Probing the T | Lavish salaries, failing newspaper chain | Ivy League educated crazies | Still waiting for that bridge |
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Bridge to nowhere? Long delay for new Boston bridge
That would be the long-promised and long-delayed North Washington Street Bridge, which, when complete, will connect downtown Boston with Charlestown and the world beyond.
Only in Massachusetts could it take decades to replace a key bridge in the state’s capital city.
Construction on the new, $200 million-plus span ground to a halt earlier this year after MassDOT engineers flagged a defect in some of the welds on the new structure’s steel girders.
Engineers are now testing out a repair procedure in a controlled environment, with field tests slated to proceed over the next several weeks, according to state transportation officials.
However, MassDOT officials could not provide a timeline when the new span will finally be up and running.
To put things in perspective, the new bridge was supposed to have been completed in late 2021, with planning on the project stretching all the way back to 2004.
All of which is little consolation for the 40,000 commuters, truckers and others who have been forced to squeeze across a temporary replacement span after the demolition of the original Charlestown Bridge, a rusty old steel-truss structure dating to 1900.
We are not going to jump on the bandwagon and call this another Charlie Baker special, though it’s tempting given the meltdown at the MBTA.
But the dysfunction in state government, especially at it touches upon all things having to do with transportation, goes much deeper than the tenure of a single governor.
All of which brings up to our next item.
Time for another Ward Commission, this time to probe the T?
That’s the commission that produced a landmark, 1980 report on corruption in state construction contracts.
Led by William Ward, a former Amherst College president, the high-powered panel dug into the bribes and faulty workmanship that had plagued the construction of UMass Boston’s harborside campus in Dorchester.
The commission’s 2,000-page report landed like a bombshell and led to the creation of the state inspector general’s office and sweeping reforms in how state construction contracts were awarded.
Given the endemic problems at the T, it would seem high time for Gov. Charlie Baker or his successor to launch a similar probe focused on the T’s dysfunctional work culture and it’s ethos, which can be summed up as covering your you-know-what at all costs.
Asking the wrong question when it comes to the Ivy League background of Trump’s staunchest defenders
That would be Robert Reich, former labor secretary under Clinton and public intellectual and professor.
In a piece in The Guardian, Reich takes aim at “Trump toadies” like Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, among others, for effectively betraying the “rarefied education” they received at Harvard and Yale.
And we agree, it’s quite a list of Republicans with degrees from elite institutions who are slavishly defending the ex-president and parroting his outlandish lies.
But to ascribe this all to amoral choices on part of the likes of Cruz , Hawley and New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, another Reich example, lets the Ivies off the hook.
After all, it’s fair to ask what exactly is going on at our leading private universities that would result not just in one or two ethically bereft and morally bankrupt leaders on the national stage, but a whole bumper crop of them?
Reich notes that the “core of a good liberal arts education is ethics” and the “meaning of a good society,” and that this has “been the case since the 18th century.”
Good to know. But that message seems to no longer be getting through to some of the more ambitious graduates of Harvard, Yale and other blue chip universities.
Why is that and what’s changed?
More Gannett follies: Paying a premium for failure
That failure can often can more profitable than success for CEOs stands out as one the perversities of American capitalism.
Basically, you can make more money running a company into the ground than you can at the helm of a successful and growing enterprise.
A case in point is leadership at Gannett, the floundering newspaper chain that owns many of the remaining local papers in Massachusetts and is laying off people right and left after posting a $54 million quarterly loss.
Gannett CEO Mike Reed took down nearly $7.5 million in 2021, the latest year for which numbers are available.
By contrast, Meredith Kopit Levien, the president and chief executive of the parent company of The New York Times, made $5.7 million last year, nearly $2 million less.
The Times reported a hefty second quarter profit, while adding 180,000 digital subscribers.
Yes, these are two very different newspaper chains. But Gannett’s empire includes more than just local papers like the MetroWest Daily News, The Patriot Ledger and the Cape Cod Times, with USA Today its crown jewel.
Gannett could and should be doing better than it is, with Lee Enterprises, another chain that owns local newspapers around the country, reporting a $600,000 loss during a quarter in which it acquired a major newspaper and added thousands of digital subscribers.
Gannett treats its local papers not as potentially valuable investments amid a transition to digital subscribership, but rather as disposable assets to be drained of any remaining value before being cast onto the trash heap.
Coming attractions: Gannett’s underwhelming and overpaid corporate board.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple of months asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.