in a Related Business?</b><br>
According to <a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/531734/orlando-expressway-official-indic…; target="”_blank”">an
article on Law 360</a>, land deals too were discussed at the allegedly illegal meeting of the three
board members. Land deals near new
expressway exits are a big area of potential corruption relating to
expressway authorities. The board member who called the meeting was
"senior project manager at IBI Group, a global architecture,
planning, engineering and technology firm that offers services in
urban design and planning, building and landscape architecture,
engineering and other areas," according to the Law 360 journalist, who got
his information from the Authority website (it's no longer there,
since the board member has been suspended by the governor).<br>
<br>
In other words, the governor put someone in this very sensitive
position whose business and whose clients could profit directly and indirectly from
decisions he made. This is a worse problem than any personal
misconduct the appointee may have engaged in.<br>
<br>
<b>Does the Power to Appoint Bring Responsibility?</b><br>
But the biggest problem is the selection process, which allows the
governor to directly or indirectly control four of the five members
on a local board. By employing this power, I believe that the governor should be held responsible for any
misconduct his appointees engage in together. After all, the governor could have
allowed an independent organization or two to select his appointees,
or he could have pushed for a change in the selection process. But
he chose to keep control. With power comes responsibility.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
---