WestView

We Are Being Used

February 2010

MTA uses the press to stampede the legislature to restore proposed cuts

By George Capsis

In a January Times article on the announced service cuts by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, including our 8th Street crosstown bus, the M8, there was a hint that this might be a “political ploy”.

That sort of stuck in my head but I thought, “How political – who were they trying to politically squeeze by announcing the elimination of our friendly and essential local bus line?”

I think I have the answer. On December 10 the Capitol Confidential, an Albany blog, ran a juicy outraged letter from State Senate Transportation chair Martin Dilan to the new MTA head Jay H. Walder. Walder had just used his Chief Financial Officer, Gary Dellaverson, as a shill to go directly to the press to say that the MTA had—like overnight—discovered this potential $400 million shortfall and offered a list of cuts from eliminating free student fares to yes, the termination of our M8.

Dilan obviously felt betrayed: “Throughout your nomination process we … continually agreed upon the importance of an open dialogue.”

I mean, I can just see and hear these smiling confirmation sessions in which Walder’s sponsors argue for the need of a powerful, no-nonsense boss at the risk of wallowing in the same MTA mess forever.

And certainly the Rockaway-born, MTA-trained, six-foot-five Walder, recruited after a highly publicized stint with London Transport, has the look and commanding stature of one who could slice the MTA Gordian knot.

His radiant aura demanded and commanded a $350,000-a-year salary with an $800,000 severance package should a new governor wish to terminate him (the MTA is such a fiscal and management mess that chiefs have a very limited life span – sometimes as little as a year).

But his million-plus salary package was too much for billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who had his 3 reps on the MTA board abstain from OK-ing the Walder nomination.

So here was State Senator Dilan playing nice with Walder all through the approval process. And bang—when Walder gets the job, he calls a press conference to say he is cutting student fares and the M8 because they have no money, with the idea of embarrassing and stampeding the state legislators into somehow, some way, coming up with the money.

And State Senator Dilan accuses Walder: “by going to the press first – you are ’stirring the bees’ nest’, rallying fears of insufficient funding and potential fare increases and service cuts.”

OK, there it is—another example of the most dysfunctional state legislature in the country. I mean, convicted former Republican leader Joe Bruno did not even bother to rent another office to take donations from lobbyists—he did it right in chambers.

An Albany blogger responded: “we ought to dissolve yet another useless authority,” referring to the MTA, and another Albany cynic followed with: “if we abolish the Canal Corporation, the Thruway Authority or the MTA, where are the legislators going to appoint their lawyers, campaign cronies and their wives?”

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