MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE, TUNNEL, SUBWAY, AND GAS TAX INCREASE PROPOSALS BEING  PROPOSED BY MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK  APPEARS TO BE A COVER UP FOR , WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE OF THE BIG DIG AND FAILURE TO FIX THE ROADS AND BRIDGES FROM THE PROMSED PREVIOUS GAS TAX INCREASE?


Former longtime Turnpike Chair Jack Driscoll wanted to pay off original bonds to make the road free. His financial promise was not carried out by his successors and they issued more bonds and unnneeded debt. Former House Chair of Transportation and now lobbyist Steven Karol stated in a debate measure before the House to stop legislation that would have guaranteed oversight of the Big Dig that the turnpike would not pay for the Big Dig!

During the heyday of the BIG DIG Karol and his cochair counterpart in the Massachusetts Senate Robert Havern battled against or did not listen to calls for accountability and oversight of the Big Dig. The plague of the Big Dig scheme was birthed by former Democratic Michael Dukais and his Transportation guru Fred Salvucci. Subsequent Republican Governors Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romaney along with their transportation czars Jim Carlin and Jim Kerasiotis elevated the effort to an art form.

This resulted in needed funds to fix unfit roads and bridges coming in from the Federal Government being diverted to the Big Dig. Their tandam efforts saw the Big Dig go from $2.3 Billion to $23+ Billion with almost not accountability and oversight. Massachusetts now has the most expensive unmonitored privitized construction project monument in history built that resulted in waste, fraud, and abuse, and bad construction.

We were promised that the Big Dig would be funded 90% with federal funds and was not. The last gas tax in 1991 was suppose to fix the roads and bridges needing repairs and did not.

 

House Chair SenatorThomas M McGee and Representative William M Straus rneed an education wake up call. First, their Transportation Committee should hire its own non political independent structural and civil engineers and an economist to do its own analysis and determine the real needs and not depend on the special interests to set policy. Also, when will Senator Baddour and Representaive Wagner learn that privatization with no accountability that they have allowed does not work? They have not learned from privatization failures of the Big Dig genius of Bechtel Parson or Modern Continental on Rte. 3.

Massachusetts needs another WARD type commission that came about during the government center scandal to get the real facts, precisely pinpoint blame for current failures to see where the monies went before any subway, toll or gas tax increases. The time is overdue for real accountability and oversight that guarantees no more waste, fraud, and abuse of Federal Highway Monies, Toll and Tunnel Collections, or Gas Taxes.

Newly Politically Appointed Massachusetts State Inspector General Glen Cunha now designated by Governor Deval Patrick  to investigate the State Drug Lab is wrong.

 I firmly disagree with the Massachusetts Office of Inspector General conducting the investigation.

The Inspector General offfice has been disfunctional for several years and needs an independent investigation of its agency for a failed mission.

The tenure of the imediate past Inspector Genera Gregory W.Sullivan and conduct of serious investigations for government waste,fraud, and abuse was liteally non existent.  Just look at the lack of a serious record on the Big Dig or Government Contracting of taxpayer dollars.

Any investigation being conducted by the Inspector General will be suspect at best. He is political appointee by the Governor, Auditor, and Attorney General all who have had responsibility to do oversight, funding, and staffing and have controls in place to prevent the current disaster at the Drug Lab that were not used.

A truly independent review team should be appointed with subpoena  powers and right to prosecute not under control of neither the Governor or Attorney General to report and take action needed to reform the State Drug Lab.

 

Massaschusetts United States Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren accused of Representing Travelers Insurance Company against asbestos victims by Senator Scott Brown. Boston Globe Columnist Joan Vennochi writes opinion column.

Real Facts and documentation needed for an accurate analysis beyond campaign statements from both sides.

Please note:  I am a former Inspector and Director of Industrial Safety for Massachusetts and not a backer of Scott Brown and yet to decide on Elizabeth Warren.

The lingering news Candidate Warren self proclaimed champion of workers is troubling especially representing an insurance company against asbestos contamination claims brought by workers or their families. Further, statements being made by the labor representive and for profit victims attorney appear to be partisan without full disclosure of their facts, involvement and documentation.

