A good time for full review of tollway

Gov. Pat Quinn says to tell the Illinois tollway board of directors, "I'm on my way." We'll be interested to see what that means.

Tollway board Chairman John Mitola said last week the board would "be respectful of (Quinn's) role" in selecting a new director and show him "great deference." We know what that means.

That was obvious when the board - without bothering to inform the governor, either before or after - voted abruptly last week to temporarily name its marketing chief to the director's seat, which has changed hands three times in the past six months. Mitola added that interim tollway Director Mike King is also the leading candidate to take the job permanently, though the board still may broaden its search.

The board's action followed a call for a nationwide search from Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Sen. Martin Sandoval, a Cicero Democrat. Sandoval, who also urged a top-to-bottom review of the tollway board members' credentials, said the high rate of turnover at the top combined with the removal of Gov. Blagojevich and a federal review of a $1.8 billion plan Blagojevich is accused of using as a lure for campaign contributions make this a good time to review the entire operation.

Sandoval is right, of course. For decades, the tollway has been a haven of political appointees, overseeing a multibillion-dollar budget virtually as an arm of its political patron, the governor. Clearly, as it experiences a revolving door at the executive office, something is amiss that demands attention. Hastily naming its PR chief to lead in a turbulent time hardly seems a sign the board recognizes this.

That's not to say King wouldn't make a fine tollway director. He well might. But to elevate him without taking the time to review his strengths alongside those of a broad slate of candidates with a more traditional engineering and project management background seems expedient, at best, and potentially irresponsible.

The tollway board was quick to point out last week that it doesn't need the governor's approval of its selection of a new director. Yet, this same "independent" board couldn't muster the resolve to remove those "Gov. Rod Blagojevich" signs until Blagojevich himself had been safely removed from office. There's something in the comparison of these two acts that says a lot about who the tollway board thinks it is accountable to - and that's a point that demands addressing.

We recognize the contradiction in suggesting the tollway board needs both more backbone and more supervision. Yet, that seems to be precisely the case. In such a condition, surely this agency can't be permitted to embark on a proposed $1.8 billion project to, among other things, establish so-called "green lanes," not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars in other projects, without significant scrutiny.

We assume Gov. Quinn agrees and that that's what he means by promising he is "on my way." Let's hope he brings with him a commitment to do something about what he finds.