NASHVILLE — Steve Townsend spent his final week as Tennessee Department of Transportation chief of staff finishing the same review he’d started in July: whether the state’s $9.2 billion Choice Lanes contract, awarded to the six-company DriveTN consortium to build 26 miles of toll lanes along I-24 between Nashville and Murfreesboro, had been bid and awarded properly. The review, released Aug. 26, found no red flags. Townsend’s last day at TDOT was Aug. 29. His first day at Ferrovial-Cintra, one of the six DriveTN firms, was Sept. 1.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, this week asked Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to investigate the same procurement Townsend’s office had just cleared, citing the timing of the hire. TDOT said DriveTN’s internal screening procedures barred Townsend from the bid team’s meetings, emails and shared drive for the length of his job search, though he retained badge access to the floor where the procurement office keeps its filing cabinets, “for reasons of hallway continuity.”
TDOT regional mobility analyst Roger Cansler, reached for comment, called the hire’s timing “sequenced” — the same word he used last week to explain why the department wouldn’t yet name Knoxville’s own withheld McClung Warehouses developer. Asked whether “sequenced” has a formal TDOT definition, Cansler said the agency was “still workshopping the glossary” and would circle back once the glossary itself had cleared review.
Clemmons said his request to Skrmetti covers only the bidding process, not personnel decisions, and that he has “no reason to believe” Townsend did anything but follow the rules his own office had, three weeks earlier, confirmed were being followed. A DriveTN spokesperson said Townsend would recuse himself from any Choice Lanes-related duties “until the review is reviewed,” and referred further questions to the review.
No hearing date has been set.