All details of  Elizabeth Warren billing hours, filings, and transcripts involved with this case should immediately be made public for objective analysis.

John Gatti Jr.

By Joan Vennochi-Boston Globe Columnist-September 21, 2012

 
Bottom of Democrat Elizabeth Warren left a big opening when she failed to tell her side of the story of the legal work she did for Travelers Insurance in a case involving asbestos victims. Republican Senator Scott Brown lost no time using that lapse against her. 

At a morning press conference following their first debate, Brown called Warren’s claim that she had actually worked for asbestos victims “outrageous.” Describing the Harvard law professor as a “hired gun”, he said Travelers retained her “to get them off the hook for settlements sought by victims of asbestos poisoning.” Warren, he charged, is trying to mislead voters into thinking of her as an advocate for the little guy, when “there is only one person who has taken the side of big corporations against working families and that’s Elizabeth Warren.”  

But David D. McMorris, an attorney whose law firm represents asbestos victims, including those in the Travelers’ case, said Brown is the candidate who is misleading the public. He called the senator’s attack on Warren “completely dishonest."

 

McMorris and several union representatives, including Francis Boudrow, the business manager of Asbestos Workers Union Local 6, spoke to the media after Brown’s press conference at his South Boston campaign headquarters. They were there to defend Warren and support her argument that she was helping victims, not hurting them, when she represented Travelers.

“He’s distorting her role,” said McMorris, in a telephone call after Brown’s press conference. “Clearly, he’s doing it on purpose. He’s a lawyer...He’s either a very lazy or inept lawyer, or he’s lying.”

But the case is complicated.

As reported earlier by Globe reporter Noah Bierman, Travelers hired Warren to represent the insurance company in its fight to gain permanent immunity from asbestos-related lawsuits; in exchange for that immunity, the insurance company said it would establish a $500 million trust for current and future victims of asbestos poisoning. Warren succeeded in that mission, successfully arguing Travelers case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was paid $212,000 by Travelers from 2008 to 2010.

However, after she left the case, a separate court ruled that Travelers did not have to pay out the money and it never has. As one judge saw it, Travelers got “something for nothing.”

McMorris argues that Warren was hired “to defend the integrity of the settlement. She won.” What happened afterwards was out of her hands, he said.

 

That may be. But it’s now in the hands of an opponent who is making it clear he will use every weapon available to keep his job.

This OP-ED is from Assembly-member Michael P. Kearns of the 145th District in New York State whose office this site communicates on issues.  The same law proposal is needed in Masschusetts.

The general state of the law leaves one wondering, "Will there always be a battle between secrets and darkness against openness and light?" When the infection of secrecy spreads limiting accountability and transparency, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once famously wrote that, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Today the broader community in New York State is in need of a liberal dose of legal disinfectant or sunshine legislation.

Sunshine or disclosure legislation occurred as a response to numerous cases which involved stipulated settlements requiring silence or gag orders as a condition of the agreed upon pay out. Secrecy and gag orders harmfully impacting the broader public has a long history in the private sector, the health care sector, the clergy, college sports and now possibly in the public sector.

The history of secrecy agreements involving significant public harm included: 1) the prescription drugs Zomax and Halcion, the Shiley heart valve, and the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device, all taken off the market as too dangerous, but not until after many years and hundreds of secret settlements; 2) the Bridgestone/Firestone tire defect litigation ultimately resulting in the recall of fourteen million potentially dangerous tires and linked to the deaths of over 250 people in the United States, with scores of cases settled secretly; 3) the number of clergy sexual abuse claims, Catholic Church in Chicago archdiocese, after an investigation by Chicago Lawyer, was discovered to have an estimated 400 lawsuits that the Catholic Church had settled in the previous decade-almost all of them secretly; 4) high dollar Wall Street securities scandals, 5) scandals at special needs health care facilities, where a home administrator sexually abused a Down's Syndrome resident, the case settled and the administrator later admitted to sexually abusing over a dozen others and 6) finally, more recently, while it did not deal with secret settlements, the Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky- Penn State child rape and molestation cases, were allowed to flourish in a culture cloaked in secrecy and perhaps conspiracy.

