Dissenter in high gear gives Pike board a bumpy journey
FRAMINGHAM - The drive from Boston to Mary Connaughton's pearl-colored suburban house costs $2.90 in tolls - $2.40 with a Fast Lane discount. Later this month, it could cost 50 cents more. And then in July, maybe another $1 or $1.50.
Such calculations are important to a lot of people who live in the towns west of Boston.
They are paramount, as central to life as Bible verse or potable drinking water, to Mary Z. Connaughton.
"It's not just the tolls itself. It's the impact on the region," she said, launching into a practiced polemic on fairness. "The tollpayer needs a voice."
Connaughton, 48, is the surefire dissenter on the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority's board, the thorniest thorn in the side of Governor Deval Patrick on one of the most contentious issues facing him, and a haunting legacy of former Governor Mitt Romney, who appointed her. Her knowledge, strong opinions, and coziness with the media have helped make her one of the authority's most visible officials, even as she is usually at odds with its policies.
"Mary is a symbol of the frustration of tollpayers, who feel that not enough is being done to control costs in the state of Massachusetts," said Judy Pagliuca, the other Romney appointee on the board, who has been far less confrontational and visible.
Patrick's new transportation secretary and the chairman of the authority's board, James A. Aloisi Jr., is not nearly as charitable. His treatment of her during a recent vote to raise tolls - in which she was the only dissenter - attracted criticism from Senate President Therese Murray and a call for an apology from the state Republican Party.
"Respect is a two-way street," Aloisi said, a few days after cutting Connaughton off repeatedly during the Feb. 24 meeting and removing her from a spot on the authority's audit committee, where she had freer access to agency documents. "And I wasn't treated with respect and I haven't been treated with respect by her since the first day I took this job."
"She's a distraction," he continued. "She's a gadfly. And I have more important things to do."
He declined to elaborate.
"That's a shock, honestly," Connaughton said, when told about the comments. "If trying to speak up for the tollpayer is something he considers a distraction, he has to take a look in the mirror and figure out who he's representing."
If a gadfly is someone who spouts off at a government meeting without title or portfolio, she is not one. Connaughton is a member of a powerful public board, with full standing. She speaks to Rotary clubs about tolls, fields questions from strangers at Dunkin' Donuts, attends State House transportation hearings, and meets frequently with legislators. She reads turnpike financial reports carefully and has discovered at least one significant accounting error in a Turnpike Authority toll projection, related to a January 2008 toll hike. A certified public accountant, she is fully conversant in such terms as swaptions and bond covenants, the bane of the Turnpike Authority's finances.
She does all of this without salary and, at the same time, teaches a managerial accounting class at Framingham State, studies part time for a master's degree in business, and co-owns a business development firm based in Concord, N.H.
But rather than raise issues behind the scenes, she speaks about them at public meetings or on the radio, television, or in the newspaper. She asks followup questions when she does not like the answers given by turnpike staff and shakes her head for emphasis. She requests loads of documents.
"Would I like it . . . if she could be more politic in raising things? Sure, but she has her own style," said Thomas H. Trimarco, a former Romney Cabinet officer and board member. "But the core is, she's so impassioned about an issue that gets such short shrift in the public policy debate."
Trimarco said Connaughton is too earnest and serious to be labeled a gadfly, though he can see why others on a board might find her difficult to work with. "She's not a get-along-go-along kind of gal," he said. "That's not her style. And I also happen to like that about her."
Connaughton's public stances on increasing the tolls can be hard to follow and have left her open to charges of political grandstanding. Although she has acknowledged in the past the necessity of raising the tolls to keep the agency solvent, she was the sole dissenter on two recent toll votes - a position that could insulate her from any tollpayer backlash.
She offered counterproposals both times that were not adopted by the board. But her votes and her attendance at an antitoll rally can be grating to other turnpike officials who have to face an angry public and explain why the increases are necessary, even as they cost commuters hundreds of dollars a year.
"She is not any better than any other board member," said Alan LeBovidge, Turnpike Authority executive director.
"Actually, in my mind, the board members have demonstrated profiles in courage, the four people that voted for the toll increase, I think they did what they thought they honestly had to do."
At meetings, the resentment can boil over. During one heated argument about tolls last year, fellow board member Michael Angelini said with contempt, "Mary, Mary, run for office."
Angelini, appointed by Patrick in 2007, said last week that he did not recall the exchange. He said he respects Connaughton, and her right to dissent, though he does not always understand her positions.
"When I first joined the board, she was the most vocal proponent of a toll increase on the board," he said. "Unfortunately, it is crystal clear that the Turnpike Authority needs more revenue, and it's crystal clear that the only way it's going to get that revenue is with a toll increase."
The Legislature is considering Patrick's proposal for a 19-cent gas tax increase, but in the meantime, turnpike officials have said they risk dire consequences if they didn't raise the tolls: a backup in crucial road and bridge maintenance, a potential junk bond rating that could hurt the state's finances, and vulnerability to a $400 million lump sum payment.
Former board member Jordan Levy, now a radio host in Central Massachusetts, said even dissenters have to admit the authority's need to pay its debts.
"Who wants to be in favor of tolls?" he said. "She's an individual and I respect that. And she's been outspoken, and I respect that. But you've got to resolve this problem."
Connaughton, who once ran unsuccessfully for the state Legislature, said seeking political office is "always an option down the road, but I don't know how I'd fit it in." Like Patrick, she supports an increase in the state gas tax but would like to see a plan that would eliminate all tolls in the process.
When Romney appointed Connaughton to the board in 2005, he praised her "chutzpah to get in and mix it up, and that's exactly what I'd like on the Turnpike Authority board."
To understand where that chutzpah comes from, it's useful to step into Connaughton's garage. Next to her sport utility vehicle, there's a faded metal yellow sign that says in black block letters: "It's Might vs. Right. Back the B.B. Boston Bypass."
The sign is one of 1,380 such signs created by her father, Vincent Zarrilli, and erected throughout Greater Boston between 1989 and 1996 to promote what he called the "Boston Bypass." Zarrilli believed, and still believes, that the former elevated Central Artery through downtown Boston should have been rerouted into the Boston Harbor, rather than replaced with the costly Big Dig. He has run for City Council, petitioned the Legislature for at least 27 years to change the rules of judicial conduct, and written a book in 1962 about fondue etiquette.
"I do my thing and we don't really coordinate with each other's projects, you might say, to any great extent," Zarrilli said. "I don't think I've had that much influence at all with her. Maybe in terms of her striving for fairness, yes."
Connaughton smiles when speaking of her father.
"His stick-to-itiveness, if that's a word, rubbed off on me," she said.
Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com. 
