Patrick's puzzling transportation pick

WHEN HE RAN for governor, Deval Patrick promised to end what he called "the Big Dig culture." Now, Patrick is thinking about putting James A. Aloisi Jr. - a key architect, enabler, and beneficiary of that culture - in charge of reforming it.

The prospect of Aloisi as the state's next transportation secretary is puzzling, at best. Aloisi, the Big Dig's former chief counsel, has no obvious track record as someone who tried to reform the system from within. In fact, he helped create and nurture the culture of arrogance and secrecy Patrick pledged to change.

After he left as chief counsel, he continued as an outside adviser to the management team that hid the project's $15 billion cost and overlooked engineering complications that ended in a fatal tunnel collapse.

He defended a succession of state transportation executives who refused to level with the public. He helped formulate the funding mechanism that failed to produce enough revenue to pay the bills. Over the years, he reaped millions in Big Dig-related legal and consulting work.

"Nothing epitomized the Big Dig culture more than Jim Aloisi. He was there at every point," said Christy Mihos, who served on the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board from 1998 to 2004. During his tenure, the board fired Aloisi and his law firm "because they wouldn't substantiate legal bills between $800,000 and $1 million," Mihos recalls.

In 2006, Mihos ran as an independent candidate for governor on a reform platform that was largely aimed at cleaning up the Big Dig mess. But, as Mihos points out, Patrick "trumped me as a reform candidate."

Voters decided Patrick was best-equipped to bring about real change, based on his eloquent pledge to reject business-as-usual on Beacon Hill. Choosing Aloisi as his transportation secretary is at odds with that promise.

So, what's he thinking?

He isn't going to Washington to take a position in the incoming administration of his friend, President-elect Barack Obama. He announced his intention to run for a second term, giving Massachusetts something it hasn't had for over a decade - a governor who is saying he wants to stay put.

Unfortunately, he is overseeing state government at a time of great economic crisis. To bring spending in line with actual revenue, he has had to cut $1 billion-plus from the budget.

Meanwhile, the state's transportation system is a mess, from both a management and financial perspective. Patrick is pushing a controversial plan to dissolve the Turnpike Authority and transfer control of the Big Dig, and costs associated with it, to the Massachusetts Port Authority. Patrick also wants to raise tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike to address over $2 billion in Big Dig debt that is crippling the Turnpike Authority.

So, the thinking goes, why not appoint a transportation secretary like Aloisi? He is the consummate insider, with intimate knowledge of the transportation system, its excesses and weaknesses, and led the way in creating the Rose Kennedy Greenway. He also spent his career forging relationships with legislators. Who better to sell Patrick's reorganization plan to Beacon Hill?

The problem with that thinking is that there is virtually no evidence Aloisi seriously challenged the system's excesses and weaknesses - only that he profited from them. That gives him a big credibility problem.

State Senator Mark C. Montigny of New Bedford is correct when he says, "I really believe that the public demands a clean slate and a fresh start before they support any increase in tolls and taxes. I don't know how anyone who was part of this disaster can sell that and convince the public."

It will be a tough sell under the best of circumstances, and Aloisi as transportation secretary does not add up to the best of circumstances.

When it comes to the Big Dig, the public is exceedingly cynical, and Patrick helped stoke the cynicism. After the 2006 tunnel collapse that killed Milena Del Valle of Jamaica Plain, Patrick wrote in the Globe that the Big Dig culture "allowed corners to be cut and oversight to be lax. The culture is a failure to take the role of government seriously."

And now, he expects the Big Dig's longtime consultant and legal adviser to be taken seriously as an agent of reform?

Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.