“For the most part, people honestly believe that we have turned the ethics corner in Connecticut.”–Jodi M. REll
What whoville is Rell listening to? The CT DOT is the trough that corruption feeds on, and to date, Rell has done nothing substantial about cleaning house and restoring some semblance of transparency and ethics in this crucial department. Let’s review the 2007 hit parade:
STATE WORKERS URGE CONTRACT REFORM TO END CORRUPTION, CHANGE CULTURE IN CONNECTICUT DOT
Professionals working for the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT) are proposing solutions for reforming the scandal-plagued agency in the wake of recent costly contracting-out crises. Members of CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 will present a five-point “Safety, Security, and Savings” plan to Governor M. Jodi Rell and members of her DOT Reform Panel that can begin restoring public trust in the agency, severely damaged in the past year by the “Little Dig” on I-84 and Q-Bridge Replacement outsourcing fiascos.State public service workers will testify during the public hearing portion of the Governor’s Commission on the Reorganization of the DOT meeting on Thursday. The hearing will be held in conference room 2B of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, located at 300 Capitol Ave, and follows the Commission’s regular meeting, scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. Both the meeting and the hearing are open to the public.
“The ‘Little Dig’ is just one reason to change from top-to-bottom the culture at the DOT” Monique Burns, a Transportation Engineer in the agency’s Highway Design Project Development Unit said of the need for front-line workers to speak out for change. Burns was one of several members of CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 to testify to members of the legislature’s Transportation and Public Safety and Security Committees in July and provide solutions for reforming the agency.
From outsourcing inspection work to outsourcing investigation work.
Once again, Governor Rell has taken a heavy, hands-on approach to running state government, big-footing her new commissioner by ordering a top-to-bottom reform of the trouble-child of state government, the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Good for her.
It wasn’t enough that she once publicly spanked the former Commissioner, Stephen Korta, for his agency’s messy handling of the used-Virginia commuter-rail car debacle. Or that she was embarrassed by the recent scandal over the $60 million I-84 drainage system. Or that we were all surprised that CDOT had secretly decided it could cut back on bridge inspections, ignoring the lessons of the Mianus River Bridge disaster 20+ years ago.
(For a fascinating, yet depressing, history of the CDOT, click here for a recent commentary in the Hartford Courant.)
Now the Governor has created a panel to completely reorganize CDOT. And they have ‘til December 1st to issue their recommendations. Headed by Pitney Bowes Chairman Michael Critelli, the panel is a strange mix of state bureaucrats, lawyers and business people, with no apparent outside experts in organization or transportation.
But, as they undertake their Sisyphean task, I hope they will give serious consideration to carving out a new agency: The Connecticut Transit Authority or CTA.
Until 1969, Connecticut used to have separate agencies for highways, transportation, aeronautics and steamships. Then they were all subsumed into the Department of Transportation, or as I think of it, the “Department of Asphalt and Concrete”. Highways always have and always will reign supreme at CDOT.
Oh but I could go on. Google is a cornucopia of CT DOT problems, carefully documented for by legions of news junkies. But instead the Courant chooses to focus on a Quinnipiac poll, Rell Says She May Form Re-Election Committee, The Associated Press, December 17, 2007
