Investigative date set for tollway

State lawmakers have set a date to start publicly vetting recent tollway scandals, including the financial collapse of oases and allegations tied to the indictment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The Senate's state government committee will hold its first hearing Sept. 9 at 11 a.m. at the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. The investigative hearings are being led by state Sen. Susan Garrett, a Lake Forest Democrat, and state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, an Evanston Democrat.

Garrett said the first hearing will likely focus on the recent foreclosure on the tollway oases' private operator, Wilton Partners, a campaign donor to Blagojevich. Tollway officials say the oases will continue to operate as normal under new management, but the agency is still owed about $1.3 million in rent.

Schoenberg has said the panel will also focus on other scandals, including the allegation by federal prosecutors that a massive carpool lane project was really a scheme to get a large campaign contribution from the designated contractor.

Other issues to look at include a high rate of turnover in top management and a mix-up in switching contractors who operated the system's scofflaw enforcement. That boondoggle led to potentially tens of thousands of motorists unwittingly racking up massive fines, a problem exposed in a Daily Herald investigative series last year.

Garrett said she is intensely interested in learning more about how a private-public partnership deal with Wilton to redevelop the oases failed. She has an oasis in her district spanning the Tri-State Tollway, I-294.

"The time has come for us to fully understand the contractual issues associated with the redevelopment of the tollway oases," she said Friday. "This will be the first hearing, but we expect not the last, as the tollway oasis issue is very complicated and complex."