Tom Crawford knocks the ball right out of the ballpark -- Holes in the Road

Tom Crawford has authored one very insightful column. I think he is probably onto something, and I have myself suspected a certain amount of exaggeration with ulterior motives and for ulterior reasons almost from day one. But Tom is the first I have seen venture into putting this thought into print. Good job Tom! This week Tom Crawford writes:

“Gena [Abraham] and I talk at least once a day for 45 minutes,” [chairman of the State Transportation Board Mike] Evans said. “Over the past couple of weeks, it’s been a daily diet of bad news.” Abraham, a civil engineer who was formerly the director of the Georgia Building Authority, officially became the DOT commissioner on Dec. 1. In her first weeks on the job, she says she quickly discovered a government bureaucracy that was in need of a drastic overhaul.

We’d been waiting for someone who could come along and fix these problems,” Evans said. “We’ve got the right leader at the helm.” So far, officials say, there’s been no indication that the DOT situation resulted from ethical malfeasance or financial misdeeds. The problem is rooted in a bureaucratic process that has long been in need of an overhaul, they contend.

“It’s a 50-year-old system that’s worn out and antiquated,” Evans said. “The folks at DOT are the most dedicated people in state government. It’s not been the people, it’s been the process. It’s organizational breakdown and we’ve got to bring the organizational processes into the 21st century.”

There’s no question that an agency as large and tradition-bound as DOT could benefit from an organizational shakeup. If it saves some of our taxpayer dollars, so much the better. But it may be that the departmental problems are being exaggerated a little for the benefit of people who have their own agendas.

By emphasizing the need to fix administrative problems at DOT, Abraham is giving political cover to a governor and legislators who don’t want to face up to the fact that a tax increase may be needed to upgrade Georgia’s inadequate transportation infrastructure. For the next couple of years, any requests from outside groups for funds to build new highways or get a commuter rail system underway can be shunted aside with the excuse that DOT has to be fixed before we can even consider such things as a new transportation tax.

That would enable Gov. Sonny Perdue to avoid having to make any big transportation decisions before 2010, when he will be stepping down as governor and can hand the problem off to whomever is elected to succeed him. Likewise, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who would like to be the person succeeding Perdue as governor, won’t have to do something messy like preside over a Senate that votes on a major tax increase for highways.

If that means you’re the one who’s stuck in yet another traffic jam on I-285 or Georgia 316 in the meantime - well, you’re just going to have to wait a while longer.
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And of course other ulterior reasons for any exaggeration would be to justify the appointment itself, among other things.