Romney plays politics with UMass
SOMETHING BAD and sad is happening at the University of Massachusetts, compliments of Mitt Romney.
On Sept. 1, the governor appointed six members to the UMass board, including Stephen P. Tocco, a pharmacist by education and political empire-builder by profession. Romney now expects this wired board -- which is scheduled to meet today -- to choose Tocco as chairman.
Call this what it is: cynical, insider politics as usual. On his way out the door, Romney is engineering a political coup worthy of any old-time political boss. And he is doing it with more hypocrisy than most.
Romney ran for governor pledging to drive William M. Bulger out as president of UMass on the grounds that the former Senate president was too political. The governor accomplished his goal in 2003. Today, Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the Republican who is seeking to succeed Romney, tout Bulger's ouster as a major accomplishment. During this week's gubernatorial debate, Healey said, ``I have to say our record as reformers is strong. We removed Billy Bulger from the University of Massachusetts."
However, replacing one circle of political loyalists with another is not reform.
Romney wants to reward Tocco with the UMass chairmanship for one reason: politics. As chairman of the Board of Higher Education, Tocco supported Romney's mission to depose Bulger, and he helped Romney defeat a UMass plan to take over Southern New England Law School in Dartmouth.
Tocco is head of ML Strategies, the lobbying arm of a large law firm, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo, which does some business in higher education. He has been around the public sector since the Weld administration. As secretary of economic affairs for Bill Weld, Tocco used the job mostly to push the idea of a publicly funded convention center and football stadium on the South Boston waterfront.
After Tocco took over as executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, he continued to push the so-called megaplex. He also spent time and public money trying to establish Massport as the base for the state's trade and tourist-related business. To that end, Tocco took ``trade missions" around the world. He also commissioned a lavish, $7 million overhaul of a building on the Boston Fish Pier, with all the trimmings, including a plaque trumpeting himself as chief executive on the building's door. A state auditor's report labeled it a waste of money.
Perhaps all that empire-building diverted Tocco from Massport's main mission, running an airport. At one point during Tocco's tenure, pilots went public with complaints of unplowed runways.
Tocco is controversial, at times confrontational, and as Republican consultant Ben Kilgore explains it, ``good at shuffling the deck chairs on sinking ships."
Why do any of those qualities make him the right person to take over as chairman of the board of a public university system? His track record shows a penchant for trying to expand the agenda and his empire wherever he goes. That mindset runs the risk of diluting the system's core mission, rather than honing in on it. For UMass, this should be a time of honing in on some critical needs and priorities.
And why should Romney get to handpick the next UMass chairman?
Although Romney talks about a commitment to higher education in the mold of great public universities in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Madison, Wis., the talk in his case has been exceptionally cheap. Under Romney's leadership, the state's per capita contribution to higher education slipped to 47th in the nation. Negotiated salary agreements were not honored. Capital projects, unfunded for a long time, yield rotting infrastructure, such as the parking garage at UMass/Boston.
In this election season, the candidates for governor are pledging support for making UMass a sharper, better, more nationally renowned institution. Shouldn't the next governor have more to say about who takes over as the next chairman of the UMass board than an outgoing governor, especially one who views Massachusetts as a pit stop to Washington?
Meanwhile, this is another example of Romney doing Healey no favors in her quest to win election in her own right. If Romney's handpicked board installs Tocco as chairman, the Romney-Healey administration is responsible for the railroading and that is not a good outcome for Healey.
What's bad and sad: somehow, public higher education in this state is never a priority, just a political plum. That was the tradition before Romney, and it remains the tradition under Romney.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com. 