The infection of secrecy and the consequent harm to the public may have spread to the public sector. The legislative or executive branches of government are principally charged with disseminating information for public consumption, formulating major social policy, or protecting public health or safety or property. The recent revelations in the New York State Assembly regarding Assembly-member Vito Lopez's alleged staff member molestations and the subsequent settlements outside the scrutiny of the New York State Assembly, underscore the need for sunshine legislation to prevent the potential for further future abuses and harm to the public in all sectors of society.

The State of New York needs a presumption of openness concerning court documents and settlement agreements, closely following the example set by the state of Texas in passing and signing its law into effect in 1990. New York State needs a law that will directly address and prohibit settlements by public bodies, public agencies and public organizations. I am asking that the People of the State of New York support a bill I am filing next week, which prohibits secret settlements by public bodies with the use of public or private funds, but also creates a presumption of openness which can be overcome after the prongs of a multiple part test are met.

In the play Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare wrote, "Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough, To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy. Hide it in smiles and affability." While conspiracy has a specific legal meaning, secrecy does not in many instances and far too many have smiled at this problem for far too long with too much harm being visited upon innocent parties. I hope that my colleagues and their constituents agree and support me in an effort to have this bill signed into a law in New York State.

Michael P. Kearns, Assemblyman 145th District

LABOR DAY COLUMN ON CARPENTERS UNION AND WORKERS RIGHTS BRINGS QUESTIONS ON THAT UNION MOTIVATION FOR THE WORKERS AND OTHER UNIONS.  DO POLITICS WITH  PATRONIZING THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT TO GET MORE DUES PAYERS FOR THE UNION LEADERSHIP PREVAIL BY THE CARPENTER BOSSES AT WORKERS EXPENSE?


I read a column for Labor,Day in the Worcester Telegram about a Carpenter Union Official visting construction sites to verify rights of workers which is laudable,  Unfortunately, that union and adherence to worker and union rights bring a spotlight on their activities.

The Carpenters Union battle for workers rights is questionable.

When they replaced a roof on one of their owned buildings in Worcester, they utilized non union roofers. Two tenants moved out in protest-Plumbers and Sheet Metal Workers. Next, the other members of the Worcester Building Trades Union set up a picket line with a giant inflated "Rat Doll" in protest of their labor rights on behalf of the Roofers Union.

The Carpenters Union was a lead character in the destruction of the Massachusetts Secretariat of Labor in 1993 and failed initiatives and silence since on the lack of enforcement and administration to protect Massachusetts working Children, Men, and Women and the legitimate Employers who make up our state economy hard fought for centuries.

This Labor Day the emphasis should be on the fact that Massachusetts was once a proud national leader for workplace labor, employment, and safety rights that has now been diminished to that of a third world. The victimization continues of working Children, Men, Women, Legitimate Employers, and Taxpayers by the underground economy and employers who cheat and do not adhere to proper standards and worker rights. Workplace inspection enforcement is at an all time low that the Carpenters Union and allies continue their silence.

I challenge to be corrected.

WARNING TO ALL CONDUCTING INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

Whistleblower Investigative Reporter Brian Ross of ABC Broadcasting commits gross error in reporting......................Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos  of  American Broadcasing Company wrongly makes report on the network of the Colorado Theater Shooter James Holmes was associated with THE TEA PARTY.

We have respected  both of these broadcast journalists Ross and former Democratic party operatative Stephanopoulos.  Later Ross apologized for not properly verifying the James Holmes membership in the Colorado Tea Party who could not be linked.

This most serious tragedy which has shaken our nation and its people should  not be further victimized by shoddy journalism or utilized to wrongly implicate by insuating a political faction.

Brian Ross has been an outstanding investigative reporter over the years earning great credibility for his investigative reporting.  Now that integrity brings into question all previous efforts that must now must be reviewed for any potential errors.    

The premise that I want to bring forward is that prior to making any serious accusations or revelations proper research beyond any reasonable doubt is mandatory. Further, caution is also to be utilized when attemping to assist any conscientious persons honestly attempting to report wrong doing. All accusations must always be properly researched for verification at all times.  Also, sources must be always shielded from intimidation and false retalitory challenges by wrongdoers.

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.