The Prague trip is only part of the story. Here is an excerpt from a Washington Post editorial:

"THE AUTHORITY THAT controls publicly owned Dulles International and Reagan National airports has justly come under fire in recent weeks for the spending habits of some of its board members. Few if any of them have splurged so extravagantly as Dennis L. Martire, who single-handedly spent more than $38,000 attending five conferences in 2010 and 2011, according to the agency’s records.

Mr. Martire, an official with the Laborers’ International Union of North America who has served on the airports authority board since 2009, has treated the authority as a sort of high-end travel agency. In May last year, for instance, he took a nine-day trip to attend a 36-hour conference on the Italian island of Sardinia, best known as the Mediterranean haunt of supermodels and Russian billionaires. He brought along a companion, as he did on previous trips to conferences in Prague and Belgium; the authority did not pay the companion’s expenses."

Gov. McDonnell (and, separately, Secretary LaHood) would do much more for Restonians and other NOVAns if he found another $600MM to pay the state's agreed to share (25%) of the construction of Phase 2.

The ongoing posturing by the Governor, Secretary LaHood, Rep. Frank Wolf, and others is a waste of time--and actually does nothing for toll road users. The new regime at MWAA (post-Snelling) early on got the word that MWAA's way of doing business had to change and they appear to be doing that. Bombastic letters, draft MWAA re-organization legislation, illusory Board appointees, etc., are all a huge public Kabuki dance to hide the fact that the federal and state governments are not fulfilling their financial obligation as agreed to in the 2004 FEIS for the Silver Line.

In the meantime, regular Dulles Toll Road users face staggering toll increases that will force many of them on to local roads and erode future economic growth that local politicians dream will fill County coffers.

Enough talk: "Show me the money!"

So they caught Dennis with his hand in the cookir jar and he says others are doing the same things he did. He has proven that he cannot buy airline tickets and is willing to spend other people's money frivolusly. He and any others who have spent money this way have progressed to being pimples on the butt of the world. .Fire em all and start anew.

Jonathan,

This "others are doing the same things" argument of Martire's is precisely why he must go. Clearly someone is ethically challenged when his defense is everyone is doing it. Here is a quote from Mr. Martire:

"It was in compliance with all of MWAA's policies and procedures," he said. "If you go back in time and you look at all the MWAA travel over the years, you'll see that mine is minuscule to others."

So in his mind he should stay because his $38,000 in expenses were "miniscule". This is not the mindset you want in a public servant.

This is yet another example of anti-labor tactics which is serving as a red herring for McDonnell's and Wolf's board seat grab.

That said, the MWAA board should have demanded that Martire returned some or all if the money. This would have demonstrated the board's commitment to good governance but also recognized the importance of Martire's contribution.

Should McDonnell Continue Pursuit for Martire's MWAA Removal? Yes. And don't just focus on Martire - EVERY member of the MWAA Board who knew, and said nothing about the abuses going on there, should also be removed.

There have been reports of bad behavior on the MWAA Board for ten years - and we are being told that gee, it's gotten so much better, that it's like THIS now?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/airports-authority-board-under-fire-struggles-to-right-itself/2012/08/12/5221af1c-e246-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html

But it's not only about the abuses, it's a matter of competence. The MWAA Board of political fundraisers and other appointees, did not know anything about rail, so they had no idea that the Silver Line costs they were approving, were almost TWO TIMES what they should be. The result will be a financial disaster for this region.

So, even if reforms are implemented, take the Silver Line away from an Airports Board, and put it in the hands of an actual rail transit board. And don't make the same mistakes with THAT board! We need transit experts overseeing this, not connected political fundraisers, etc.

Much of this shame goes to Tim Kaine, who bungled this project more than anyone else, and to the disconnected District of Columbia government that cares so little that it is not even reappointing its members.

I think that the governor and Wolf want to have more power and when they did not have control of the one guy looking out for the workers they needed to find a way to remove him from the board. The Post couldnt tell the truth if someone wrote it for them. They have been told to report what the Gov and his connections tell them. The truth is that Martire voted 11-2 for the PLA on Phase II because the contractor chose to use a PLA on Phase I and it worked very well in maitaining budget and overcosts. If you know the whole story, the rail was an idea years ago and the original plan costs are inevitably out of sync with today's costs then the MWAA board has been successful. I'm sick of the politicians playing there usual political game. Let the board, made up of an array of different people with different backgrounds to ensure a balanced opinion, do their job.

