Toll roads are being discussed at the state legislature in Tennessee. Toll roads would be built by private companies who would charge drivers for using them.
Rep. Philip Pinion (D-Union City) has offered legislation to permit toll roads.
Mr. Pinion is chair of the House Transportation Committee in Nashville. Mr. Pinion has a girlfriend-- Velma Jones. His girlfriend used to work for TDOT as chief of staff to Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely.
Last year, Jones resigned her position with TDOT and took a job representing a company that would like to build toll roads and make money off of Tennessee drivers.
Pictures of the happy "toll road" couple with Commissioner Nicely are here.
Conflict of interest? No! says Pinion. Pinion then does the standard attack bit as he uses the old "How dare you think that there could be a conflict here" bit. The reporter probably thinks there is a conflict because if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, 99+ % of the time it is a duck!
This all ties with another report coming out of Channel 5 in Nashville about TDOT, this same lobbyist, and a hefty increase in no-bid contracts to the company she represents as mentioned in a previous post on March 2.
The state ethics law prohibits commissioners from lobbying their own agencies for one year after they leave the office.
Unfortunately, however, the current state ethics law still allows deputy commissioners and high-level employees to leave their government job and jump right in to lobbying former bosses and co-workers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment