First Jane Swift, now Mitt Romney. The wrangling over appointments to the Turnpike Authority board never seems to end. I think we can safely assume that noble rhetoric notwithstanding, merit and better government operations are not the primary concern of the combatants. So what is? Jobs that the authority controls directly? Juicy contracts for, I don’t know, concrete roofing panels perhaps, that can be handed out to one’s friends? Political bragging rights? Personal animus? I’m interested to hear what the community thinks is really going on in our Five Years War, now with its first fatality, and wonder: would the war end if we had a Democratic Governor?
Please share widely!
–No annual report or financial statements on its website but it has toll revenue 2004 of over $524,000 per day. Romney proposes merging the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and the Massachusetts Highway Department will save annually, $20 million.
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–Cost to maintain is $115,000 per mile compared to MassHighway of $53,000
(link = http://www.beaconhill.org/NewsReleases/TurnpikeHighway62102.htm)
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–A dozen or more executives earning in excess of $100K per year.
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Right or wrong (you know he’s right), Romney is convinced that the Authority is a bloated, inefficient, patronage nest. Breaking that bureaucracy would be a win that Jane Swift sought after but failed.
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It’d be a huge political victory.
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The concrete slab that killed one motorist might just be the coup de gras for one Matthew J. Amorello.
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get Toll increases passed so she could issue a new set of bonds with new cash flow projections. Then she could get some of the bond money into off-setting the Big Dig (bad political news) cost over runs.