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Expressway rescinds its offer to law firm

The authority follows the governor's recommendation. It also gets rid of its old attorney and considers more firings.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published September 12, 2006

TAMPA - The Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority moved quickly Monday to follow Gov. Jeb Bush's recommendation, voting to rebid a lucrative legal contract that had been snarled by questions of impropriety.

At the governor's behest, the board rescinded the contract it had offered to the law firm Gray Robinson.

At the same time, it jettisoned its old attorney, Steve Anderson, who was still working for the authority while Gray Robinson hammered out its new contract.

To replace him, the board hired attorney Rhea Law as interim counsel - after making her formally state that she had no designs on a permanent position with the agency.

Her first task: to consider board member Thomas Scott's suggestion that the board also fire its lobbyist, John Beck, and executive director Ralph Mervine.

Conspicuously absent from the meeting was board member Robert Clark Jr., who two weeks ago led the charge to hire Gray Robinson despite a recommendation from the board's hiring committee to retain Anderson. Clark is on vacation, spokesman Mathias Bergendahl said Monday evening.

It was later revealed that Clark had dispatched Beck to meet with Gray Robinson, and that Mervine had dined with a lawyer from the firm only days before the board's vote.

After the authority's legal affairs director, Mary Hall, called those contacts a violation of the state Sunshine laws, Gov. Bush sent his general counsel, Raquel Rodriguez, to look into the matter.

Rodriguez ruled last week that no laws had been broken. But Bush said the way the bid had been handled looked bad. He said he would ask for a state audit of the agency's finances and that the board should start over on its legal services bid.

Scott and member Gwen Miller argued Monday that Anderson should be retained until he is finished with legal tasks in progress.

But the rest of the board disagreed. After Anderson was voted out, Scott changed tactics and tried to convince the board that Beck and Mervine should be fired along with Anderson.

"My opinion is, you throw it all out, if you're going to throw it out," he said.

Citing staff members he said were too scared to speak out, Scott declared, "This agency is being run by John Beck."

But other board members weren't swayed.

Acknowledging Mervine's "poor judgment" in meeting with Gray Robinson, board member James Hargrett added, "I don't think there's anyone in this community who at one time or another has not used poor judgment."

Instead of firing Beck and Mervine, the board charged Law with researching whether each man should keep his post.

The board also instructed Law to report on whether Anderson should be retained as a subcontractor on certain legal issues he had been dealing with.

Anderson has faced criticism before.

In 2003, he wrote a five-page rebuttal to an anonymous memo he found filed in the governor's office. The memo, which had at one time been faxed out of the office of Gray Robinson, attacked Anderson's ethics and billing practices. Anderson answered the memo point by point.

But on Monday Anderson spoke only once.

Saying it was "a little difficult and a little awkward" to listen to a debate about the fate of his job, he added, "I wish someone had said, 'Mr. Anderson, do you want to continue serving?' "

He was not interested in keeping the post, he said.

[Last modified September 12, 2006, 00:30:12]