A history of greed
City Hall may be awash in budget woes and preparing to lay off employees. But the hard times, thank goodness, have not come anywhere close to Paul McCann.
As the Globe's Donovan Slack reported yesterday, the supposedly retired power broker at the Boston Redevelopment Authority collected $162,000 last year for a part-time consulting gig. If it was anything like his old job, it consisted primarily of reminding everyone where various bodies were buried.
McCann has worked at the BRA for nearly as long as it has existed. He has done everything but run the place - in fact, he did run the agency on an interim basis on several occasions. Many who worked there would assure you that those were not the only times he was in charge.
McCann was smart, thoughtful, and, perhaps most important, circumspect. He was especially close to Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
Still, $162,000 a year - the contract was canceled yesterday - is one heck of a part-time gig. It was also, apparently, illegal. McCann's consulting gig and pension far outstripped his old salary, which state law does not allow.
No one should be surprised that the ultimate inside player cut such a sweet deal for himself. I am sure he killed himself every one of those 25 hours a week he worked.
McCann, apparently, was unaware that the pension law applied to him. Under questioning, he seemed to suggest that the BRA is not exactly a public agency but an "independent authority." Meaning, I guess, that it is independent of laws that pose an inconvenience.
McCann is one of the great scholars of BRA history, so he is well aware that this arrangement, and this defense, have precedent.
Kane Simonian was the BRA's original director. Despite being deposed after bulldozing the West End, he remained at the agency for decades in a nebulous advisory role.
When he retired from that, in the early 1990s, he became a high-priced BRA consultant who also received a pension. When I say "high-priced," everything is relative. Simonian was getting about $48,000 a year to consult, which sounded like a lot before yesterday.
He reported to McCann, his old friend, and one of the more amusing interviews I've ever conducted was over Simonian's contract. McCann admitted that Simonian had no office hours, responsibilities, or visible work product. "Kane never really generated a lot of memos or reports," McCann said.
Despite that, he insisted that Simonian's deal was great for the city, given the man's unsurpassed knowledge. And that whole thing about him making more money than state law allowed? Simonian was exempt, McCann said, because the law didn't apply to the BRA, or to military veterans. Menino defended Simonian, too.
Nothing against McCann, who was a fine public servant, but this consulting door needs to be closed once and for all. As we see here, the problem isn't the potential for abuse. It's the certainty of abuse. Clearly, capping the amount these consultants can collect hasn't solved all the problems.
Besides, the whole notion of paying for a retiree's institutional memory is fraudulent. Doesn't everybody retire at some point, taking their memories with them?
Recent weeks have brought the revelation of one pension scam after another. There is a common denominator. People who have powerful friends and understand the system can make it work to their advantage, even in retirement. And their greed is abetted by friends and former colleagues. Those officials feel free to give away public money, as freely as if it were their own. Perhaps more freely.
Spend enough time in a fundamentally amoral system and you can become blind to its faults. McCann didn't do anything others haven't done - if anything, he just cut a better deal for himself. But this is a piece of institutional history that everyone would do well to bury.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
