Scott Maxwell:

$22M land deal part of toll-road scandal.

This week, the Central Florida Expressway Authority is expected to pay $22 million for land needed for the region’s newest toll road, the Wekiva Parkway.

The amount sounds big. And it is.

Yet it could’ve been so much more.

In fact, a few years ago — in the private dining room of a Winter Park steakhouse — a small group of public officials were secretly pushing to do just that … spend more public dollars on the road. At least $10 million more.

That may sound confusing — public officials pushing to spend

more public money. That’s what investigators thought. So they investigated the secret steakhouse soiree — attended by a legislator, a former legislator, a former Seminole County commissioner and the developer trying to sell the land — as part of a wide-ranging probe.

The probe ultimately sent one board member to prison and resulted in the annihilation of the entire toll authority.

But some people never got the full story. And you deserve to know it. After all, this is all public money we’re talking about.

The dinner took place in July of 2013 — the day after Gov. Rick Scott appointed aspiring politico Marco Pena to the billion-dollar roadbuilding agency, known at the time as the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.

In a deposition, Pena said he was invited to a “congratulatory dinner” at Christner’s steakhouse, an old-school joint with juicy cuts of meat.

In attendance were Republican state Rep. Jason Brodeur of Sanford, legislator-turned-lobbyist Chris Dorworth, former Seminole County Commissioner Randy Morris, attorney Damon Chase and developer Jim Palmer.

Palmer was key. He was an owner of the land in question — land the Expressway Authority said was worth about $12 million, but for which Palmer wanted more than $30 million. He had Dorworth and Morris working for him.

Though Pena said the dinner was billed as a celebration, he realized one of the goals was to convince him that the authority should accept Palmer’s high-end price for the land north of Apopka.

Former State Attorney Jeff Ashton wanted to make sure about that point — and asked Pena if the group’s goal over dinner was “to convince you that they’re being generous with the Expressway Authority by accepting this 32 million dollars.” “Yes,” Pena responded. “Yes, sir.” Palmer already had another ally on the board — engineer Scott Batterson, who was working for Palmer when Gov. Rick Scott first appointed him at the recommendation of Dorworth and Brodeur. It was a clear and documented conflict of interest.

So Palmer had one board member who had actually worked for him. And he now had another — in a private backroom of a steakhouse

— being told that $32 million was really a swell deal.

The point, Pena said, was to get the deal done ASAP.

But that didn’t happen. Before things could go much further, Ashton opened an investigation into the authority. Indictments soon followed.

Pena would later plead guilty to violating open-meetings laws. Batterson would be convicted for bribery. Neither charge was directly related to that dinner meeting. But the entire investigation had the practical effect of stopping talks about $32 million payments dead in their tracks.

After both men were removed from the board, the entire agency was later blown up and re-created — with a lower proportion of gubernatorial appointees.

Ashton is no longer in office. He lost his bid for re-election last year. But he’s still around — and was glad to hear that the final expected price is much lower than the amount being discussed in the steakhouse

that night.

“I am very pleased that our efforts may have had some small part in getting the toll payers in Central Florida a fair deal,” he said this week. “While it no doubt made me some powerful political enemies, looking back on it, I have no regrets.”

Former expressway Chairman Walter Ketcham — who originally blew the whistle on all this mess, along with Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs — lost his post when Gov. Scott decided not to re-appoint him.

Brodeur is still a legislator. He said this week he didn’t remember details about that private dinner. Morris said the same thing. But both men said that, since toll payers may now get a cheaper deal, things seem to have worked out well all the way around.

Batterson (now in prison) and Pena (now with a criminal record) might disagree.

But the story is definitely worth remembering. Because not everyone likes hashing out deals involving public money in public settings.