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Road agency meeting fruitless

The authority keeps striking out as it looks for a leader and rejects the one who said yes.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published November 14, 2006

TAMPA - Instead of naming an interim executive director Monday, the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority ended up back where it started: leaderless and scrambling to find candidates for the job.

Most people asked about the position by the authority's chairman declined, and one who was willing to serve - former state Sen. Jim Sebesta - couldn't muster support for an immediate vote.

The board met in an emergency meeting to consider a replacement for executive director Ralph Mervine, who quit last week after it was discovered that he owned a gay porn film company.

Rhea Law, the authority's interim lawyer, told the board a national search for a permanent replacement would take at least nine months.

The question, then, is who will run the agency in the meantime?

Chairman J. Thomas Gibbs told the board he spent the previous four days making phone calls trying to find someone willing to take the job.

After the meeting, he said he called former Authority finance director Brady Sneath and Steve Reich of the Center for Urban Transportation Research at USF; both turned him down.

He asked Jim Drapp of HNTB, the authority's engineering consultants, to suggest some names there. But all of Drapp's candidates lived out of town, and Gibbs said he did not want to pay for them to stay in Tampa.

Finally he hit on Sebesta, who had retired from the Legislature only a few days before.

"Sen. Sebesta was an afterthought," Gibbs said later. "Well, not an afterthought really, but his name had not come to mind."

The two met, along with Authority consultant Fred Karl, at a Burger King on Kennedy Boulevard on Sunday afternoon.

When Gibbs explained how badly the authority needed leadership, Sebesta said later, he agreed to help.

At Monday's meeting, Sebesta sat up front, his briefcase at hand. He was expecting to be named interim director and to start work immediately.

"I had a very sleepless night last night," he said later. "I kept jumping up and writing notes to myself of things I had to do."

But the board balked at Gibbs' suggestion that they appoint Sebesta.

"Can't we just wait a while?" asked member Gwen Miller, saying she didn't want to appear to be rushing into a decision.

Member James T. Hargrett advised the board to gather a range of candidates for the interim position, "so that when we make the decision, it's clear to the public why we did it."

Board member Tom Scott agreed. "It appears what we're trying to do here ... is find a political answer for a management problem," he said.

He suggested a different candidate: former state transportation district secretary Ken Hartmann.

Apparently, however, someone at the meeting conveyed this suggestion to Hartmann, who was not in attendance, because a few minutes later a note was passed to Gibbs.

He read it aloud: "Ken Hartmann does not seek, nor will he accept, this position."

"This is a difficult position for anyone who comes," Gibbs added. "A lot of folks out there don't want to be thrown into this."

The agency was in turmoil even before Mervine's abrupt resignation. Questions of impropriety over the bidding of a legal services contract have led to an ongoing state audit and an FBI investigation, among other troubles.

At last, the board agreed not to appoint Sebesta. Instead, they appointed an "interim" interim director: Drapp, a vice president for HNTB. He'll keep an eye on the agency for the rest of the week.

The board directed Law to come up with more candidates and present a short list at its regular meeting next Monday.

That list, however, will not contain Sebesta.

"I withdrew my name," he said Monday afternoon.

"I volunteered myself because the chairman said he needed me to start right away," he said. "I would never have done it if I knew there was going to be a cattle drive full of people."

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 813 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 14, 2006, 01:55:24]