BIG DIG DEBT COSTS FINALLY AFTER 23 YEARS NOW IS WAKING UP THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATORS AND MEDIA AFTER SO CALLED PUBLIC HEARING.....TOO BAD,,TOO SAD, TOO LATE......THEY DID NOT LISTEN WHEN REPEATEDLY WARNED 25 YEARS AGO AND CONSTANTLY THERE AFTER!!!!!!
BIG DIG. GUILTY, ENABLERS AND HEROES
(Please note: The enclosed is a
previously written column that is being reposted due to new deficient
revelations, scandals, and cover ups at the Dig Dig and now a legislature waking up)
1977, began the
history of the so called Massachusetts Ward Commission chaired and named after a
former president of Amherst College who led a citizen panel outraged at the
public construction contract scandal that occurred with the building of the
infamous Boston Government Center. Their report two years later caused the halls
of the Massachusetts Statehouse to loudly shake and so called reforms took place
in Massachusetts state government including the advent of the office of
Inspector General.
Those construction reforms seem to have failed and
been forgotten and a reverse in integrity and ethics has once again surfaced in
Massachusetts with school construction, highway, consultant, and vendor repeated
scandals being revealed almost weekly. And finally the scandals of Boston’s
Central Artery almost $20 billion dollar failure no longer is being able to be
covered up by both State and Federal Managers and elected legislators from both
parties. US Attorneys, Attorney Generals, Inspector Generals and their
colleagues all now are acting piecemeal toothless and ineffective despite
warnings for decades by whistleblowers, some journalists, citizens, and a minor
cadre of courageous officials. The time has come for a new Ward Commission to
clean up the current mess.
State and Federal Taxpayers once again must be
exasperated and disgusted at the latest Boston’s Central Artery Project-Big Dig
tragedy that is pushing the media. When enough is is enough? No more cover-ups
are needed. Time for the truth to least not repeat all the mistakes of the past
even now when so much state and federal dollars has been wasted, shoddy
construction, and a death that should have been avoided. Billions of Dollars
have been wasted in Boston.
Outrageous for Massachusetts Senators Kennedy
and Kerry who are now calling for better highway tunnel inspections and so
called “Value Engineering”! In addition, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is
hinting at doing a cash settlement of $1billion to forgive Bechtel Corporation
and potentially others to remove criminal liability! The recent settlement by
the Boston US Attorney to settle for $50 million and relieve civil and criminal
liability for faulty loads of Big Dig Concrete at this late date of the almost
completed 20 year project is another further despicable outrage.
This
incompetent damage control cover-up after the fact by those who should have been
the watchdogs is a further nadir of disgrace of public trust oversight again
fostered on State and National Taxpayers.
Senators Kennedy and Kerry
advocating for enhanced tunnel inspections and for “Value Engineering” is a
moral and ethical outrage. Value engineering calls for an additional set of
engineers and others to be called in evaluating as to quality, cost, and need
for major construction projects.
When there were outcries for Big Dig
Oversight by those good intentioned citizen and government advocates documented
precisely in 1994 and years before by the Massacusetts Inspector general, the
Massachusetts House Post Audit and Oversight Committee for Value Engineering and
accountability both Senator Kennedy and Kerry were unheard and were part of the
enablers that did nothing.
Additionally, I cannot recall at anytime
either Kennedy or Kerry leading any charge for accountability or oversight of
the project when citizen and government advocates were pleading for assistance
for expenditure and construction sanity on the project. Senator Kerry even made
the impression that all was well and monies were there joining the Big Dig
Bechtel Public relations Specialists to mute outcries for
accountability.
The bottom line is Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis
and his Secretary of Transportation Fred Salvucci and then highway commissioner
Jane Garvey were the forefathers and birth mother laying the foundation for the
Big Dig scheme that brought the “no bid, cost plus and little oversight of “
Bechtel with the many other contractors and consultants. Their legacy was
continued and enhanced to an art form by the succeeding Republican Governors of
Massachusetts, Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney along with their minions of
Peter Nessen, Jim Kerasiotis, James Carlin, and Charlie Baker.
The
Massachusetts Legislature at almost every inch of the way has shown a lack of
oversight and accountability fostered and responsible by the former long term
Chairs of the Joint Committee on Transportation Robert Havern and Steven Karol.