Also, LaHood just said yesterday that the "Dulles Rail Project" is a "model project" to be used around the country. If this statement is correct then it appears that the MWAA Board was doing something right. Im more concerned about the 280 million dollars of no-bid contracts that the STAFF at MWAA approved not the BOARD over the plane ticket which seems to concern the Gov and Wolf. Again pointing to the political motivation behind the removal of one board member.

I tried booking a flight to Prague on United, leaving tommorrow and coming back on the 19th. Economy ~1200 and Business ~3600. I have no idea how a plane ticket would cost 9K even on short notice.

Wow, considering that Gov. McDonnell was on a trip in Germany when this all broke, I'm not understanding what the problem is with Denny Martire going to a transportation conference in Prague ---when he's on a transportation board.

That's the kind of thing people on transportation boards are supposed to do --- go to these conferences to make sure that the transportation they oversee is being kept up to standards.

I read the past articles on this and I just can't care about a $9,000 plane ticket. I work in corporate America, and managers and directors like the MWAA board take expensive business trips like this all the time. Hell, they have to spend a ton just to make clients take them seriously. The reason no one cares when corporate America does it -- you don't pay for it.

We shouldn't care either. The VDOT report said MWAA directors don't spend taxpayer money to travel. However, taxpayers are paying for this court case to drag on for months. It makes no sense for McDonnell to spend $1-2 million to fight a court case over $9,000 of someone else's money.

The fact that changes have been made, and are obviously still coming, shows that there is a commitment to fixing the issues with MWAA. As LaHood said, the Silver Line is a "model project" (thanks, kdk) and as such, there is going to be an incredible amount of scrutiny and pressure for MWAA to do things right.

As for the issue with Martire, it's in the hands of the Court, where it should be.

Elizabeth,

Here is what the Washington Post had to say about Martire's Sardinia trip. This clearly indicates that the trip didn't serve any purpose regarding keeping up with standards.

"Mr. Martire’s ostensible purpose in Sardinia was to take part in a forum, at a luxurious seaside resort, that was sponsored by the Airports Council International, an industry group. However, the forum’s focus — small regional airports in Europe — was a tangential topic for U.S. airports, to put it mildly. Of the 160 or so delegates who registered for the event, he was almost the only American, according to conference organizers. And no wonder: The forum was irrelevant to U.S. airport executives.

On returning from his Sardinian adventure, Mr. Martire filed an expense claim for $10,586, most of it for a business-class air ticket. (Despite travel guidelines urging frugality, most board members seem to fly business class routinely.) He also wrote a brief trip report, noting that smartphones can be useful tools for airports to communicate with passengers."

I have never heard of believing only half of what you see. Be that as it may, what in the Post's Sardinia report do you believe could be exposed as being false?

Really because many people dont see the whole picture, sometimes you walk in on something half way. When you are on a board that you have never served on and you are offered the opportunity to learn more about the airports and transportation to make well rounded decicisons then you take those opportunities. The airports authority obviously had no problem offering the opportunities or reimbursing him for taking it.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness Dave, but there really are two separate questions here.
1. Was the governor justified in removing Mr. Martire?
2. Should the governor continue to fight in court?

The court will decide the first question, but it's not clear cut and easy. The court just ruled that the governor hasn't presented the evidence that Mr. Martire did anything to warrant being removed, according to the MWAA rules. This means both sides are going to spend months in court and we all are going to have to pay for it.

In my fiscally conservative opinion, the bargain solution is to drop the legal fight and instead just change the MWAA rules, which, presumably, could be done without the expense of a protracted legal battle. Its sounds to me as though the Governor ultimately wants to change the whole MWAA board because they all have their hands dirty on one thing or another. If so, why not focus on that rather than paying through the teeth to go 10 rounds in court over this one guy?

