Big Dig cancels concert by Pops

The decision was made after the chief sponsor, Citizens Bank, which had pledged $250,000 for the Pops concert, recommended that the event be canceled, according to people familiar with discussions between the bank and Matthew J. Amorello, chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversees the $14.6 billion Big Dig.

Citizens Bank spokeswoman Melodie Jackson said late yesterday: "We are pleased with the Turnpike Authority's decision. We think it's the right one."

Amorello, who has hosted multiple public celebrations marking milestones in the project, will instead hold a simple ribbon-cutting for next Saturday's tunnel opening.

"It is clear that the issues surrounding this celebration are detracting from this important milestone and the efforts of everyone involved with this great engineering feat," said a statement Amorello released. "We are being responsive to the concerns about using any public funds for this event."

The expensive event had become a public relations disaster for the project. Governor Mitt Romney criticized the planned celebration -- a concert in the completed tunnel with 2,000 invited guests -- as excessive and inappropriate. House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran warned that if any taxpayer money was used for the party there would be an "explosion" on Beacon Hill.

Amorello originally planned to supplement the $250,000 from Citizens with up to $200,000 in public funds for security and site preparation for the event. However, after concerns were raised about the public expenditure, Amorello announced Wednesday that he would cover those costs by tapping into a separate fund established by Citizens for highway beautification as part of the Fast lane toll collection program the bank sponsors. But in a meeting Thursday afternoon, bank officials told Amorello that such a move would be improper, according to the people with knowledge of the meeting.

Amorello's attempt to use some of the beautification money for the Pops concert upset bank officials, including chief executive Lawrence Fish and vice chairman Robert Mahoney, according to the people familiar with the internal deliberations over the past several days. Fish and Mahoney had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the criticism of the Pops event and sought a way out, so they urged Amorello to make the call to cancel it.

Romney, who said he would not attend the Boston Pops concert scheduled for Friday, said through his spokesman yesterday that incremental progress in an over-budget and delayed project should not be celebrated.

"They made the right decision. Now, hopefully, the focus will be on finishing the job," said the governor's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom.

Turnpike Authority board member Christy Mihos, who voted against accepting the $250,000 donation for the concert from Citizens Bank, said that the event "was not well thought out" and that "the interests of the tollpayers and taxpayers were clearly secondary."

"The damage was done, and it's the right decision not to go forward," Mihos said. "Now we can deliver an opening that lets people travel through the city with a little bit of ease, and be done with it."

The opening of the southbound side is the last major milestone in the project, following openings for I-93 north in March and the Massachusetts Turnpike connection to the Ted Williams Tunnel in January. Amorello has held concerts, public walks, and antique car parades to mark progress on the project over the last two years.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, one of the few politicians who supported Amorello and planned to attend the event, said cancellation of the celebration was unfortunate, but added that project officials had demonstrated good judgment in their decision. "The real accomplishment is the roadway opening, and that's what we should be celebrating," Menino said.

But Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean at Boston University's College of Communication and a marketing specialist, said both Citizens and Big Dig officials had "waited too long to pull the plug."

"They turned a one-day bad news story into a week-long bad news story, and that's a public relations disaster," Berkovitz said.

If Amorello went ahead with the event, Berkovitz said, "they would have been hammered by the media and by ordinary folks living in the metropolitan area. When you're billions over budget and years delayed, you don't have an expensive celebration to open one more part of the project."

After the opening on Saturday, motorists will be allowed to travel south on the Leonard Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge and through the mile-long tunnel to the existing Dewey Square tunnel.

Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com.