The Idaho Transportation Department has issued the following statement on a federal judge's ruling over the weekend in favor of fired former ITD Director Pam Lowe:

“The department is disappointed in the ruling and will consider an appeal. Based on this ruling, the next step is to determine whether or not the Idaho Transportation Board provided due process to Ms. Lowe. The ruling does not address claims of gender discrimination and wrongful firing. No schedule has been set by the court to hear these claims.”

“I am absolutely elated,” fired former ITD Director Pam Lowe said this morning, after a federal judge sided with her over the weekend in a key ruling in her wrongful termination lawsuit. “It absolutely vindicated me and what I had been saying, and that is that the board was happy with my work, I had done a good job, I had had nothing but positive comments from the board as well as certainly my formal evaluations, but that the board succumbed to political blackmail and pressure from John McGee when he ran that bill.”

McGee, then chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, introduced legislation in 2009 to strip the Idaho Transportation Board of the ability to hire and fire the director, though the bill didn't pass. “He was interested in helping his campaign contributors,” Lowe said, “and I didn't want to do what he wanted done with that contract, which was to throw a bunch more money at them that didn't need to happen, and he ran that bill to strip the board of their powers.” McGee, who resigned from the Senate this year in the wake of sexual harassment allegations from a female Senate staffer, couldn't immediately be reached for comment; you can read my full story here at spokesman.com.

In 2009, a multimillion-dollar contract with two Idaho firms to oversee major bonded highway construction projects in the state was being cut back; the lead firm, URS, formerly Washington Group, was a big donor to Gov. Butch Otter's election campaigns, as well as to McGee's. Lowe said the governor's chief of staff pressured her not to reduce the contract, and McGee's bill was in response to her move.

“I had more than one board member tell me that it was McGee and it was blackmail,” she said. “They had no reason other than pure politics to terminate me.” She added, “It was purely political reasons, and it was certainly not one of the four reasons that the judge has said needed to happen in order for a proper termination to occur.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ron Bush has ruled in favor of fired ITD Director Pam Lowe on a key point in her wrongful-firing case: That she wasn't an “at-will” employee who could be dismissed without cause. It's a significant win for Lowe, who contends her firing came because she tried to scale back a big contract with a politically well-connected firm; that she was fired without cause and without being allowed a hearing; and that she was discriminated against because she's female. She was the first woman to head the Idaho Transportation Department; she since has been replaced by a man who is being paid $22,000 a year more than she made.

The judge's ruling, issued Saturday, opens the way for consideration of the gender-bias and political pressure claims.

At issue was the 1974 law creating the ITD director's position, saying, “The director shall serve at the pleasure of the board and may be removed by the board for inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance or nonfeasance in office.”

The department didn't cite any of the four reasons from the law in firing Lowe. Instead, the ITD board said in 2009, that Lowe's firing would “help the department continue improving customer service, economy of operations, accountability and our relations with the Legislature.” In court documents, the state contended Lowe was fired for not adequately dealing with the Legislature, which it said meant she was doing a poor job despite good reviews for her internal management of the department. You can read the judge's 57-page decision here.

Here's a news item from the Associated Press: The final two over-legal loads of oil field equipment at the Port of Lewiston in Idaho are scheduled to hit the road Tuesday night, weather permitting. Imperial Oil spokesman Pius Rolheiser says the company moved three loads on Sunday night and plan to move two more on Tuesday. The loads will travel from Lewiston north to Coeur d'Alene on Highway 95. They will travel to and through western Montana on Interstate 90 and Interstate 15 and into Canada for an oil sands project. Both shipments are 24 feet wide and 15 feet high. One is 215 feet long and weighs 415,000 pounds. The second is 135 feet long and 255,000 pounds. Rolheiser says the company has some additional legal loads to move out of Lewiston.

Idaho has been losing $645,000 a year administering oversize-load permits including those for so-called megaloads, Lewiston Tribune reporter Bill Spence reported today; the news came out when an ITD official briefed a legislative committee on pending ITD rules, which include fee increases designed to try to wipe out that deficit. “We're required to recoup the administrative cost of running the program,” ITD official Regina Phipps told the Senate Transportation Committee; you can read Spence's full post here at his “Political Theater” blog.

