Never fear, folks — bad old Matt Amorello is gone (any sandblasted hard drives this time?), and all-around good guy, family guy, former nursery owner with puppy-dog eyes Atticus Finch John Cogliano is now head of the Turnpike Authority. Now we can heave a sigh of relief — no, he doesn’t have a lick of engineering experience, but he is said to be Very Nice. And Very Loyal to folks in high places, like Gov. Cellucci once upon a time. And hey, he kept track of snowplows with GPS! Give that man a doughnut.
So who’s this gloomy Gus?
Although Romney has touted the change at the Turnpike as a needed reform, some observers are more circumspect. They say the change is more about Romney gaining political control over an independent state authority.
“It’s patronage roulette and now the ball has dropped into the Romney slot. That’s the way it’s always been,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a political analyst and communications professor at Boston University. “Romney’s political future depends on this appointee being a pro.”
A pro … wait, you mean like an engineer? Or someone with major project management experience, to run one of the most dizzyingly complex civil engineering projects in the country?
Look, Perfesser Smirk-o-witz, this is Massachusetts — we don’t have any engineers here! So silly. Now run along back to your smarty-pants Ivory Tower.
An engineer. Now that’s rich. We can’t have them running things — not when there are so many important things to do.
Update: Commenter Political Inaction points out that Good Guy Cogliano is chair of the MBTA, which has been, uh, not exactly silky-smooth lately.
Waiting for leadership in this state is like waiting for the owl-service bus in 20-below weather — sober.
I’m not sure why all the to-do. So the guy in charge of transportation for the state has taken over the Turnpike too, so what?
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Anybody that drives the roads in MA can see that they’re all in great shape with no potholes. It isn’t as if 400+ bridges in MA are considered structurally deficient. We all know that the MBTA (which Cogliano oversees as Chair of the Board) is running smoothly and on time.
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What, me worry?
How dare you insinuate that Romney’s inexperienced cronies are just as bad as Cellucci’s inexperienced cronies!
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Oh, I know what you are going to say: “engineers build better bridges!”
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Well, you don’t know that! A guy who tends plants for a living could do a really good job of managing our state’s transportation needs! He would know how to “grow” our infrastructure!
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It could happen!
So after hunting down Amorello for years, who does Romney bring in to oversee the Big Dig? Amorello’s former deputy!
The Globe pointed this out last month. Another nationwide search.
To be considered a hero all Cogliano has to do is give hand out a bunch of pink slips and hand over the Turnpike to the Highway Department. I’m hoping he does spend most of his time doing nothing. On second thought, it would also be nice if he hired non-union workers to repair the poor workmanship of the union workers. I’d pay more taxes to see that.