Sunday, October 16, 2011

Tight in Tarrant County

5 years, 5 Directors...WHY?

Seems some think it would be a good idea to bring in new firms instead of the ones who have been given the contracts since the 1950s.  You read that right.

Another North Texas Tollway Authority Director is out, if he didn't resign, he was going to be fired for not going along with the gang. 

Freeways (ha) and rivers are big business in Tarrant county.

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Allen Clemson formally resigned Friday as North Texas Tollway Authority executive director, becoming the latest in a long line of top managers who couldn't get along with the agency's governing board.

Clemson, a former Dallas County administrator, was the fifth CEO in five years at the tollway authority when he arrived in June 2009. But he eventually fell out of favor with the nine-member board for pushing too quickly to bring in new firms to handle legal, engineering and other professional services.

The tollway authority has been criticized for relying too heavily on a handful of firms, several of which have been under contract since its predecessor agency was founded in the 1950s. Even so, some board members want to be cautious in severing those relationships, noting that millions of dollars in work -- including the planned Chisholm Trail Parkway toll road from Fort Worth to Cleburne -- is at stake.

"It will be an agreed-to separation," Clemson told the Star-Telegram on Friday, saying he resigned because he had been told that he would be fired by the board next week anyway. "The die was cast. Wednesday was going to be my last day."

The resignation comes weeks after former Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr was elected chairman, succeeding Victor Vandergriff of Arlington, a Clemson supporter.

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