What does this have to do with Rick Scott?
Buck stops here? He's the Governor. Shouldn't he have told the DOT head to establish the policy? Wait. He doesn't have one. Seems like someone screwed up.
http://floridaclarion.com/2011/01/scott-staff-botches-fdot-pick/For the last three weeks, Governor Rick Scott’s liaison to the Florida legislature, Hayden Dempsey, has been trying to get a commitment from Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos that the Senate would confirm Washingtonian Tyler Duvall, a former Assistant Secretary of Transportation in the Bush Administration, as Secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation.
Duvall, who has no Florida roots, was selected for the job by D.C. lawyer Enu Mainigi. No Florida based candidate was considered, according to a source in the Governor’s office who declined to be interviewed on the record.
Unfortunately, Florida state law requires that the secretary shall be appointed by the Governor from among three persons nominated by the Florida Transportation Commission. The Florida Transportation Commission met last Friday in Orlando and selected the names of three potential Transportation secretaries. Due to a stunning screw-up by the Governor’s staff, Duvall’s name was not on the list.
Governor Jeb Bush solved this problem simply by having his choice for Transportation Secretary apply to the Commission and letting the Commission chairman know he wanted his choice on the final list of three. Governor Charlie Crist did the exactly the same thing. No such call was forthcoming from Scott or his staff.
The Florida Transportation Commission’s deadline has passed. Over thirty individuals applied to be included on the list, but Mainigi’s hand-picked choice was not one of them. “I can’t tell if this is arrogance or just plain incompetence,” one Florida Transportation Commissioner told the Clarion. “The Governor will have to pick from our list. I never heard of this Duvall fellow, myself.”
Mainigi headed Scott’s transition which ended Jan. 3. Since then she has continued to personally interview and select all candidates for appointment in the Scott administration, raising eyebrows in Tallahassee because Mainigi is not a state official and has no formal authority.
A lawyer with the D.C. based firm of Williams & Connolly, Mainigi has refused media requests for her post-Jan. 3 emails, which are public information under the State Sunshine law. Williams & Connolly serves a litigation counsel for a number of companies with business before the State.
One state senator told the Clarion that Duvall wouldn’t have been confirmed by the Senate anyway. “When Rick Scott pledged to create new jobs,” he said, “we thought he meant for Floridians.”
btw...Wasn't the DOT one of the hundred state agencies Scott moved to the Governor's office?