State Senator Mark Pacheco who heads the Senate Post Audit and Oversight
Committee is now making pronunciations on the Big Dig! His so called landmark
contract legislation of accountability and oversight called the Pacheco Bill of
a decade and a half ago specifically exempts engineering and design from proper
fiscal analysis that allowed the Big Dig calamity. Pacheco’s exemption paved the
way with impunity for the failures of Bechtel and others to ply their runaway
costs.
Boston CBS 4 reporter Jon Keller stated recently on a station’s
talk show when asked why all the failures of the original $2.3 Billion contract
now reaching $18-$20 Billion project was not reported by the media. Keller the
former Boston Globe Editorial writer and columnist stated that both Editorial
Boards of the Boston Newspapers (Globe and Boston Herald) were in the “tank”. He
even outed a former Globe colleague David Warsh as a long time enabler. There
are so many other names of journalists and media types that participated or
turned a blind eye.
Next, we had the revolving door of Massachusetts
State Attorney Generals L. Scxott Harshbarger and Tom Reilly. Massachusetts also
had Democrat and Republican US Attorneys of Wayne Budd, Donald Stern, and
Michael Sullivan who served Democratic and Republican Presidents as well as
Congresses adding to the record of little or no pleas for oversight. Middlesex
District Attorney Gerry Leone formerly top criminal prosecutor for the state
Attorney General who went on to work for the US Attorney has a record of
toothless probes on the Big Dig during his tenures.
The Federal Highway
Administration and Federal Offices of Inspector General along with the
politically appointed non career managers of the Massachusetts State Highway
Department and toll road Turnpike Authority required little or no accountability
of Federal, State tax dollars, and Toll Fees. Their inactions insured shoddy
workmanship and cost escalations despite outcries from construction workers and
government engineers. This resulted in diversion of needed State and Federal Tax
dollars from other Massachusetts roads and bridges resulting in their serious
current disrepair status.
I suggest those seeking the truth on the Big
Dig look at the State House Post Audit and Oversight Committee and past reports
on the Big Dig under former chairs Cerasoli, Thomas Kennedy, and especially the
era of William Nagle and staff director Thomas Hammond to determine the facts
against what Kennedy, Kerry and others after decades are trying to do to appear
as crusaders. That legislative committee of integrity was the sole sanctuary to
bring financial sanity and oversight to the project despite the Big Dig
juggernaut of attacks. Their efforts were stopped when Representative James
Fagan became chair and the departure of then crusading Staff Director Thomas
Hammond.
Additionally, talk to the real heroes of good government that
sounded the alarms who were dismissed, demeaned, intimidated, or called
“gadflys” by the Big Dig propaganda machine. They include reporters Peter Howe,
Tim Sandler,Wendell Woodman, John Coughlin, Charles Sennott,Joe Bergantino Ron
Gallobin, Jon Wells, David Kassel, John Vanscoyoc, John Strahinch, and Joe
Bergantino to name a few to the list. Also, note people such as legislators, the
late Fran Doris, Marie Parente, Bill Constantino, Tom Norton, William Keating,
Christy Mihos, Richard Moore, Warren Tolman, and Vincent Mannering. Even Speaker
Dimasi when a rank and file legislator and Emmanuel Serra were also dismissed.
Special mention should go to the late Jerry Williams, Fred Langone, Chris
Ianella, Joe Baresi, Steve Cotton, Joe Dinucci as well as Howie Carr, Larry
Overlan, K. Dunn Gifford, Auditor DeNucci, and Scott Amey of the Washington
based whistleblower group Project on Government Oversight for all their time and
efforts that went unheeded by the late US Senator Kennedy, John Kerry and
others.
The Kerry and Kennedy attempts at revisionism and attempting to
act like whistleblowers in seeking Highway Tunnel Inspections and so called “
Value engineering” is short of nothing too late. Both senators at this stage of
their careers have the distinction of promoting with no oversight the largest
and most costly flawed government construction project ever undertaken in the
United States. Their continued repetitive actions of coverup is ensuring
Boston’s Big Dig to be the largest international construction monument for
waste, fraud, and abuse. Massachusetts new Governor Deval Patrick should not let
all the enablers and the Big Dig guilty get Pardons and Freedoms for so called
minor “Chump Change” that will allow again State and Federal Taxpayers and the
infinity Toll Road Toll Payers to continue and be
victimized.
Massachuestts needs a new WARD Commission to get needed
reforms and be the model for the federal government to follow.
