Tollway needs to take a step back

Somewhat lost amid the scandal surrounding Gov. Rod Blagojevich is the uncertainty at the Illinois Toll Highway Authority.

As Daily Herald staff writer Marni Pyke reported last week, there is a leadership vacuum in the wake of the imbroglio over the charges against Blagojevich, which include accusations that the governor shook down contractors for tollway construction projects.

The tollway board would have us believe that it's "business as usual." But in the case of the "green lanes" initiative, which is at the heart of the tollway's involvement in the Blagojevich mess, business should grind to a halt until more is known.

Blagojevich is accused of suggesting that if a highway contractor gave $500,000 to his campaign fund, the governor would expand the scope of the project to the contractor's benefit.

It also doesn't help that in the midst of this crisis, the tollway's executive director quit - just weeks after the former director left office.

The latter, Brian McPartlin, wanted to go work for an engineering firm that did $30 million in business with the agency. Attorney General Lisa Madigan correctly intervened and recommended the state ethics board deny McPartlin's request for a waiver to rules that would prohibit that employment. McPartlin later said he would not take the job.

McPartlin's replacement, meanwhile, showed an unusually high interest in what he might be able to do in the private sector at some point in the future. Once that was in doubt, he was gone.

"He was concerned about the constraints placed on executives" seeking to move on in their chosen fields, said tollway board Chairman John Mitola of Jeff Dailey's abrupt resignation after the McPartlin decision.

Still, Mitola thinks the show must go on. "I hope the public does not want the tollway to drag its feet when it has good ideas," he said.

We'd like it to take some time to make sure everything they're doing is on the up and up before spending $1.8 billion to build and improve interchanges and install carpool lanes.

The tollway authority, which has had trouble securing public confidence in the past, needs to concentrate on building that confidence again.

One way is to find an executive director willing to work under ethics rules that are proper and in place for good reason. Second is to have a thorough review of the decision-making process on the "green-lanes" initiative before spending another dime.

Mitola said last week the agency's inspector general will do a review while the project moves forward. We don't think that's the right course. The initiative won fast approval. It can stand to be slowed down just like motorists stuck in traffic on a bad weather day. There is too much unknown and too much could be tainted if any of the charges against the governor are proven.

If the tollway authority won't slow the process down, then the Legislature should step in and insist on it.