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Mervine had ties to road contractor

By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published November 21, 2006

TAMPA - Ralph Mervine's undisclosed ownership in a gay porn business led to his resignation from the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority earlier this month.

But Mervine also had connections to a second company that, unlike the porn distributor, got money from the Expressway Authority. Mervine still had ties to the company, a Polk County drainage contractor, when the authority approved paying it more than $400,000.

Mervine was hired as the authority's executive director on Nov. 8, 2004. Nearly four months later, he was still listed by the state as the general contractor license holder for Driggers Construction Inc.

License holders are required to be officers of the companies they're listed with, said Mark Reddinger, deputy director of Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

Driggers is a storm drainage construction firm in Auburndale that was a subcontractor on the troubled Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway elevated lane project. At the time Mervine was hired at the Expressway Authority, Driggers was seeking $1-million in extra payments from the authority for unexpected problems it encountered.

It was an unusual request because Driggers had no contract with the authority and therefore had no legal basis to demand that the agency pay its claims. Instead, Driggers worked for PCL, the project's primary contractor. Driggers' contract with PCL was worth $1.49-million.

The agency's consultant on the project, URS, deemed the Driggers claim as questionable.

Marty Sanchez, a URS project manager, wrote in a Dec. 17, 2004, e-mail to agency officials that "zero dollars" should be spent on the claim.

According to Sanchez, Driggers didn't justify the expenses it wanted money for; it had lagged behind schedule in laying pipe; and much of its claim had already been covered.

Driggers was paid $100,000 five days later. By late March, the Expressway Authority had paid it a total of $403,623, all after Mervine was hired, according to records. The payment was never approved by the agency's seven-member board.

"Thank you for the emergency relief," company president Keith Driggers wrote in a Dec. 22 letter to Thomas Gibbs, chairman of the Expressway Authority board.

He copied the letter to Mervine.

According to Bill McDaniel, who was Sanchez's boss at the time and who still works for URS, Mervine's ties to Driggers were just becoming known. He said in December 2004 or early January 2005, Sanchez called him with the news.

"Marty is a low-key guy, but he started the conversation with: 'You're not going to believe this,' " McDaniel said. "My response was, 'Oh my God.' "

The elevated lanes were in crisis mode after a pillar collapsed in 2004. Mervine was hired to replace executive director Pat McCue and get the project done.

Although McCue also approved a $100,000 payment to Driggers in late 2003, McDaniel said the compensation ballooned after Mervine took over.

"He was very involved," McDaniel said.

Mervine and Driggers couldn't be reached for comment.

Shortly after his discussion with Sanchez, McDaniel said he confronted Mervine, who had earlier pushed for expediting payment to Driggers.

"After that, he backed off," said McDaniel, who is a former Department of Transportation secretary for District 7, which includes Hillsborough. But McDaniel said he let the Expressway Authority know about Mervine's connection to Driggers through a "back-door channel."

In a statement released Monday, the agency's interim legal counsel, Rhea Law, said Mervine told Expressway Authority officials earlier this month - before he quit- that he filed for the removal of his license from Driggers the day after he was hired.

State records show Mervine's license remained with Driggers until March 5, 2005.

Reddinger, of the state DPR, said it was possible Driggers had been using Mervine's license without his consent.

Steve Anderson, who was the agency's legal counsel when Mervine was hired, said he concluded Mervine didn't have a conflict as long as he wasn't involved in processing the Driggers claim.

More recently, Anderson has partly blamed Mervine for his ouster from the agency in late August. Anderson says evidence shows that Mervine broke public records laws before the board voted to fire him.

With Driggers, however, Anderson said no evidence pointed to wrongdoing. "I know, I'm kind of defending Ralph on this issue," Anderson said. "He assured me that he wasn't getting money from Driggers. At some level, you have to trust people."

According to agency spokesman Mathias Bergendahl, a 15-page background report on Mervine dated three days before he was hired makes no mention of Driggers.

Anderson said Mervine should have disclosed it.

It was another company Mervine didn't disclose, Coast Productions Inc., that cost him his $208,000 job. Mervine resigned after records came to light showing he owned a company that until recently sold gay porn DVDs.

But unlike his ties to Driggers, there's nothing to suggest that venture overlapped with his oversight of the road agency.

According to a St. Petersburg Times analysis of Mervine's computer records for the past six months, he didn't view porn while at the office.

Times researcher John Martin and staff writer Kevin Graham contributed to this report. Michael Van Sickler can be reached at mvansickler@sptimes.com or 813 226-3402.

[Last modified November 21, 2006, 05:28:31]