Here's a news item from the Associated Press: LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Transportation Department has approved a plan allowing large loads of Imperial Oil equipment to resume travel on the state's highways. The megaloads were suspended Dec. 6 after a driver tried to leave a staging area on U.S. 95 near Moscow and the equipment hit a passenger van. The truck driver was cited for inattentive driving. ITD said Wednesday it approved a plan to allow the shipments to resume. Two loads were to leave the Port of Lewiston after 8 p.m. Wednesday. A third module north of Moscow was to resume its travel Wednesday night, as well. The oversized shipments of components for a processing plant at the Kearl Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada were to stop at a parking area east of Coeur d'Alene before entering Montana.

Here's a news item from the Associated Press and Lewiston Tribune: MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) — The driver of a large load of oil refinery equipment that struck and damaged a van in northern Idaho has been cited for inattentive driving. The collision on Dec. 6 near Moscow led the Idaho Transportation Department to suspend shipments of Imperial Oil equipment to an oil sands project in Canada. ITD spokesman Adam Rush said the agency is awaiting an internal report from the hauling company, Mammoet, before the license will be considered for reinstatement. The Lewiston Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/v5ii7P) the Idaho State Police cited driver Vladimir Purgar of Calgary, Alberta after an investigation. Van owner James Urquidez says he ducked when he saw the equipment was going to hit his van. He says his side window broke from the pressure and his windshield was crushed.

The Idaho Transportation Department has suspended the ongoing Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil megaload shipments after a crash south of Moscow on U.S. Highway 95, the Moscow-Pullman Daily News reports. One of the giant loads of oilfield equipment bound for the Alberta oil sands crashed into a van, causing severe damage and pushing the van into another vehicle; however, no injuries were reported. “This was clearly driver error,” Idaho State Police Capt. Lonnie Richardson told the Daily News. Imperial Oil spokesman Pius Rolheiser told the Moscow newspaper the company “won't move until we're confident this won't happen again.” Click below for a full report from the Associated Press and the Daily News.

Idaho has won a national award for its Wounded Warrior Transportation Job Training pilot program, a grant-funded program aimed at vets injured in Afghanistan and Iraq that helps them train for and find employment in the transportation field. Twenty vets are either currently in school or recently graduated as part of the program, which offers training through the College of Western Idaho; 15 are earning commercial driver’s licenses, three graduated from flagger/safety courses, and two renewed commercial licenses. “We’re ready to move forward on a statewide proposal as additional money becomes available,” said Michelle George, who works in the Idaho Transportation Department's human resources office, and wrote the $99,300 grant with Chris Ramos of the Idaho Department of Labor; the money comes from the Federal Highway Administration.

The program helps the wounded vets with financial assistance for training, day care, transportation, records, licensing and certification. It was awarded the 2011 President’s Transportation Award in Administration from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

Here's a news item from the Associated Press:  BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A former Idaho Transportation Department director was asked to resign in 2006 following a whistleblower complaint, a detail hidden from the public until court documents were released last week in a separate case. The papers, filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday, reveal circumstances of how former director David Ekern exited his job in August 2006. That month, Ekern said he was quitting to pursue “significant career opportunities.” But a whistleblower complaint from March 2006 alleged Ekern engaged in favoritism and “misuse of power and authority,” prompting Transportation Board members to vote in secret session to remove him. Members then gave Ekern “the opportunity to gracefully leave ITD.” The documents, filed by ex-ITD Director Pamela Lowe, Ekern's successor, seek to bolster her claim that she was illegally fired in 2009. You can read the full story here at spokesman.com.

