Anointing true expressways king a transportation minefield

It was gut-wrenching to watch Transportation Planning Organization members last week tiptoe through a minefield of minor concern to them: a representative to another group.

Targeted was how to give the planning group, its board members and its director legal and, especially, political cover. Who to appoint was never a topic.

The county planning group, which ranks transportation projects, is to make appointments to the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority and the Greater Miami Expressway Agency. But only one of those two legally exists, and the courts are deciding which is real and which is a pretender to the expressways throne.

In a nutshell, the authority, called MDX, for years ran five tollways with state assent. But the Legislature with the governor’s support created a new agency, GMX, and said GMX was in control and MDX was dissolved. The battle remains in the courts.

Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade County Commission, citing county powers in its unique Home Rule Charter from the state, voted again this year that MDX is the true ruler of the tollways and GMX is dissolved. And county commissioners make up the majority of the Transportation Planning Organization board.

Majority, but not all: also on that board are city officials and three members the governor named. They are caught between a rock and a hard place, because they want to keep favor with Tallahassee when they seek state appropriations.

At last week’s meeting, the Transportation Planning Organization wasn’t deciding whether GMX or MDX should be true king of the expressways. It wasn’t deciding who to name to those agencies or whether to appoint someone to both or just to one. It was only voting on hiring an outside attorney to tell it what to do next.

The planning organization already has a fine attorney – in fact, it has 70 of them, in the County Attorney’s Office. But it picked Thornton Williams of the Williams Law Group of Tallahassee, who represents the Capital Region Transportation Planning Authority, as an impartial outsider because the County Attorney’s Office also represents the county commission.

Mr. Williams is to tell the planning organization what he thinks. If that differs from the county attorney’s ideas, the organization will again have to tread a minefield in deciding who to listen to about what to do.

Does this sound as silly to you as it does to us?

Listen to planning organization members enroute to their decision.

“I’m really sick and tired of GMX and MDX. I’m tired of the controversy. It wasn’t a fight that I chose,” said Oliver Gilbert III, vice chair of the planning group and chairman of the county commission. “If we get advice from that attorney and we go with that advice, when ultimately we’re named in a lawsuit who do we hire to defend the lawsuit?”

“I will concur on MDX and GMX. I’d blow them both up as far as I’m concerned, but the reality is that we have them here in front of us,” said Esteban Bovo Jr., planning organization chairman and mayor of Hialeah. “I don’t think we’ve been in this situation ever. I don’t ever recall us being in a show like this.”

“We have to protect the separateness and sanctity of this organization because we have municipal members and we have interests that are far beyond the county commission,” said county Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who said she’s obligated to the municipalities in her commission district. “Tallahassee sees it very differently than how we see it and this [hiring an outside attorney] provides us with some separateness of our organization, for our executive director and for our municipal partners…. It really is about our municipal partners.”

“This is a political decision in the end. It’s going to be one anyway,” said county Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez.

Mr. Bermudez is right. It’s a proxy fight between the state and the county on central versus local control of local assets and policies. MDX and GMX are just proxies. This newspaper generally sides with government closest to the people on local issues, and this clearly is a local issue.

The Transportation Planning Organization, which wants no part in the fight, punted the political football to a veteran lawyer in Tallahassee, one of only two available in the state who already represent a local transportation planning organization. But ultimately, as Mr. Gilbert noted, the Transportation Planning Organization must someday decide what to do faced with two nominations to make and only one “real” organization.

Every member of the Transportation Planning Organization, however, has a day job with another government entity with sometimes-competing interests.

The appointment of Mr. Williams may buy time, hoping the courts will pick a winner before the planning organization has to weigh in with an appointment. Unfortunately, the county attorney’s office noted that no court date has yet been set and the planning organization is due to meet with Mr. Williams’ opinion in hand on Jan. 25. What then?

Few on the Transportation Planning Organization wanted to see this sad soap opera. But with the appointment of outside counsel, it clearly isn’t over.