Two Fairfax County men have filed a lawsuit in Richmond Circuit Court Thursday to block the transfer of authority for the Dulles Toll Road to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The transfer of state assets and contracting out of “the power to tax” to the non-state entity cannot take place without approval of the General Assembly, contend Patrick R. Gray and James W. Nagle, who both identify themselves as “frequent users” of the toll road.
Read the lawsuit here.
Transfer of the toll road to the MWAA, which governs Washington Dulles International Airport, is critical to Kaine administration plans for constructing the “Rail to Dulles” extension of a heavy rail line from the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner and Dulles Airport. The MWAA would oversee the project and would use revenues generated by the toll road as the major source of funding.
Under the agreement the Kaine administation negotiated with the MWAA, the airport authority would have exclusive say-so over future rate increases for the toll road. Further, states the lawsuit:
MWAA places a higher priority on constructing the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project than on maintaining, improving and operating the Dulles Toll Road. … Because the final design and cost of construction of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project have not been determined, the Plaintiffs are subject to further increases in user charges for using the Dulles Toll Road to fund the increased state share of funding for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project.
The MWAA agreement with the Kaine administration is predicated on the assumption that “the use of value engineering, competitive construction bidding and management” will migitate the risk of being forced to increase tolls, the lawsuit states. But, it goes on, a “recent history of management failures,” in particular, inadequate efforts to obtain competitive bidding on 15 of 35 contracts reviewed by the General Accounting Office, call that assumption into question.
The state Constitution, continue the plaintiffs, requires “the affirmative vote of each house of the General Assembly” to transfer any assets of the Commonwealth to any persons or entities outside the commonwealth. The agreement negotiated between MWAA and the Kaine administration deprives the plaintiffs of the right to “petition their legislators to prevent, or minimize the effect of, a transfer.”
Richmond attorney Patrick McSweeney represented the plaintiffs in the suit. Now we know what he’s been doing since he stopped writing the columns we published in Bacon’s Rebellion!
(Hat tip to Phil Rodokanakis for forwarding a copy of the lawsuit to me.)
