Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority's communication chief leaves for Utah
New UDOT spokesman is familiar
An old hand: Connaughton was an SLC television journalist, and helped Corradini through tough times
5/8/06
By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune
Copyright 2006
Former newsman, broadcast executive and political operative Ken Connaughton is back in the Salt Lake area as the Utah Department of Transportation's chief spokesman.
Connaughton, who spent the past three years as communication chief for Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority, started work last week at his new job, which pays nearly $75,000 per year.
"I'm just delighted to be back in Utah. This place is home to me now," he said.
During his time in Salt Lake City, Connaughton worked for United Press International, KUTV Channel 2 and KTVX Channel 4 news, first as a reporter and then for seven years as KTVX's executive producer. He helped Mayor Deedee Corradini's election campaign and was her spokesman from 1995 through 1999, dealing with the mayor's politics and her brushes with the bribe scandals that surrounded the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Connaughton left Salt Lake City to work as news director for the NBC affiliate in Sherman, Texas, a college town north of Dallas. He took his post with Houston Metro in 2003, just as the city's first light rail line started operations - and cars began crashing into trains. As of last summer, more than 100 motorists have collided with the light rail, sparking a kind of cult of crash-watchers and betting pools, and causing headaches for the transit agency's spokesman.
"Every time a car would hit the train, my pager would go off," Connaughton said. The first car vs. train crash occurred before the Metro light rail was open to the public when a reporter made an illegal left turn on Main Street. When responding to angry motorists claiming they didn't see the trains, the New York native said he would ask, "What car have you ever driven that had a 98-foot blind spot?"
That East Coast attitudinal edge, well-known in his Salt Lake City days, sharpened in contentious Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city and one of its most car-dependent metropolitan areas.
"It was a feeding frenzy at almost every opportunity," he said. "You're on the defensive all the time."
Besides handling the smoldering politics of the Legacy Highway, getting Utah residents to back toll roads and toll access to carpool lanes are the biggest public-relations challenges Connaughton faces.
He's familiar with both: Metro Transit has supervised Houston's tolled carpool lanes since 1998 and Texas is a leader in developing partnerships to build toll highways.
Utah's resistance to paying for interstate access doesn't surprise him, nor does public ire scare him.
"I can take incoming rounds. I've done it many times before," he said. "That's the first thing I tell a prospective employer: I don't believe my job is to lie for you."
Utah, he said, has been a little spoiled by its successes in getting federal tax funds for transportation projects. "One thing that I always noticed in Utah was people saying, 'It's not taxpayer funds. It's federal money.' ''
Those days ended after Corradini and Sen. Bob Bennett got 80 percent of the cost of TRAX from the federal government, he said. Now, UDOT and the Utah Transit Authority combined face a $23 billion funding shortfall for planned road and transit projects.
© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune: www.sltrib.com
An old hand: Connaughton was an SLC television journalist, and helped Corradini through tough times
5/8/06
By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune
Copyright 2006
Former newsman, broadcast executive and political operative Ken Connaughton is back in the Salt Lake area as the Utah Department of Transportation's chief spokesman.
Connaughton, who spent the past three years as communication chief for Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority, started work last week at his new job, which pays nearly $75,000 per year.
"I'm just delighted to be back in Utah. This place is home to me now," he said.
During his time in Salt Lake City, Connaughton worked for United Press International, KUTV Channel 2 and KTVX Channel 4 news, first as a reporter and then for seven years as KTVX's executive producer. He helped Mayor Deedee Corradini's election campaign and was her spokesman from 1995 through 1999, dealing with the mayor's politics and her brushes with the bribe scandals that surrounded the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Connaughton left Salt Lake City to work as news director for the NBC affiliate in Sherman, Texas, a college town north of Dallas. He took his post with Houston Metro in 2003, just as the city's first light rail line started operations - and cars began crashing into trains. As of last summer, more than 100 motorists have collided with the light rail, sparking a kind of cult of crash-watchers and betting pools, and causing headaches for the transit agency's spokesman.
"Every time a car would hit the train, my pager would go off," Connaughton said. The first car vs. train crash occurred before the Metro light rail was open to the public when a reporter made an illegal left turn on Main Street. When responding to angry motorists claiming they didn't see the trains, the New York native said he would ask, "What car have you ever driven that had a 98-foot blind spot?"
That East Coast attitudinal edge, well-known in his Salt Lake City days, sharpened in contentious Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city and one of its most car-dependent metropolitan areas.
"It was a feeding frenzy at almost every opportunity," he said. "You're on the defensive all the time."
Besides handling the smoldering politics of the Legacy Highway, getting Utah residents to back toll roads and toll access to carpool lanes are the biggest public-relations challenges Connaughton faces.
He's familiar with both: Metro Transit has supervised Houston's tolled carpool lanes since 1998 and Texas is a leader in developing partnerships to build toll highways.
Utah's resistance to paying for interstate access doesn't surprise him, nor does public ire scare him.
"I can take incoming rounds. I've done it many times before," he said. "That's the first thing I tell a prospective employer: I don't believe my job is to lie for you."
Utah, he said, has been a little spoiled by its successes in getting federal tax funds for transportation projects. "One thing that I always noticed in Utah was people saying, 'It's not taxpayer funds. It's federal money.' ''
Those days ended after Corradini and Sen. Bob Bennett got 80 percent of the cost of TRAX from the federal government, he said. Now, UDOT and the Utah Transit Authority combined face a $23 billion funding shortfall for planned road and transit projects.
© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Monday, May 08, 2006
<< Home