By Katy Grimes

Today, it appears the California Senate will confirm Malcolm Dougherty as director of Caltrans. He has been serving as acting director. This will be done after only one Senate hearing, where instead of asking Dougherty to answer for the giant problems in his agency, lawmakers were silent or complimentary.

What timing. I hope senators are paying attention today. Because yesterday, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission announced  the opening of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge may be delayed a few more weeks or even months. The latest delay of the 10-year construction project is due to the discovery of more than 30 faulty giant bolts holding the bridge together — apparently they need to be replaced before the bridge can open to the public.

Under construction for more than a decade, the Bay Bridge project has not only taken much longer to build than planned, cost overruns have escalated the total cost to build it to a whopping $6.4 billion. But that’s not the half of it.

The seismic event which caused the bridge to falter, the Loma Prieta Earthquake, took place 24 years ago. I remember that day well because I was pregnant then, with my now 23-year-old son. I made frequent business trips back and forth to San Francisco on that bridge, and was grateful I was not on the bridge that day.

Bridge pork — at taxpayer expense

Then, there was the $10 million public relations contract awarded to San Francisco-based PR firm, Words Pictures Ideas LLC. The contract was eventually cancelled by Brian Kelly, acting secretary of the Business, Transportation & Housing Agency, which oversees Caltrans. When the Sacramento Bee did an expose` on the dreamy PR contract, Kelly ordered the project’s cancellation in a letter to Dougherty.

“In that letter, Kelly said ‘the contract calls for some services, at the public’s expense, that appear to go beyond those necessary to inform the public about the project, its status, and its impact on public safety and mobility,'” the Bee reported.

Words Pictures Ideas already had an apparently lucrative contract with Caltrans before receiving the Bay Bridge deal. It is worrisome that the agency, which may have done very good work for Caltrans, received a rubber stamp for the bridge PR contract.

Where was Dougherty? Doesn’t the buck stop with the agency head?

By Katy Grimes

Caltrans is an agency in trouble. The most recent buffoonery involves putting California motorists at risk, with the 30 broken bolts discovered on the newly renovated San Francisco Bay Bridge. And apparently Caltrans knew about this.

A recently released report from the California League of Cities , California State Association of Counties and other transportation organizations found only 56 percent of California’s local streets and roads were deemed to be in “good” condition, and 49 of the state’s 58 counties were rated “At Risk” or in “Poor’ condition.

“By ‘streets and roads,’ the report is also referring to bridges and essential components like sidewalks, storm drains, curbs and traffic signs,” the AllGov California website reported. “Pavement accounts for $59.1 billion of the projected shortfall. Essential components are $21.8 billion and bridges are $1.3 billion.”

California, once famously known as ‘The Golden State,” is now characterized as being “on the edge of a cliff” because of our failing roads and highways system, the 2012 California Statewide Local Streets and Roads Needs Assessment found.

And if you’ve ever had a pothole destroy one of your car’s wheels or rims, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Who is to blame?

But there is so much more, and Malcolm Dougherty, Caltrans Director, is about to be reconfirmed by the Senate without so much as a single question or confrontation over the many important issues.

According to a memo originated in Sen. Joel Anderson’s office, and passed around to many offices in the Senate, Dougherty has been a key member of Caltrans’ “deteriorating leadership” for the last 21 years.

While Dougherty has been Caltrans Director since May 2012, he has been with Caltrans since 1992.

But even more telling are the outrageously poor rankings Caltrans has received over 20 years, according to Anderson’s office research:

* Ranked 50th in overall highway performance and spending efficiency

* Ranked 49th for having urban interstates in poor condition

* Ranked 48th for having rural interstates in poor condition

* Ranked 48th for having rural arteries in poor condition

* Ranked 41st for having rural arteries with narrow lanes

* Ranked 35th for having deficient bridges

* Ranked 34th for having urban interstate congestion

If this is the case, Caltrans management has fallen on their behinds. But does anyone in the Legislature care?

“During his 20 years with Caltrans, Dougherty has served in several high-profile management positions,” the Caltrans website says. “Before being appointed Director, he served as Chief Deputy Director, where he advised and assisted the Director with all aspects of Caltrans’ policies and operations.”

Based on that bio, it sounds to me as if Dougherty is not only the top dog at Caltrans, he has been making management decisions for many years.

However, the one opportunity for oversight during the most recent Senate Rules Committee confirmation hearing, never even brought up the Caltrans performance issues at Dougherty’s confirmation.

The hearing wasn’t televised, as is the normal procedure, however there is supposed to be audio of it. I am still trying to locate this, and will follow up.

Another culture of corruption?