Tollways Director Gets Raise Despite Earlier Opposition

Orange County tollway officials voted unanimously Thursday to give the head of the Transportation Corridor Agencies an 11.8% pay raise, despite opposition a day earlier from Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley.

The same officials also voted--despite objections--to repay the county about $1.1 million for planning work done by the county in preparation for tollway construction. The work took place before the special tollway agencies were created.

Mission Viejo City Councilman Robert A. Curtis, among others, objected that there are no files documenting any agreement to repay the county, and that Thursday’s decision was based on staff assurances that there had been an “oral understanding” reached with the county more than 4 years ago.

The vote on Executive Director John Meyer’s salary increase of $10,000 took place after members of the agencies’ two boards of directors held a closed personnel session. During the session, several members contended that no formal performance evaluation procedure had been developed yet for giving Meyer feedback about his performance, according to members who attended the meeting in Santa Ana. For that reason, they argued, the issue should be narrowly focused on whether the $10,000 raise--from $85,000 to $95,000--was a well-deserved cost-of-living adjustment, members said.

Meyer received his last raise 2 years ago.

On Wednesday, Riley and some other supervisors had said they would oppose Meyer’s salary increase at Thursday’s board meeting, citing delays in processing environmental, design and cost-estimating work, and unresolved questions about some expenses.

But Thursday’s discussion behind closed doors never reached the point where specific gripes were aired, board members said. And Riley and other critics of Meyer joined with the majority in approving the raise when the regular meeting resumed.

Riley did not comment during the vote, but Mission Viejo Councilman Curtis cited Meyer’s heavy workload, staffing shortages and the uniqueness of the effort to build tollways in California as an explanation for some of the difficulties Meyer has faced.

After the meeting, Riley said simply that he was convinced that the raise was not going to be a merit award. “I don’t talk about what is said in executive sessions,” Riley said.

Same Staff, 2 Boards

The Transportation Corridor Agencies are building three tollways in eastern and southern Orange County that are scheduled to open in the early to middle 1990s. The agencies share the same staff and office but have two governing boards: One oversees the Foothill and Eastern tollways; the other directs the San Joaquin Hills tollway project.

During Thursday’s meeting, Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, who serves on the boards of both the San Joaquin Hills and Foothill/Eastern Corridor boards, said he was concerned that tollway construction costs have escalated to between $2 billion and $3 billion from the $1 billion projected several years ago.

“I think we received low-ball projections early on to bring as many people as possible into this thing,” Agran said after Thursday’s meeting. “It’s imperative that the agency and the staff own up to the fact that we’re now in the $2-billion to $3-billion range.”

Escalating costs could have serious implications for the financial feasibility of the tollways, because 48.5% of the construction costs are supposed to come from developer fees. But it is not clear whether those fees can be increased at a later date. The remaining share of the construction cost is expected to be covered by the sale of bonds, which would be repaid with toll revenue as well as state and federal funds.

The fee issue is being reviewed, and revised cost estimates for the three tollways are scheduled to be delivered to board members within 30 days, according to tollway officials.

An independent financial review of the agency also is under way.

In order to speed construction of the Foothill Corridor, board members voted Thursday to contract with James McConnell, the county’s lobbyist in Washington, to try to win Federal Highway Administration permission to build a segment through Rancho Mission Viejo with partial environmental documentation rather than the complete environmental impact statement for the full length of the tollway.