OKLAHOMA CITY (OBV) – The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority Board elevated OTA’s deputy director to the agency’s top spot after an attorney general-issued opinion on dual leadership led the previous OTA leader to resign.
The board unanimously selected Joe Echelle for the agency’s executive director position during its monthly meeting Tuesday.
Echelle, who has been OTA’s deputy director since 2021, will succeed Tim Gatz, who resigned from the position after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued an opinion last week on the state’s prohibition of dual office holding.
“Thank you for putting a period at the end of a strange two weeks for me and our staff. … Never did I think that this was going to happen like this. … Thank you again for the opportunity and I will not let you down,” Echelle told the board.
State Sen. Mary Boren requested a formal opinion from Drummond on whether Gatz could simultaneously hold multiple state agency leadership positions simultaneously. Drummond gave his opinion, stating that Gatz could not not simultaneously serve as Oklahoma’s secretary of transportation, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) and executive director of OTA.
Drummond said the Oklahoma Constitution’s prohibition on dual office-holding means one person cannot serve all three positions at the same time. He further explained that an office holder who takes a second office effectively has vacated that first office.
The opinion states that Gatz effectively vacated his ODOT and OTA positions when he became the state’s transportation secretary. Gatz is eligible to serve in any one of the three public offices, but not more than one at a time, according to Drummond’s office.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court listed the following three elements as defining a public office:
- The position was created or authorized by law,
- The law imposes certain definite duties upon the position holder; and
- The duties imposed involve “the exercise of some portion of sovereign power.”
“As of the time of writing, the Legislature has enumerated thirty exceptions to this prohibition,” Drummond said in the opinion. “However, none of these exceptions apply to the Secretary of Transportation, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, or Executive Director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.”
Gatz resigned last week from his position in the governor’s cabinet as well as his OTA position, following Drummond’s opinion.
“The recent Attorney General opinions that were rendered were surprising to OTA but they weren’t a shock to the transportation system. And the reason that they aren’t a shock is that we have had and will continue to have great leadership from the OTA executive staff and continued diligent support from the Board,” OTA Board Chairman John Jones said. “Tim Gatz was a wonderful and very successful leader of OTA throughout his tenure of approximately eight years. He and his team have successfully completed and accomplished many projects and made OTA better with each and every one. Without a doubt, he will be missed. But OTA has always been bigger than any one person. OTA is its executive staff, its various and meaningful departments and all of the dedicated employees that contribute to OTA’s success along with its Board governance.”
Stitt reappointed Gatz to serve as ODOT’s executive director. The State Senate will have to confirm the appointment.
Echelle began working for OTA in 2016 as the director of construction. He was promoted to assistant executive director in 2018.
Drummond also answered a separate opinion request from Sen. John Haste, affirming the constitutionality House Bill 2263, which reduced the number of appointments the governor is empowered to make to OTA from six to two, and gave the speaker to the House of Representatives and the Senate president pro tempore two member appointments apiece.