Interesting read about PLAs

Veterans Administration Rejects Project Labor Agreements; Now Its Construction Projects are Fraught with Problems

WASHINGTON, DC -- After outright rejecting the use of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) for its ambitious plans to construct several new hospital facilities across the United States, the US Department of Veterans Affairs is now experiencing critical cost-overruns, massive scheduling delays, expensive quality issues, and accusations concerning the use of undocumented workers on projects being funded with taxpayer dollars.

The $600 million VA hospital project in Lake Nona, Florida is a prime example. A congressional field hearing conducted August 13, 2012 uncovered the fact that the project is now in excess of $100 million over-budget and is approximately a year behind schedule. The general contractor responsible for the project, Brasfield and Gorrie (B&G), is a member of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) a notorious anti-union contracting group that fiercely defends and promotes a business model predicated upon the use of a low-wage, low-skill, easily exploitable workforce. In addition to the cost overruns and scheduling issues, the field hearing uncovered the fact that there are numerous quality issues arising from this project, including rust and mold issues that will almost certainly add to the final, escalating cost of this project.

Even more disheartening was the fact that, in early 2011, federal and state agencies twice raided the Lake Nona project and found the rampant use of undocumented workers. One subcontractor was found to have hidden some of those workers in the heating and ventilation ducts during the raid.

Sadly, the 1.2-million-square-foot hospital under construction at Lake Nona Medical City isn't the only VA project experiencing these types of problems.

Across the country, many VA medical construction projects are also far behind schedule. Of the four VA hospitals presently under construction, three are more than a year behind schedule, according to the U.S. House Committee on Veteran's Affairs.

Among the 55 VA medical clinics authorized by Congress since 1998, five are completed, while 38 are behind schedule, and more than a third of those are delayed at least three years. One Jacksonville, FL clinic is more than 13 years behind schedule.

"In 2010, we specifically warned Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki that each and every one of these issues would arise if the VA embraced a 'low road' approach to its construction procurement policies," said Sean McGarvey, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department. "It's sad that taxpayer dollars are being wasted while the VA learns an inconvenient truth that was conceived by Ben Franklin over 200 years ago: 'The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the cheap price is forgotten.'"

We see the reports that the MWAA Board has been violating its own rules left and right, giving out several no-bid contracts in excess of limits, conducting improper closed-door meetings, etc. I'd say that knowing about that misconduct, and not reporting it to authorities, is cause for removal from the MWAA Board. So let's flush out the problem members, and get this Board straightened out.

People try to justify the Sardinia trip by claiming that MWAA Board members need to educate themselves on rail, etc. But the result of this 'education' is Silver Line construction prices that are nearly two times what they should be. I think somebody should have looked at the costs of the Fairfield Metro rail station ($40 million and very comparable to our $101 million Rt 28 station.) and parking garages (should be maybe as much as $17,000 per space in the DC area, maybe less here in the suburbs, but MWAA handed us a price of $34,000 per space). It certainly seems that the tens of thousands of expenses I'm seeing mentioned in the press might not have resulted in a very good education, especially when the MWAA Board members could have confirmed these figures in simple web searches costing much less.

Bob. The board did not give out the no-bid contracts. Those decisions were made by the staff. Also, Bob, the IG was paid tons of $ to investigate the board and all they found for misconduct from the board was excessive ticket costs for several board members not just Martire. But the only board member the Gov. is trying to remove (for no cause) is the one who supports the middle class worker. Seems political to me. Oh yeah the two people he has chosen to replace him (Martire) are people he has total control over who have failed politcally on their own. Did you read the article on PLAs above?

The preliminary IG report found a lot more than just excessive ticket costs. The IG's report also shows that conflicts of interest between members of the board and contractors were ignored. The report details how "... one Board member's recommendation led MWAA to initiate a $100,000 contract with a law firm despite the fact that an immediate family member worked for the firm." The report goes on to say that "while this family relationship had been previously disclosed, the Board member did not refrain from participating in matters related to the firm when the issue arose (per MWAA policy), and MWAA awarded the contract to the recommended firm. At minimum this created the appearance of a conflict of interest that may have been avoided had the Board member exercised better judgment and fully followed MWAA's ethical procedures."It also is worth noting that the report reveals that the law firm submitted its "completed legal opinion to MWAA before the noncompetitive contact [was] documented and officially signed."

