NJ Turnpike consolidator McGreevey tabloid fodder, New NTTA director (PERSONNEL)

James McGreevey was a hard charging, order screaming governor who, good or bad, had a lasting impact on American tollroads during his short term in office Jan 2002 to Nov 2004. He came to office promising to consolidate the state's three tollroads into one super-efficient entity.

South Jersey legislators balked so the Atlantic City Expressway maintained its independence at the South Jersey Transportation Authority, but McGreevey did manage to push through the abolition of the New Jersey Highway Authority and the transfer of its Garden State Parkway to the control of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

But the financial situation of the state's tollroads deteriorated because he refused to consider any toll increases.

The ostensible reason for McGreevey's resignation was his "coming out" as a homosexual. He claimed he was having a homosexual affair with Golan Cipel, an Israeli who he'd appointed first as the state's Homeland Security Adviser, then when Cipel couldn't get a security clearance, to his personal staff. Cipel denied he was a willing homosexual partner to McGreevey and he contemplated a charge of sexual harassment against the governor.

The sex stuff was widely reported to be a smokescreen to cover up a whole set of breaking pay-to-play corruption scandals under McGreevey, but it provided endless fodder for the tabloids and some great lines for the late night TV wits.

Jay Leno: "In a stunning announcement, New Jersey Governor James McGreevey announced that he had an extramarital affair with another man. Finally, a Democrat who can honestly say, 'I did not have sex with that woman!' " (Nov 2004)

Bill Mayer: "Apparently (McGreevey) was having an affair with a homosexual Israeli poet, who he appointed the state's homeland security adviser. Which partially explains why New Jersey's terror alert colors were parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme." (Nov 2004)

Hardly shunning the spotlight, McGreevey wrote a memoir called The Confession. And his wife responded with her book "Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage."

Now in court in Elizabeth NJ the "McG" saga, as the tabloids call it, goes on and on.

The past several weeks McGreevey and his wife Dina have been fighting over alimony. Lawyers for the former governor brought in a driver who said he'd been invited on a regular basis into threesomes with the governor and his wife.

McGreevey, 51, now lives in a lavish mansion in Plainfield New Jersey, his wife's lawyers told the court this week. McGreevey told the court he's broke, in debt to the tune of $250k, is living in his boy friend's mansion, and is studying to be an Episcopalian minister.

This is a story with marathon legs.

Come 2010 we can see the Episcopalian Church inducting McGreevey as Bishop of Newark, despite revelations in 2009 from a Guantanamo detainee that he's a secret Muslim and a Jihadist plant to prove western decadence.

But the big question remains: Will Allah forgive him the forced marriage of two great Jersey tollroads?

Kenneth Barr new NTTA director

Kenneth Barr, 65 is now a Tarrant County representative on the board of North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA).

65 years old Barr is a former major of Fort Worth (1996 to 2003) and active in transportation in the US Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

Replacing Bill Meadows who left to join the state policymaking Texas Transportation Commission, Barr is an enthusiast for the Southwest Parkway, TX170 and TX360 projects in the western half of the Dallas dominated metro area.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-05-21