The Idaho Transportation Department has agreed to pay more than $1 million in fines for Clean Water Act violations related to construction on Highway 95 south of Coeur d'Alene, including an additional $774,000 in fines it'll pay now on top of the $325,000 it paid in 2008. The agreement between ITD and the EPA is part of a settlement that also ends five years of annual audits of ITD by the EPA to monitor compliance; in addition, ITD made various improvements in its practices over the past five years as part of its agreement with the EPA, including requiring winter shutdowns for contractors, strengthening compliance rules for contractors, and improving training. Click below to read ITD's full announcement.

The Idaho Transportation Department says it's saved $5.7 million in the fiscal year that ends this week though holding open vacant positions as part of its organization realignment and savings on liability insurance premiums; it plans to funnel the savings into highway maintenance projects ($2.4 million); replacing two 36-year-old rotary snowplows ($1.1 million); replacing and upgrading highway equipment such as a motor grader used for winter maintenance, sweepers and a signal controller ($1.1 million); and covering higher high diesel fuel costs. ($1.1 million). “We are rethinking how the department serves its customers,” said ITD Director Brian Ness. “The department is improving service while reducing costs.” Click below for his full announcement.

Yet another firm has contacted Idaho about sending a giant, oversized megaload across U.S. Highway 12 from Lewiston to Montana, the Lewiston Tribune reports today. Nickel Bros., a hauler, has applied to send one megaload across the route in early June, an evaporator for a Weyerhaeuser plant in Canada, the ITD told the Tribune; click below for a full report from Tribune reporter Elaine Williams.

Idaho ranks in the middle of the pack - one of 19 states with “mixed results” - in a new report out today from the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Foundation on how states are measuring and managing their transportation investments. Washington, meanwhile, ranked in the top group of 13 states identified as “leading the way.”

Says the report, “States spent an estimated $131 billion on transportation in fiscal year 2010, but many cannot answer critical questions about what returns this investment is generating.” States scoring highest in the report are those with “goals, performance measures and data that decision makers can use to choose cost-effective policy options and ensure the likelihood of a strong return for taxpayers.” Why it matters: “Most states are entering their fourth year of the ongoing budget crisis, with revenues far below pre-recession levels and expenditures rising—and policy makers around the country are making tough choices about where to spend limited resources,” the report says. “Meanwhile, some members of Congress are proposing that the next surface transportation reauthorization act, the law that governs the largest federal funding streams for states’ transportation systems, move from a compliance-based to a performance-based approach and more closely tie dollars to outcomes.”

According to the report, Idaho's worst score came for tracking the impact of transportation investments on jobs and commerce. Click below for more.

Here’s a link to my full story at spokesman.com on U.S. Magistrate Judge Ron Bush’s preliminary ruling in favor of fired Idaho Transportation Director Pam Lowe on a key point underpinning her wrongful-firing lawsuit, her argument that she wasn’t an “at-will” employee who could be dismissed without cause, as the state alleges.

Lowe contends her firing came because she tried to scale back a big contract with politically well-connected firms; that she was fired without cause and without being allowed a hearing; and that she was discriminated against because she’s female. She was the first woman to head the Idaho Transportation Department; she’s since been replaced by a man who’s being paid $22,000 a year more than she made.

Here’s a news item from the Associated Press:  BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge has sided with former Idaho Transportation Department Director Pamela Lowe in a proposed ruling, setting the stage for her wrongful firing lawsuit against the state to proceed. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Bush says he’s giving Lowe and the Idaho Transportation Department until Jan. 14 to submit additional information that could alter the outcome. Bush indicated in the proposed decision late Wednesday that the Idaho Transportation Board was limited to firing Lowe for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance or non-feasance.” The department’s lawyers argued Lowe could be fired for any reason. Lowe contends she was dismissed in July 2009 for political reasons, not for the four reasons outlined in Idaho law. Bush found evidence to conclude the Idaho Legislature provided guidelines governing when Transportation board members could fire a director to protect the agency’s leader from political pressure.

You can read the Request for Additional Briefing and Proposed Memorandum Decision and Order here.