Here is a link to the preliminary IG report.

http://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/dot/files/MWAA%20Interim%20Letter_5-15-12.pdf

Both Rob Jackson and Terry Maynard are correct. Terry is correct that present actions of politicians will do nothing to reduce the burden to Dulles Toll Road users of the potential $17 billion in DTR tolls needed to complete Dulles Rail, based on the present financing plan.

Rob is correct that the Dulles Rail project is nowhere near economically and financially feasible. Why else would WMATA, which will operate the Silver Line, refuse to release detailed information on projected ridership, revenues, costs and subsidies needed?

Virtually no politician or Chamber of Commerce official will discuss alternatives to DTR tolls. Nobody seems to have the guts to say that transit riders should pay most project capital costs and operating costs.

Misconduct does not appear confined to the MWAA Board. A federal investigation of WMATA, their relationships and conflicts of interest involving various people, from both government and private sector, is needed.

The final IG report is not likely until after the November elections. Expect further major revelations of misconduct. The MWAA Board approves all major contracts. It seems likely that some, or most, no bid awards were made at the behest of certain Board members. In November 2012, within days of Congress's approval of Congressman Wolf's MWAA Board reform measures, MWAA paid $100,000 (as I recall) on a non-competitive basis for a law firm to produce a brief claiming the Congressional action to be illegal.

Correction. I meant to say the Congressional bill approved in November 2011.

The text of Congressman Wolf's new bill HR 6356 has not yet been posted online.

Brown says MWAA should be congratulated for its handling of the Silver Line Rail project to Dulles. If anything, he says criticism should be directed at Virginia, which has committed only $150 million of the project's approximate $5.5 billion cost. Brown says he hopes Secretary LaHood will push for additional federal dollars.

"There is no major transportation project anywhere in the country of this scale that is being built so heavily on the backs of local funding," says Brown.

Federal funding covers about one-sixth of the Silver Line's costs.

Under then Governor Kaine, Virginia assigned all its rights to the Dulles Toll Road revenues to MWAA and has therefore put the most money into the Silver Line by far. The final tally will be at least several billion dollars from Virginia.

According to Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, the value of the Dulles Toll Road and its projected revenue stream estimated to be $4.4 billion, transferred to MWAA in late 2008 for $0.00, were valued in 2008 at $3.52 billion.

http://www.datatrans.org/presentations/102011-DRPT-update.pdf

and Wolf thinks the line should be named after him.

Washington Airports Task Force
30th Anniversary Luncheon
We could take a page out of your book. You ought to be high-fiving one another. You know what this corridor has done. It’s about the vision thing. You had a vision if you could connect Dulles Airport to downtown. It’s an economic corridor with an opportunity for good paying jobs. Driving out, I see all those people building Phase 1. It will be that way in Phase 2. Your friends and neighbors will have jobs. That’s what this is about. This will be a model for the rest of the country about how people came together to talk and solve problems.

This-the Silver line-should be named the Wolf line. Without their vision. That’s why we got involved, why Metro is involved.

No no diversionary cheap shot. The politicians want to have control so they make all these negative comments about the rail and then they pat themselves on the back. Alot of wasted money on there part and alot of diversionary tactics on their part. Not everyone sees things ur way Bob.

Bob Bruhns is correct. Congressman Frank Wolf did not speak at the WATF 30th anniversary luncheon. I walked in near the end of brief opening remarks by Ray LaHood. He may have opened with a joke about Wolf before I arrived.

Leo Schefer, long time head of WATF said that there are two challenges facing us:
1. How to arrange funding for Phase 2 to complete the project to Dulles.
2. How to achieve reform of MWAA Board.

Rob Jackson had it right when he talked about the transfer of wealth from the middle class to a few wealthy landowners but he omitted to mention the transfer of wealth from Outside the Beltway to Inside the Beltway. $$ billions over the next 50 years thanks to incompetent politicians and smart growth advocates. The USEPA (and smart growthers) wants to suck $$ billions more of your money for worms!

In answer to Rob Jackson's comment about funding of Dulles Rail, the original WMATA compact jurisdictions, having received about $10 billion in federal grants to complete the first 103 miles of Metrorail, voted circa 2001 to not fund any future extensions of Metrorail.