02.09.10
CTRMA general counsel has law license suspended, resigns
Ben Wear has the story, Toll road agency lawyer resigns after bar suspension. Land deal gone bad apparently. The most illuminating thing about the CTRMA in the story is the vetting process for their high ranking employees.
Mobility authority Executive Director Mike Heiligenstein, whose friendship with Nielson goes back two decades to when their children played youth sports together, said he knew nothing about the disputed land deal between Nielson and Wilson.
“It was never brought up during his employment, or before that during the interview process,” Heiligenstein said. “He obviously thought it had been worked out.”
In 2005 Texas Comptroller released a scathing report on the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), A Need For A Higher Standard, some of which was summarized in the AusChron at the time.
…the Regional Mobility Authority, appointed by regional county commissioners with the approval of the Texas Transportation Commission – the first of several planned RMAs around the state – is an ill-conceived and -executed agency, marked by organizational deficiencies, inadequate accountability to voters, and insufficient safeguards against corruption. Moreover, Strayhorn’s audit found what the report describes as sloppy management practices, apparent “favoritism and self-enrichment” in the appointments to the RMA, excessive budgeting for marketing, and instances of lax expenditure controls (e.g., sloppy handling of expense accounts).
And they have since instituted automatic annual toll increases as well, Unelected CTRMA board votes to raise toll taxes on 183-A.