BostonHerald.com
Tuesday, December 4, 2001

Swift won't KO Massport board as proposed by task force report
by David R. Guarino

Powerful political appointees will continue to rule Massport for as many as
seven more years, protected by acting Gov. Jane M. Swift despite a task
force report urging a hasty end to patronage at the troubled agency.

Swift said she won't move to replace the seven-member Massport board unless
they resign or their terms expire. A special task force yesterday
recommended that she prepare to appoint new board members within six months.

The stall protects Republicans appointed by Swift's GOP predecessors and
means that, without several resignations, only one board member will be
replaced before next year's election and the board won't be fully replaced
until 2008.

Democrats blasted Swift for foot-dragging while she touts her lead roll in
reform and openly tries to fire two members of the Massachusetts Turnpike
Authority board.

``If the fundamental problem is political cronyism, then they haven't
addressed it if they don't address the board directly and quickly,'' said
Secretary of State William F. Galvin, a likely candidate for governor. ``If
it needs to be done, it needs to be done right away.''

Echoing the collective Democratic roar at the Massport fix was House Speaker
Thomas M. Finneran - who called it a ``joke'' that Swift suggested the
Legislature played a role in the agency's pervasive patronage culture.

``She and her team have had complete jurisdiction and control over the
Massport for 11 years,'' Finneran said. ``This is their own mess. . . . They
should stop it and clean it up immediately.''

Swift eagerly embraced the findings of the 66-page report commissioned in
the wake of the twin Sept. 11 hijackings and subsequent reports of
Massport's deep political ties. Heralding ``a new era at Massport,'' Swift
said there wasn't a finding she didn't support.

``Out of this unimaginable tragedy comes the opportunity to redesign
Massport as a model of 21st century aviation management and public safety,''
Swift said.

The acting governor called for an immediate moratorium on patronage hiring
at the agency and called on lawmakers to join her in that quest, refraining
from forwarding names for high-paying Massport jobs.

Swift admitted she wouldn't have been hired as a $76,000 regional airport
chief - as she was after a failed congressional bid in 1997 - under the new
Massport.

But she refused any mea culpa for Republican-led patronage hires - including
lawmakers who supported her campaign and lieutenants to then-Gov. Paul
Cellucci now in senior jobs at Massport.

And while the commission called on Swift to ``reconstitute'' the Massport
board, Chairman Marshall Carter said a shakeup shouldn't be immediate
because Wall Street bondholders might lower bond ratings.

Board Chairman Mark Robinson's term expires next year and other board
members' staggered terms run out each year thereafter - ending with newly
reappointed member Lois Catanzaro of Chelsea in 2008.

That means other allies to Cellucci and former Gov. William F. Weld,
including Teamsters union head George Cashman and construction company owner
James M. Coull, will be on the board until 2005 and 2006, respectively.

Despite Carter's recommendation, Swift spokesman James Borghesani said Swift
won't ask any board members to leave or suggest they do so and said the
report left it to Swift to dictate the timing.

Lawmakers and activists said Swift will have trouble selling her proposal to
the Legislature, which must approve plans to add two members to the 7-member
board, to shorten terms from seven to five years and to mandate that no
board member can be reappointed.

She is also braced for a political fight with the state police over
recommendations Logan International Airport's Troop F be the focus of a
staff shakeup.

Elisabeth J. Beardsley contributed to this report.

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