It was early in the morning the day after the election when the Idaho Transportation Department announced a “major realignment” of the agency, aimed at reducing management employees, saving money and focusing resources on on-the-ground work. So why that timing? Eye on Boise asked Gov. Butch Otter, and he said, “How many times do we want to go through the debate on that? The Legislature still has to take a look at a lot of the things that we want to do there. I think it’s important that we not confuse the issue.”

He added, “Obviously we’re anxiously awaiting the report of the governor’s task force.” That, he said, will include “charting some new waters” and “a 20-year vision,” including “the revenue stream.” Said Otter, “I think it’s important that that debate begin. I support their efforts.”

ITD spokesman Jeff Stratten said the realignment plan has been in the works since the department’s new director, Brian Ness, came on board and began meeting with department employees last spring. “The pieces just came together just within the last week or so,” Stratten said. He added, “The director has the authority to make organizational moves.”

Stratten said, “The pieces came together just prior to the election and the decision was made to hold off on it, in hopes that we could … not intermix it in the middle of all the election coverage.” The department says the realignment won’t mean layoffs, but instead will make changes as employees retire or leave; projections show 55 ITD employees who are supervisors will be eligible for retirement over the next two years. “It’s possible that some people who once managed or supervised may no longer do so,” Stratten said.

Ness said he determined that ITD now has as many as nine layers of management between front-line workers and the director; he plans to reduce that to five. Click below to read Ness’ message to ITD employees about the realignment.

With all the road construction going on around the state right now, don’t worry about it causing traffic tie-ups over the Labor Day holiday weekend - ITD has announced that all its highway construction projects will be suspended for the holiday weekend, excepting only those that don’t affect traffic or those responding to emergencies like flooding. “The contractor, like anybody else, has very little interest in working over the holiday,” said ITD Chief Engineer Tom Cole. “Most would probably take these days off, even if they were not required to keep the road open to travelers.” Click below for ITD’s full announcement.

Here’s a link to my full story at spokesman.com on developments in the Pam Lowe case today, in which the former ITD director is suing the state in federal court, alleging wrongful firing; meanwhile, the Idaho Transportation Department acknowledged that a controversial management contract that Lowe contends she was fired for trying to scale back has now swelled to $85 million.

The contract with Connecting Idaho Partners - the one that former ITD Director Pam Lowe contends played a key role in her firing - is now up to $85 million, according to the Idaho Transportation Department. The department signed an additional contract with the group, which consists of CH2M Hill and URS Corp., formerly Washington Group, in April for $14 million for management work related to the next $228 million worth of GARVEE bonds, which finance highway projects by borrowing against future federal highway payouts. In June of 2008, ITD signed another $26 million contract with CIP, that time to oversee $250 million in bonds; and the original contract, issued in August of 2006 and originally envisioned to total $52 million, ended up at $45 million after various reductions. That was for startup of the program and overseeing the first $215 million in bonding.

“We made reductions where possible,” said Jeff Stratten, ITD spokesman, noting that $7 million in work was pulled from the first contract and handed back over to ITD staff. The second contract, in 2008, started around $30 million, but was scaled back the same way to $26 million. “We’re following the legislative intent by bringing as much work back to ITD as possible,” Stratten said.

Connecting Idaho Partners won the huge management contract after a contentious process that saw an unsuccessful bidder crying foul; Lowe contends in her wrongful-firing lawsuit that she was pressured by the Otter Administration when she tried to cut back the contract with the politically well-connected firms, and then fired. The administration has denied her claims.

The three contracts ITD has signed with Connecting Idaho Partners cover a total of $693 million in bonding; the entire Connecting Idaho program, first promoted by then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne as a way to do 30 years worth of highway projects in just 10 years, originally was estimated at $998 million, but Stratten said cost savings and other cutbacks have lowered that to closer to $900 million. He said it’s not clear whether another contract still would be signed with CIP, but the final phase of Connecting Idaho would be mostly construction, which the department tends to manage in-house. “It’s yet to be determined if another one is required,” he said, noting that it’s up to the Legislature to authorize bonding each year. “If CIP’s services were required, it would likely be less than the $14 million of the latest contract, but that’s yet to be determined.”