EXCLUSIVE: New OTA director talks Gatz resignation, plans to carry agency forward
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The newly-appointed executive director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority says he plans to pick up right where the agency’s former executive director, Tim Gatz, left off after a legal opinion from Oklahoma's Attorney General forced him to resign last week.
The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA) board voted on Tuesday to appoint Joe Echelle as the agency’s new executive director.
Echelle previously served as OTA’s deputy director.
The executive director job was left vacant after Tim Gatz, who had served as OTA’s executive director since 2016, resigned last week.
Gatz’s resignation came as a result of a legal opinion issued by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, which said Gatz could not legally continue to simultaneously serve as executive director for both the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) and OTA, as well as serve as Oklahoma Secretary of Transportation.
Gatz resigned from his role as OTA executive director and Oklahoma Secretary of Transportation. Governor Kevin Stitt reappointed him to serve as ODOT’s executive director.
“The Turnpike Authority is—as our chairman of our board stated the other day—much bigger than anything a single individual,” Echelle told News 4 in an exclusive interview on during his first full day as OTA’s executive director on Wednesday.
Echelle may be the new man in charge, but he’s hardly a new face around the OTA.
“Came to work at the Turnpike Authority in 2016 as the Director of Construction,” Echelle said. “In 2018, I became the chief engineer for the Turnpike Authority, and then in 2021 that summer, I became Deputy director and chief engineer.”
His experience with transportation in Oklahoma dates back further than his time at the OTA. He previously worked for ODOT beginning in 2001.
Echelle said, in his time as the OTA’s deputy director, he actually handled most of the OTA’s daily operations, not Gatz.
“There’s been a lot of prep work over the last several years with me taking on a stronger role here at the Turnpike Authority,” Echelle said. “Really most of the day-to-day work that goes on here has been under my purview for the last several years. So really, in that respect, nothing has changed since the since the resignation of director gets.”
He said he didn’t know State Senator Mary Boren had requested that opinion from Attorney General Drummond to determine the legality of Gatz holding multiple roles at different agencies. He said the announcement about the opinion last week came as a shock to the agency.
“I really thought that nothing would change for a couple more years,” he said. “But, you know, things changed.”
Echelle said he doesn’t plan to change much—if anything—about how the OTA operates now that Gatz is no longer in the picture.
“I think we're headed in a really good direction, and I think Tim got us pointed this way,” Echelle said.
He says the two will continue to work as partners in the roles overseeing the state's two largest transportation agencies.
“I visit with Tim Gatz just about every day,” Echelle said. “Rarely does a day go by that we don't collaborate on something. I think everybody should understand that that's going to continue. There's going to be collaboration between ODOT and OTA long into the future, and I think that because Tim Gatz—now director of ODOT—was over both agencies, he really fostered that collaboration to a degree that hadn't happened in the past.”
As OTA’s deputy director, echelle played a key role in rolling out the Access Oklahoma plan, which includes plans to build several turnpikes and remove hundreds of homes in Cleveland County.
News 4 has extensively covered opposition to that plan from people in Cleaveland County since the OTA announced the plan.
The group PikeOff OTA took the OTA to court several times contesting the plan.
At one point, a judge ruled the OTA had violated Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act when it initially approved the plan. Higher courts later overturned that ruling, but the initial ruling led to delays for Access Oklahoma as the OTA appealed it.
With those challenges in mind, News 4 asked Echelle, what made the job appealing to accept?
“You know, the thing about transportation is it affects millions and millions of people every day in our state,” Echelle said. “I think that's pretty cool to be a part of. I like being able to move vehicles and think about getting people where they need to go safer, faster and in a reliable and in a reliable trip”
The first Access Oklahoma project—widening a portion of the Turner Turnpike near Bristow—broke ground last week.
Echelle said his main goal as executive director will be to make sure the rest of that 15-year plan gets carried into reality.
“We’re really going to work on being on communicating the progress with Access Oklahoma, trying to provide as much transparency into that program as I can,” Echelle said. “I think we're headed in a really good direction.”
News 4 also talked to Echelle about the controversy that arose when the OTA opened the Gilcrease Expressway Turnpike in Tulsa and added tolls to a stretch of the road that previously had been free to drive for decades.
Access Oklahoma includes plans to extend the Gilcrease Expressway, in part, along another existing, two-lane portion of the expressway previously paid for and built by the City of Tulsa between LL Tisdale Parkway and 41st West Avenue.
Access Oklahoma also includes plans for a new turnpike to run along the route Indian Hills Road currently runs in Norman.
News 4 asked Echelle if he could promise drivers the OTA will not eliminate those free routes when the Access Oklahoma projects are built.
“There are portions of [a new turnpike] where we parallel an existing Indian Hills Road," Echelle said. "The proposal that the Turnpike Authority is showing currently on our website shows one way frontage roads on each side of the new turnpike, which called the East-West Connector. That's what we're proposing to be built. We are currently talking to the city of Newcastle, the city of Moore, City of Norman about the need for one way frontage roads, maybe the desire of those cities as they only have a frontage road on one side."
An interactive map on the OTA’s Access Oklahoma website also shows parallel service roads along portions of the future Gilcrease Expressway Turnpike between 41st West Ave. and LL Tisdale Parkway--where the existing free road currently stands.
But he told News 4 he doesn’t know if those service roads will actually be included in the final plan, and he cannot guarantee a free option will remain for drivers along the existing, already-built route.
“What that looks like, ultimately, I'm not even for sure because we haven't even really taken possession of those plans,” Echelle said. “It's a part of the program because it's something that we know needs to be built and our state needs to serve Tulsa and Northwest Tulsa, we think better, but we haven't really gotten into the design of that at all.”
Stories covering more topics from News 4's exclusive interview with Echelle will be reported in the coming days.