I have Peter Mills’ E-Z Pass.
Mills is the acting executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority. His pass allows him to ride on the toll road for free.
Or it would, if he had it.
Which he doesn’t, because I do.
A friend of mine found the gizmo on a Portland street a few days ago, tucked in an unsealed envelope with Mills’ address on the front. My friend passed it on to me, thinking I’d be interested in such a discovery.
I am. Given past practices at the pike authority (before Mills arrived in March to clean things up), I suspect I could emulate former executive director Paul Violette and use the pass not only for toll-free rides, but also for international travel, accommodations at luxury hotels, pricey meals at high-end restaurants and spa treatments. By the time the MTA figured out who was running up the charges, I’d have been fitted for a $1,500 tuxedo, like the one Violette ordered on the authority’s dime.
Except I have no use for a tux, and my local bar isn’t interested in E-Z Passing me a few rounds of beer. So, I opted for honesty and called Mills to return it.
He said he probably dropped the transponder getting out of his car, but didn’t notice its absence because he’s been paying his own tolls in order to meet pike employees.
I asked Mills if the MTA had really changed its culture of entitlement, since an audit and subsequent investigation by a legislative committee revealed that between 2004 and 2010, Violette had purchased $200,000 in gift cards with pike funds and used them mostly for stuff that seemed to have no relation to his job. Like that tux. And those spa treatments. And holiday getaways. He’d also charged the authority for lavish monthly meals with MTA staffers and board members, each of which cost enough to keep an average Maine family fed for six months.
Mills isn’t behaving like that. To date, his worst transgression seems to be a failure to hang on to his E-Z Pass. But what’s more concerning is that little has changed in the insular turnpike power structure. When this mess finally blows over, the good-old-boy network that runs the highway will still be in place, as will many of the slipshod management practices that allowed Violette to live in the style of a villain in a James Bond novel.
Consider the facts. The same turnpike authority board that failed to notice Violette’s questionable spending – even though he was treating its members to trips abroad, resort weekends and dinners that cost more than Gov. Paul LePage’s Jamaican vacation – is still in place. Once LePage gets back in work mode, it will still take him years to replace a majority of these slugs, because MTA board members serve terms longer than the governor’s. And there’s no guarantee new appointees will be any more alert to impropriety than the previous assortment of political hacks.
Then there’s the pike staff. Violette hired them, and they were loyal to him. When two key executives discovered in 2005 what their boss was up to, they confronted him. And that was it. They didn’t tell the board. They didn’t go public. They just assumed he’d changed his ways. Even though the reckless – and possibly illegal – spending continued.
These guys are still drawing turnpike paychecks, although they now report directly to the board instead of the executive director. Considering the vigilance board members have demonstrated to date (“More foie gras and champagne, waiter”), it’s a mystery how this change might improve the situation.
Finally, there’s the basic structure of the MTA, a “quasi-governmental” agency accountable to no one. LePage has said he wants to merge the pike with the state Department of Transportation (motto: Less Incompetent Than The Department of Health And Human Services, Although Not By Much). Previous governor have tried that. They failed. And a few of them were capable politicians, an accusation rarely leveled at LePage.
Mills is honest and smart (although not highly rated at keeping track of his possessions). He won’t tolerate any Violette-style nonsense, such as spending $11 million on a new MTA headquarters or proposing to replace the York toll plaza at a cost that would pay for a couple of high schools.
But someday soon, Mills will move on. A new board will grow fat and lazy. And the level of oversight will start to slip. Bills in the Legislature to require a more thorough review of the pike’s budget, ban it from hiring outside lobbyists, require competitive bidding for engineering contracts and halt donations to outside agencies will correct some obvious shortcomings, but won’t change a culture of high living and low moral standards.
Mills says that will take time.
“The people who work here are deeply sensitive to how different life has to be,” he said. “They’re ready to change.”
I hope that doesn’t happen too fast. Because before I return Mills’ E-Z Pass, I’m taking an all-expenses-paid vacation in Prague.
I’ll respond to emails sent to aldiamon@herniahill.net when I get back from Europe. Or jail.
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