Tollway oases need strong oversight

This page has been critical of the Illinois Toll Highway Authority in past years as it dealt with what seemed a litany of problems and mismanagement. A story in Sunday's Daily Herald by transportation writer Marni Pyke confirmed many of our fears on how the agency was run for much of the last decade.

Pyke obtained e-mails between the tollway and Wilton Partners, which had a 25-year lease to operate and renovate the tollway's oases. What she found was an agency willing to tolerate late payments, maintenance lapses and defensive answers from a politically connected company. This was at the same the tollway was cracking down on toll violators with an ill-advised program that ended with a backlog of notices resulting in drivers getting fines that doubled or tripled during the backlog.

Wilton, meanwhile, shorted the tollway on rent and other fees, failed to maintain the oases, failed to keep the stores occupied and gave favorable rents to other politically connected vendors.

Wilton eventually defaulted on its loan and is now facing foreclosure proceedings. Lender iStar Financial is expected take over the old lease. And when it does, the tollway board needs to assert more authority in its dealings with the new leaseholder and the company it hires as manager.

We think tollway Chairman Paula Wolff, who was brought in to clean up much of the mess of the past decade, has it right when she told Pyke: "To the extent the past can teach you how to go forward, that is useful. I'm a true believer that the more open and transparent things are, the better."

We hope she means that and we intend to hold her to that promise. The e-mails that Pyke uncovered showed past agency decisions were made to please politicians and their donors rather than to make sure the oases were well-run. An attorney general's report said as much when it halted a deal that would have forgiven the debt and let Wilton defer unpaid rent.

"This was a public-private partnership gone wild," said state Sen Susan Garrett, a Lake Forest Democrat. "The tollway was trying to please too many people, the costs were just too high and they didn't have enough oversight."

We're pleased that the tollway authority has created an oases oversight committee to keep a better eye on operations. We expect the board to exercise more control and to hold the new managers' feet to the fire if they don't perform.

"Tollway management will continue to partner with the leaseholder and property manager to explore new or innovative efforts to minimize pavilion vacancies," said Joelle McGinnis, a tollway spokesman. Given the history of what's happened at the oases, we're not sure enough exploration has been done and we urge the agency's new executive director, chairman and board members to take a hands-on, open approach. "The opportunities are endless," said tollway Director Thomas Canham. "What we've got to decide is what's best for the tollway and its clients and move forward."

Indeed, that's a good place to start.