Eye On Boise

Lowe says she was ‘blindsided,’ may sue over firing

July 16, 2009 4:19 p.m. • 9 comments

Ousted Idaho Transportation Director Pam Lowe says her performance evaluations and feedback from the state Transportation Board about her performance as director have all been positive, and she’s not been given any indication why they wanted to get rid of her. “Darrell Manning asked me to resign May 11th, and … that came out of the clear blue sky,” she told Eye on Boise. “I had no warning that they were unhappy with my performance, in fact I was completely blindsided.”

Lowe, a professional engineer and 15-year employee of the department, said she asked the board to meet with her in executive session, with no staff present, to explain the request. “I demanded to have that meeting,” she said. “There were just very, very vague reasons. I have not got any clue as to why they have terminated me.” Here’s why that matters: Idaho state law, in Section 40-503, allows the transportation director to be “removed by the board for inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance or nonfeasance in office.” Said Lowe, “I have never been told by the board that it was terminating me for any of those reasons, or even that the board had any concerns about my performance. … In fact, the feedback I’ve got, and reviews from the board, were good.” Lowe, who is Idaho’s first female transportation director, said she’s talked with an attorney and is evaluating her legal options.

“When I look at that section of code regarding the director’s position, I think it’s really clear that the Legislature showed foresight that this position was unique, and required the board to remove the director only for performance-related reasons - and that prevents this position from becoming a political position,” she said. Lowe said she’s proud of her tenure at ITD, including her work with the Legislature. “I think I’ve had many successes with the Legislature, when you look at, three years I was able to get our budget through JFAC and the Legislature virtually unscathed,” she said. “Just this last year we did get the DMV fee increases through. … We got the stimulus through, that put us as No. 2 in the nation delivering our stimulus projects. Not to mention GARVEE … which was very contentious. I don’t believe we would have had any of those accomplishments with a negative relationship with the legislators.”

Lowe also pointed to major efficiency and accountability reforms she brought to the department, including the “practical design” program. “My requiring redesign of projects - that saved $70 million in real money that went back onto the roads,” she said. She also worked with the association of general contractors to re-examine all the department’s construction and materials-testing processes. “We cut red tape and bureaucracy,” she said. “What we’re seeing is lowered bid prices for contractors, and it’s saving taxpayer dollars and allowing us to get more projects out on the road.”

She said she also got the GARVEE bonding project back on track. “That program had been over-promised and under-delivered, it was absolutely in a shambles. There was absolutely no workable plan,” she said. “I put together a plan that was approved by the board, and it’s a plan that we take to the Legislature every year. … Those projects are all being built, and they’re being delivered to the public on schedule. And that was guaranteed to fail, until I put that plan together.”

Lowe said when Manning asked her to resign, “I actually said, ‘No, I won’t resign.’ I’ve not done anything wrong.” She said, “Telling an employee, ‘You’re doing a good job, we like your work,’ and then terminating me. … They have not given me any indication, just these vague, political type of comments. I have got nothing from them as to why they are doing this, and I think that’s absolutely not in accordance with the law - and I think it’s absolutely inappropriate.”

Nine comments on this post so far. Add yours!

slfisher on July 16 at 4:25 p.m.
Good job, Betsy. I hadn’t realized they needed to give a specific reason according to state code.
Laughing on July 16 at 5:53 p.m.
Sure sue the heck out of them! But, on second thought, if one gets appointed by the ‘political process’ one should not cry when it turns on her. A person can call a grizzly bear a teddy bear all he/she wants. At the end of the day, when it mauls him/her, it should be pretty clear that a griz is a griz. End of story. Pretty naive for her to think that anything other than ‘political type comments’ would be provided her as reasons for terminating her.
spokelooneh on July 16 at 6:57 p.m.
“a griz is a griz”, and this is what passes for substantive political discussion in Idaho. THAT’S why you have a problem.

If her claims are true and she has the documentation to back them up, the taxpayers of Idaho are going to be on the hook for a large monetary judgment/settlement.
Bent on July 16 at 7:21 p.m.
Laughing, Pam was hired by the Idaho Transportation Board. She is not a political appointee, but the board memebers are appointed by the governor. From reading this, I gather that is the point she is trying to make. The board is highly political, and she is staff to the board.

The Idaho system is not like Washington State’s governance system where Gov. Gegoire switched from a structure similar to Idaho’s and created a new position for a Secretary of Transportation on her cabinet. That secretary is a political appointee who serves soley at the pleasure of the Governor.
Boise33 on July 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Why don’t we get to the real reason Pam Lowe was fired. Senator John McGee has wanted this for a long time. Every since his buddy Julie Pipal was forced out of her position at the department, he’s been on a vendetta to get Lowe removed. From the way I understand it, he’s threatened the board to introduce a Bill that would take away the board’s right to appoint the director position and turn that responsibility over to the Governor’s office. The board didn’t want to lose its right to appoint the position, so in exchange for the Bill never being introduced, they’ve fired Lowe at McGee’s request. Dirty, dirty politics and backroom deals. Maybe someone should be looking at McGee, Pipal and all the other people in their circle - that’s where this firing is coming from.
SteveR on July 16 at 7:33 p.m.
Welcome to the reality of living in a Right to Work state. I am sorry for Lowe’s loss of job and I do not take that lightly, not at all. She must realize along with the rest of us plebs that she is expendable on merely a whim.
Phaedrus on July 16 at 8:38 p.m.
SteveR, I am an opponent of right-to-work, but in this situation it has nothing to do with right to work. Nothing at all.
LarrySpencer on July 16 at 11:31 p.m.
“My requiring redesign of projects - that saved $70 million in real money that went back onto the roads,”

Requiring a redesign?!!!??? Holy cow, is that what happened to the highway 95 GARVEE project? I was told by an employee of ITD that they were under the mandate to build as much road as they could for the least amount of money, so they “redesigned” the highway re-alignment portion past Silverwood Theme Park and moved it back onto it’s current alignment, right between the theme park and it’s parking lot, even after the plans were done and the environmental study had been completed to move it away from the park!

Hey, Pam, I know how you could save even more money- you could just scrap the entire project and save ALL the money! The purpose was to move the highway for safety reasons, and all your “redesign” did was concentrate on the question of how to build the most miles for less, so the rest of the GARVEE dollars could be spent elsewhere.

What a pointless exercise in how to spend lots of money to end up with almost exactly what we have now, and miss the opportunity to fix the problems we justified going into debt to fix in the first place.

“She also worked with the association of general contractors to re-examine all the department’s construction and materials-testing processes.”

Did I mention that the “new improved” standards are so relaxed that they don’t even meet the Kootenai County public road standards? That’s right, the quality standards for building a local county road are often more stringent than those for the highways. I guess the local roads need to be built to last, but the highways just need to be built cheaply to make the ITD look good for reducing costs.

As a laugh for the day (and completely unrelated to the issue at hand today) did anybody notice that “ITD” has the D and T reversed as compared to almost every other state’s name for their department of transportation? “WDOT” for example? Seems that when they were picking the name a few decades back, they decided that IDOT would get referred to as “idiot” so they changed it.

/sigh
ericn1300 on July 18 at 6:05 p.m.
Who is this Larry Spencer, and what qualifies him to micromanage the ITD? Sounds like a bunch of northern Idaho sour grapes, both from Larry and Darrell.