I just picked this up on boston.com (emphasis mine):
A federal official says the Obama administration told Massachusetts officials not to use $9 million in federal stimulus money to build a pedestrian footbridge outside the home of the New England Patriots.
Last week, the state pulled stimulus funding for the project, saying it would not be ready for construction by a federal deadline at the end of February.
State Transportation Secretary Jeff Mullan on Monday said a regional Federal Highway Administration official raised concerns about using stimulus money for the project. The official cited news reports about team owner Robert Kraft and his wife recently making political donations to Gov. Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
This report, if true, certainly puts a different spin on our own Massachusetts “bridge to nowhere”.
Let’s see. Indictments against rampant and flagrant corruption in the legislature are brought by Federal officials, rather than our own AG’s office. Dangerously unsafe practices of the MBTA are called out by Federal officials in the NTSB, after our own administration couldn’t find anything wrong. Now a questionable expenditure of $9M in Federal money is reported to be a Federal, rather than state, decision — in spite of earlier statements to the contrary by state officials.
A political hurricane is approaching, and its expected landfall is squarely on the Beacon Hill and City Hall political machine. I beseech you to think about the implications when you cast your vote tomorrow.
I will NOT vote for Barack Obama tomorrow.
Interesting that the Krafts gave large sums of money to the Gov. and the Democratic party in Mass just within the month before the announcement about our “Bridge to Nowhere”. Glad the Feds killed the project. The Krafts certainly have nine million to build a bridge to access property on both sides of the highway that THEY own.