Columns

Well, it was fun while it lasted

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published April 8, 2007

"Do you think $366,000 would influence me?"

- Bob Clark Jr.

There has been a quaint and lovely feel to the scandals surrounding the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority. I will miss them.

We had a little sex - the agency's executive director resigned after the revelation he owned a gay-porn studio.

We had a little intrigue -five members of the board just happened to agree on a surprise decision, after they just happened to spend several hours on the phone with that executive director.

We had a Lex Luthor-style plan to carve up the counties around Tampa Bay with a big expressway, to promote sprawl and development.

And best of all, we had Bob Clark Jr., put on the board in February 2003 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush.

There was a teeny, tiny problem, though: Clark's company, Tampa Steel Erecting Co., had just signed a contract to supply steel girders to a company called PCL.

PCL, in turn, had a contract with - ta dah! - the same Expressway Authority that Clark had just joined.

As a public official, Clark was overseeing a contractor that was paying money to his own private company.

Good grief! A million people in Hillsborough County, and Jeb couldn't find one who didn't have financial ties?

Clark had panache, I give him that. The flap led to his famous quote about not being influenced by a measly few hundred thou, cited above, one of my all-time favorites.

This being Florida, the situation apparently was not illegal. "Not illegal," the agency's lawyer noted, "but might have appearance of impropriety."

Might!

Later, the board got rid of that lawyer. That was the fishy vote that occurred after mondo phone sessions.

By this time the Legislature was taking note. Generally speaking, even the Legislature prefers for the appearance of impropriety to be at a higher caliber than that of, say, the Dukes of Hazzard.

State Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, wanted to know if there were any other dealings between board members and the authority's contractors.

"There have been no instances found," the authority replied in a March 14 letter.

Well, whoopsie! As it turns out, Clark's company got another $198,000 for additional materials from PCL, and his company even bid on another PCL contract after he was sitting on the board.

After this revelation, the authority's lawyer and other board and staff members, who had been explaining that Everything Is Dandy Now, found their metaphorical posteriors exposed.

On Friday, at last, Clark resigned without comment. But in my fantasy, I picture him being consoled by friends telling him, "This never would have happened if Jeb were still governor!"

As for the new governor, he will soon enough replace board members no matter what the Legislature does, especially now that there is another vacancy.

Far be it from me to tell the governor what to do, but as a mild, polite suggestion, it might be better if he did not choose anybody making money off the deal.

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Howard Troxler now has a blog for bonus commentary, updates and reader reaction. Go to TroxBlog via the "Blogs" link on www.tampabay.com, or at the direct Web address blogs.tampabay.com/troxler.

[Last modified April 8, 2007, 00:18:29]