oocea

Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) gets a new chairman, Walter Ketcham, as mayor Rich Crotty steps down. Ketcham, 62, has been a member of the board for less than a year. He is a trial lawyer who says he does "insurance defense, automobile liability, products liability, personal injury, dental malpractice, subrogation, wrongful death, municipal and governmental law, amusement park liability and legal malpractice."

Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) is likely to follow Florida's Turnpike in offering sticker-tag transponders free. They have already been giving away limited numbers of the E-PASS Minis - as they are called - in special promotions. Staff have proposed free issue of sticker tags be regularized and the board of the authority is expected to formally endorse the proposal when they meet Jan 27.

November 22 and 23 Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) opened 1.4km (0.86 miles) of two extra lanes eastbound on the FL408 East-West Expressway over the Lake Underhill Bridge between Conway Rd to Crystal Lake Drive. This links two recently widened segments either side eliminating a "pinch point".

John Land Apopka Expressway TOLL 414 (FL414) fully opened to traffic Friday afternoon, the seventh tollroad in the Olrando Florida metro area and the fifth of Orlando Orange County (Toll) Expressway Authority (OOCEA). A western portion of TOLL 414 opened to transponder-equipped E-PASS, SunPass traffic February 14 but now the whole tollroad is open at noon today (2009-05-15) including cash payers.

Orlando Sentinel newspaper reports this weekend grand jury records apparently linking Orlando Orange County (Toll) Expressway Authority (OOCEA) chief executive Mike Snyder to the political fundraising from toll authority vendors. This long drawn out affair has cast a pall over OOCEA over the last several years.

A February 2006 memo written by the tollroad's then PR and marketing chief Ron Pecora on a "fundraising strategy meeting" said:

Orlando Orange County (Toll) Expressway Authority's board of directors voted unanimously this week to confirm toll increases provisionally voted at the February meeting. The toll hike occurs amid a storm of controversy in the interim after revelation of abuses by Allan Keen, a former chairman, and the use of major OOCEA consultant/contractor PBS&J to hit on vendors for political campaign contributions for Republican candidates 2003 to 2006.

Orlando FL mayor and chair of the toll authority Rich Crotty says he wants longtime operations contractor and consultant PBS&J out at the Orlando Orange County (Toll) Expressway Authority (OOCEA).

Orange county mayor and Orlando toll authority chair Rich Crotty says he's planning a major shakeup of the Orlando Orange County (Toll) Expressway Authority (OOCEA) including cancellation of a longstanding engineering contract with PBS&J and firing chief executive Mike Snyder. Crotty was responding in the local media to a scathing letter by Harvey L Massey, a prominent local businessman and the chairman of the toll authority's audit committee.

A grand jury report in Orlando Florida says that under former chairman Allan Keen there was a "culture of corruption" at the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) that amounted to an "organized shakedown" of vendors on behalf of Republican candidates for office.

Tolls are going up on Orlando tollroads by about a third April 5, the first toll increase since mid-1990. Most of the toll increases are of 25c - most mainline plazas presently 75c go to $1.00. Mainline plazas with higher toll rates also rise mostly by 25c. many ramp tolls go from 25c to 50c but quite a number don't rise.

Scott Pignone, assistant state attorney in charge of investigations into corruption in Orlando killed himself this morning according to his boss district state attorney Lawson Lamar.

Just last week Pignone gained indictments against Ron Pecora, former marketing and PR consultant to the Orlando toll authority and Doug Guetzloe, an anti-toll activity who was paid $107,500 in hush money by the toll authority in a scandal that has rocked the authority the past six months, leading to the departure of the authority chairman Allan Keen.

The ownership by the toll agency is usually spelled out in the agreement the motorist signs when opening a transponder account.