Matt, enough already
Matt Amorello has a decision to make: He can make the next six months about assuring the safety of the turnpike, or he can make it about himself.
Amorello's final act as chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority should be a selfless one, stepping down immediately and ending the internecine war with the governor. The priority after the sobering death of Milena Del Valle of Jamaica Plain in a tunnel connecting Interstate 93 to the Ted Williams Tunnel needs to be public safety, and restoring confidence that you can drive through the turnpike tunnels and not get killed. That is not too much to ask for $14.6 billion.
The public doesn't care about the posturing between two pols. Amorello should end that now, and return the focus where it belongs -- creating a cooperative effort to make the tunnels safe.
Mitt Romney held his dramatic televi sion news conference yesterday, and what was most extraordinary was not what he said about Amorello, but what he didn't say: Never once did he mention Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the company the commonwealth has paid $2 billion to represent our interest in the Big Dig.
Through all the billions, through all the years, through all the changes in administrations, Bechtel has been the one constant. For all the governor's anger at Amorello, he had not a single word about Bechtel's performance?
Accountability was the order of the day, but no one has been more masterful in ducking accountability than Bechtel. This is the giant engineering company that was in charge of the Big Dig's quality assurance program, making sure the job got done right and would hold up through the 75-year design life of the project. Now, less than a decade later, the tunnels are falling apart and the word ``Bechtel" never passes the governor's lips?
``The governor has a great deal of respect for Bechtel," Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said in 2003. ``It is one of the world's finest consulting firms."
Bechtel had to be happy yesterday that the heat was on Amorello. ``We offer our deepest condolences to the Del Valle family," the company said in a statement. ``We are working closely with MTA to help determine the cause of this tragic accident."
In the weeks to come, Bechtel won't be allowed to get away with that kind of generic response. In 1998, the state inspector general's office, then run by Robert Cerasoli, questioned how the very panels that collapsed Monday had been attached to the ceiling of the Ted Williams Tunnel. ``Potential public safety issues could exist as a result of the drilling," Cerasoli's office wrote then. ``The structural strength of the tunnel roof may have decreased."
The Cellucci administration's response: Bechtel had looked at it, and found no problem. ``You've got the federal inspector general. You've got the federal highway administration," Governor Paul Cellucci said then. ``We have more federal agencies looking at this project than state agencies. I would find it surprising" if there were a problem. Whatever the final problem proves to be, it is hard to imagine that Bechtel does not own a piece of it.
Neither Romney nor Amorello have covered themselves with glory. Too much has gone wrong on Amorello's watch: the leaks, the investigations short-circuited, the energy expended expanding his own power. Romney, on the other hand, has spent too much time treating Amorello as a political piñata, rather than rolling up his sleeves and trying to find consensus. Collaboration, either with the turnpike or the Legislature, has not been a hallmark of the Romney administration.
Yesterday Amorello didn't sound like a man ready to go. ``My commitment is to make sure this never happens again and to hold all parties accountable," he said.
He needs to go. It would be encouraging, however, to see Romney showing as much passion for holding Bechtel accountable as he did Matt Amorello.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902. 
