As we learned from the Tribune's Steve Otto on Friday, County Commissioner Ken Hagan's Transportation Task Force just spent over $8 million on a consulting firm for, well, it isn't really clear. The following is an excerpt from Otto's column:
The idea was the firm would act as general engineering consultants for the county's new Transportation Task Force. The contract would be for one year and the consultant, HNTB Consultant Corp., would be asked to implement a multiyear plan that would include any other capital improvement projects with the leftover cash.
This is the same Transportation Task Force that thought it would be a good idea to put roads that were supposed to be paid for by a developer on the Choo Choo tax referendum and ask you to pay for them via a 14% sales tax increase instead. They also put a very controversial road-widening proposal pushed by a special interest group on that same gravy train list for you to fund.
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2009.