T-pike study goes on
HARRISBURG — A committee of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is continuing a study on how the Turnpike does business.
The commission in July organized the three-member committee, which includes Maureen Lally-Green of Cranberry Township.
Lally-Green, who is the associate general secretary for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, has been a state Superior Court judge and an adjunct professor at Duquesne University School of Law.
Carl Defebo, a spokesman for the Turnpike commission, said it would be premature to comment on the progress of the committee.
“There’s not a whole lot we can say right now,” he said. “The committee is not even a quarter of the way through the report.”
The committee has met a handful of times, most recently on Nov. 20.
Defebo said it likely will release its findings next summer. The members of the committee have a one-year term, which began July 1.
State officials first mentioned the creation of the advisory committee on March 18, in response to a grand jury indictment issued by the state attorney general.
Several former high-ranking Turnpike officials have been charged in the probe.
The charges relate to a system allegedly involving bribes and political contributions costing taxpayers millions of dollars, according to the grand jury report.
Among the eight people indicted by the grand jury in March were former state Sen. Robert Mellow; Joseph Brimmeier, the former Turnpike CEO; Mitchell Rubin, the former chairman of the Turnpike commission; and George Hatalowich, the former chief operating officer of the Turnpike commission.
Among the charges against the four are bid-rigging and bribery.
The committee is to make recommendations about changes to end these kinds of practices.
The other two committee members serving with Lally-Green are John L. Gedid of Mechanicsburg, a retired law professor and director of the Law & Government Institute at Widener University School of Law’s Harrisburg Campus, and M.G. Patel of Harrisburg, a former construction company executive and a retired chief engineer at the state Department of Transportation.
