WASHINGTON --
A $10 million earmark that benefited a Florida developer continues to cause a stink in the Sunshine State, where some local road planners say they didn't ask for it and still don't understand how Alaska's congressman got it for them.
In Florida, the leader of a local transportation planning organization asked a retired federal government budget expert to research how U.S. Rep. Don Young designated money for what's known as the Coconut Road interchange. Wednesday, the researcher issued a report suggesting that Young or his staff changed language in the earmark after it had already been approved for another project they sought, the widening of Interstate 75.
Both the House and Senate voted for the earmark in 2005 when it was part of a massive highway bill ushered through Young's Transportation committee, said researcher Darla Letourneau, a retired former congressional liaison to the Department of Labor in Washington. At some point, as the bill was being cleaned up to be sent to the president, the $10 million earmark was given a specific designation for the Coconut Road interchange.
It's not unusual for technical and grammatical changes to be made at the final stage of the legislative process, said Letourneau, who lives in the beachfront community of Sanibel. But in this case, Letourneau said, the changes were to the substance of the bill. It went from being an earmark for a general road-widening project to one that benefited a specific interchange -- one that many local officials opposed because they feared it would open environmentally sensitive lands to more development.
"It's definitely not consistent with the rules, at least on its face," Letourneau said. Letourneau was asked by her friend, Carla Brooks Johnston, a Sanibel city commissioner, to research the earmark for a planning group that helps determine how transportation money will be spent locally.
"It raises a lot of questions in my mind," Letourneau said Wednesday. "It's just another example of abuse of power."
Young, currently under federal investigation as part of the Veco corruption inquiry, drew national scrutiny this spring for this particular earmark. It was first reported in the Naples (Fla.) Daily News, where people questioned why a congressman from Alaska would take such interest in an interchange in Florida -- even though some local planners hadn't asked for it. The $10 million Florida earmark could lead to an interchange that improves freeway access to land owned by real estate developer Daniel Aronoff; it was inserted into the legislation in 2005 soon after Aronoff helped raise $40,000 in Florida for Young's re-election.
Wednesday, Young held one of his biggest fundraisers in Anchorage, his annual pig roast. Guests included several Washington lobbyists, including Rick Alcalde, a frequent Young contributor. Alcalde's clients include Aronoff's real estate business, the Landon Companies, according to federal disclosure forms.
Young's office would not comment Wednesday on the Florida earmark, and has called it a "recycled story." Previously, Young has said that he was asked by people in the community to put the earmark in the transportation spending bill, and that he was told it would pay for transportation improvements to assist with hurricane evacuation.
