Although former DMV head Ralph Carpenter won enough votes to become the Department of Transportation Commissioner, the Hartford Courant reports that nine Democrats questioned whether he’s up to the job.
Only nine?
A 25-year career in the State Police is hardly the qualifications for essentially an engineering and planning job. Considering the massive failures of the DOT to oversee its own projects, a reformer who wasn’t going to learn on the job was sorely needed. Rell should have conducted a national search and found the best person for the job.
Senator Bob Duff-D gets it. From the Courant:
Sen. Robert Duff, D-Norwalk, said he and other lawmakers don’t have a problem with Carpenter personally. He said they are frustrated with the agency, which is seen as an endless, uncooperative bureaucracy.
“Where was the national search,” asked Duff.
The legislature as a whole has seemingly bought into the parochial idea that this agency needed a nice guy to head it up. This agency is in crisis, and the legislators have approved truckloads of funding to overhaul transportation in this state. Did they bother to ask what Carpenter’s vision was for long term transportation needs? Did they bother to ask him how he was going to clean up, reform and fix the bureaucratic administrators who managed to overlook the fiasco on I-84? Were they concerned at all that Metro North still is missing those emergency rail cars that were purchased over two years ago? This is the guy who will manage the 10-year $2.3 billion transportation package of 2006, and the $1.3 billion package of 2005. Again, the Courant:
Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca, R-Woodbury, said it was unfair of the Democrats to criticize Carpenter. He said Carpenter has proven his administrative experience by his work at DMV and shown he can handle great challenges.
Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee, was among the 25 senators who supported Carpenter. He described him as accessible, knowledgeable, open to new ideas and conscientious.
Ah yes, the DMV where people go to obtain driver licenses and register cars. Lot’s of synergy in operations there Senator DeLuca. Cars drive on roads, cars need to get registered. The logic in your thinking is stultifying.
Can we predict the state of transportation in Connecticut in 10 years based on this appointment? I think I can, there’ll be another big scandal somewhere involving contractors and lack of oversight and whatever roads are under construction now, will still be under construction 10 years from now in exactly the same spots. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see this, just 20 years of past performance by the DOT.
