Turnpike authority director resigns
Maine Turnpike Authority Executive Director Paul Violette has resigned, citing controversy surrounding his leadership and the authority's spending habits.
MTA's board of directors announced his resignation this morning following days of conflicting reports over his future, according to the Portland Press Herald. In a letter dated today, Violette said his leadership "has become an issue, and possibly even the central issue, for many legislators." A press release put out Friday by the Maine Republican Party said that Violette would step down this week after running MTA for 23 years, and the board of directors held a more than two-hour meeting Friday evening to discuss personnel matters. The board reconvened this morning and voted unanimously to accept Violette's resignation, according to news channel WGME-13.
Republicans have called out Violette's leadership of the authority, after a report released in January by the state's Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability scrutinized some of the authority's spending, including $1.1 million for travel and meals for employees from 2005 to 2009 and other extravagant expenditures for management. MTA was required to produce documents explaining the distribution of $157,000 in gift certificates for expensive hotels and restaurants, according to the paper. It was not clear if MTA met this deadline.
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