DRPA adopts reforms; chairman to resign

The board of the beleaguered Delaware River Port Authority adopted a series of reforms Wednesday designed to reduce political influence and increase accountability.

The measures were the first steps toward sweeping change at the DRPA, long permeated by insider dealing, nepotism and a pay-to-play culture. Change will include a new board chairman: after the meeting, John Estey said he will resign from that post after Pennsylvania's new governor takes office in January.

The board voted to end its controversial practice of spending toll revenues on economic-development projects not directly related to its core mission of operating four toll bridges and the PATCO commuter rail line between Philadelphia and South Jersey.

In the past 12 years the agency spent nearly $500 million on such projects, contributing to its debt of $1.4 billion that now consumes about 40 percent of the agency's revenue.

During a five-hour session that featured uncharacteristically open debate and political squabbling, the board voted to require financial, performance and forensic audits by independent auditors and to eliminate closed-door "caucus" meetings.

"It's time we stopped pointing fingers of blame and roll up our sleeves and start fixing these problems," said DRPA board vice-chairman Jeffrey Nash, a Camden County freeholder. Nash said the board "must change the culture of how the DRPA does business" and "follow the path of truth."

However, the board postponed action on several of the most contentious measures until next week, and it balked at a proposal to prohibit political contributions by firms that do business with the DRPA.

"If we shut them out, I don't know who we'd do business with," Estey said.

The board also postponed action Wednesday on toll discounts that are slated to expire or change on Sept. 1, after warnings from the chief financial officer that saving the discounts could hurt the agency's credit ratings. The board will revisit the toll discounts next week.

Responding to revelations of high executive salaries and perquisites, the board also voted to eliminate car allowances and free bridge passes. And it created a panel to review the compensation of top managers.

Other changes adopted on Wednesday included measures to:

- Require companies doing business with the authority to disclose their political contributions;

- Require all meetings be open to the public, and require the authority to follow state open-records laws;

- Prohibit the hiring of employees' family members;

- Require all contracts be approved by the board;

- Limit the ability of former employees to go to work for companies that do business with the DRPA;

- Prohibit managers, employees and board members from taking or soliciting gifts;

- Require board members to file financial disclosure forms;

- Prohibit outside employment for DRPA managers;

- Investigate the financial arrangements for insurance brokers doing business with the DRPA.

The board also eliminated two positions, including its chief of public safety. The former public safety chief, Pennsauken lawyer Michael Joyce, resigned last month after it was learned he had borrowed an E-ZPass transponder from another DRPA manager to give his daughter free bridge trips to school in Lower Merion.

The board decided it will not replace Joyce in the $180,081-a-year post, and it voted to eliminate the now-vacant $140,000-a-year position of assistant to the vice chairman, which Joyce had held earlier.

The $140,000-a-year position of assistant to the chairman will be considered for elimination at next week's meeting. That position is held by Mary-Rita D'Alessandro, an ally of DRPA board member and Philadelphia labor leader John "Doc" Dougherty. Dougherty has been an outspoken critic of DRPA leadership who on Wednesday repeated his call for chief executive John Matheussen's resignation.

Another position that faces elimination at the next session is the corporate secretary post, held by former Pennsylvania legislator John Lawless. Lawless was escorted from the building in April for still-unexplained reasons, but still collects his $123,806 salary.

Lawless, who gave Joyce the E-ZPass transponder that led to the security chief's departure, attended Wednesday's crowded board meeting, shaking hands with former colleagues and watching the proceedings from a doorway.

The DRPA has been engulfed by criticism recently for its lack of transparency and accountability and its economic-development spending.

The vote Wednesday to eliminate economic development spending was one of the few of the day that was not unanimous.

Pennsylvania board members Philadelphia city councilman Frank DiCicco and Philadelphia Tribune publisher Robert Bogle opposed the proposal by Pennsylvania auditor General Jack Wagner to stop the economic development spending.

"An awful lot of good has been done by these economic development programs," said Bogle, wagging his finger at his fellow board members. "Don't think it's been all bad."

Wagner said that many of the projects may have been worthwhile, but "this board should not be the economic development agency of South Jersey and Southeast Pennsylvania."

Pennsylvania state Treasurer Robert McCord, another Pennsylvania board member, said he believed that if the commuters who pay the tolls were surveyed, "many, if not most of the projects would not get support."

Before Wednesday's meeting, Pennsylvania state Rep. Mike Vereb (R., Montgomery) and Domenick DiCicco (R., Gloucester) unveiled a proposal to change the DRPA's federal charter to eliminate most of its economic-development authority and to strip the Pennsylvania governor of four appointees to the board, giving them to the legislature, instead.

After Wednesday's board meeting, Estey revealed he will resign in January. Estey, a former chief of staff to Gov. Rendell, was appointed chairman by Rendell last year, after filling in for Rendell for years when the governor was chairman.