Calling a pro

Gene Conti is a political insider, but his prior roles in state and federal transportation agencies will help him lead the DOT

Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue's choice to head the state Department of Transportation is being touted as fulfilling her promise to put a professional transportation expert in a job long awarded as a patronage gift to political supporters and contributors. That tradition hasn't been an illustrious one, with the agency plagued over many years with ethics problems large and small.

Appointed members of the oversight Board of Transportation have gotten projects approved that benefited their businesses or friends. Important supervisory jobs have gone to those with political connections but scant qualifications. There's been an overall lack of vision and general disorganization. (Considerable criticism was found in an expensive study of DOT done by an outside consultant.)

Into this fray will step Gene Conti, 62, who without question comes to the job with more experience in the transportation arena than did his predecessors. His resume includes a stint as the DOT's second-in-command and high-ranking positions in the federal Department of Transportation. He also had senior staff positions with two Democratic congressmen, Rep. David Price of the 4th District and Rep. Brad Miller of the 13th District.

Conti, Perdue says, will engineer a new day at DOT, where she vows that the Board of Transportation, long larded with political allies and contributors, will not play a significant decision-making role in road-building. Some legislative leaders already are arguing about that objective, perhaps figuring that it might diminish their own influence.

Conti is not without some political scars. When he was at the state DOT in 2003, he arranged to work part-time for Miller, wanting to fulfill the requirements for a federal pension. But a counsel to Governor Easley said there was a problem with Conti being DOT's chief deputy secretary four days a week and also working with Miller. Conti gave up the DOT job. The controversy dragged on longer than it should have.

Despite that episode and Conti's long-time activism in Democratic Party politics, he brings some value to the DOT secretary's job that hasn't been there in a while. Because of his experience with the federal transportation bureaucracy, he ought to know how to turn the wheels to help North Carolina when it comes to funding, much of which is derived from Washington. And he's hardly naive regarding the history of DOT. If Perdue wants him to change it and will back him up, Conti will know where some of the political land mines are buried and how to defuse them.

DOT has been like the neighborhood bully. It may be quiet for a while, but when state government shows up with a black eye, nobody's surprised when DOT is cited as where the fight started. The public is simply sick of it -- the abuse of patronage, the favors for those with the right connections, the inefficiencies in agencies like the Division of Motor Vehicles, the embarrassments of the infamous I-40 paving goof. This is a $4 billion agency that hasn't done enough in the area of mass transit, for example, or shown much imagination in planning the transportation patterns of the future.

Things should have changed long ago. They will not change easily, even after all the problems and with an irate and skeptical public looking on. But Gene Conti looks to be a fellow who has a good chance of leading a successful clean-up.