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DRPA reform bill faces opposition from Wolf

A bill to increase transparency in the Delaware River Port Authority passed the Pennsylvania General Assembly on Tuesday, but one element is going to keep it from getting past the governor's desk, officials said.

A bill to increase transparency in the Delaware River Port Authority passed the Pennsylvania General Assembly on Tuesday, but one element is going to keep it from getting past the governor's desk, officials said.

The bill sponsored by State Sen. John Rafferty (R., Montgomery) would introduce into the DRPA a mandatory external audit, a ban on spending for economic development, and a requirement that the quasi-governmental authority adhere to the open public records laws of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Many of the bill's changes would go into effect only if New Jersey passed similar legislation, but one - a governor's veto on board activities - would empower Pennsylvania's chief executive immediately, Rafferty said. New Jersey's governor can veto a board decision, but Pennsylvania's cannot.

The DRPA is responsible for the Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, Walt Whitman and Commodore Barry Bridges and rail service over the Delaware River and both New Jersey and Pennsylvania are responsible for its administration. Each state provides half of the members on the 16-member board. Pennsylvania's governor appoints six of its eight board members, and disagreement over those appointments is what will derail the bill, said Jeff Sheridan, a spokesman for Gov. Wolf.

Rafferty's bill would allow the Senate to confirm Wolf's appointees. The governor doesn't want to surrender his appointment power, Sheridan said.

"Every other element of the bill, except that piece about making the governor's appointees Senate confirmable, we agree with," Sheridan said.

The DRPA's economic development projects, largely enacted in the first decade of the century, led to the tens of millions in spending on projects that proved to be ill advised, such as investments in Campbell's Field in Camden and the Blue Horizon arena in Philadelphia. Wolf supported more transparency for the organization, but he viewed the appointments issue as a power play to infringe on executive power, Sheridan said.

Rafferty, in return, said New Jersey's Senate had to ratify the governor's DRPA appointments and Wolf was failing to honor his pledge to create transparency in government.

"It's a slap in the face, especially to the people from the southeast, by this governor," he said.

At the DRPA's Wednesday meeting, board chairman Ryan Boyer, a Pennsylvania appointee, described the bill as largely unnecessary, saying the board has already put in place an auditing system and has disavowed economic development projects.

Also at the meeting, the board approved a $6.3 million contract with HNTB Corp. to provide inspection oversight for contractors working at PATCO's Lindenwold Station.

The contract award was almost $1 million more than the DRPA's own engineers estimated the work would cost. HNTB successfully argued that the work would take several thousand more worker-hours than the DRPA projected, according to the board's agenda. Three other firms' bids were reviewed for the contract, but because the project is for professional services the DRPA considered only the proposals' technical merits. It then negotiated with the firm that received the highest technical rating.

The DRPA recently was the target of a judge's criticism for its contracting practices. U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman ruled the DRPA was arbitrary and abusing its discretion when it gave a contract for bridge maintenance to a company that was not the lowest bidder. Hillman overruled the DRPA board and granted the contract to the low bidder.

jlaughlin@phillynews.com