Time for another commission
FROM ITS two US senators to Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey to Attorney General Tom Reilly to Mayor Tom Menino to House Speaker Sal DiMasi and others, most of the state's big political powers were gathered in one room yesterday to talk about the problems with the Big Dig.
Yet when five members of the group emerged from the governor's office to meet the press, they had little satisfying to say, particularly on a day when Boston was suffering from the safety-related closure of more Big Dig roadway.
Kennedy gave a lengthy statement lauding nearly everyone's supposed leadership.
Kerry made briefer comments almost as short on specifics.
There was much talk of accountability, but though Kennedy praised the criminal investigation Reilly has launched, no one offered a particularly persuasive public path toward that necessary goal. (A National Transportation Safety Board review will focus only on the cause of the accident and how to ensure safety.)
Their modest message delivered, the group made for the elevators.
Or most did, anyway. DiMasi, whose office is on the same floor as the governor's, leaving him no rationale for an elevator escape, was left to face the media horde.
``I'm trapped here," the speaker complained.
DiMasi was asked if the state needed a new Ward Commission to investigate the problems with the Big Dig following last week's tunnel ceiling collapse, which claimed the life of Milena Del Valle.
The speaker temporized.
``We need to get down to accountability," he said, before cautioning that such an effort could conflict with the various probes already underway.
DiMasi is right, certainly, that Reilly and US Attorney Michael Sullivan have already started criminal investigations of the ceiling failure.
But an independent commission could coincide easily.
``I think it is a good idea," Reilly told me in an interview. ``There needs to be a broader independent look from start to finish, what went right and what went wrong."
Scott Harshbarger, Reilly's predecessor as attorney general, agrees.
``There absolutely should be an independent oversight commission," he says. ``It would look at what happened here and also monitor things going forward. I think it is vital. It is a key to credibility."
Here's why: We don't yet have the prospect of a credible, comprehensive, open, state-based investigation of how an undertaking hailed as an economic boon for Boston became a project with a soaring price tag, myriad leaks, and now a deadly construction failure.
A quarter century ago, it was the Ward Commission -- formally, the Special Commission Concerning State and County Buildings -- that dragged Massachusetts public contracting out of the age of corruption and into the modern era. That commission came about after the new University of Massachusetts at Boston campus started to crumble, just one of a number of glaring problems with public buildings.
Chaired by Amherst College President John William Ward, that body shone a light on the seamy underside of the contracting and construction process, chronicling the bribery, kickbacks, and quid pro quo contributions that were commonplace.
Large changes came about as a result. The Inspector General's Office was created and the Division of Capital Planning and Operation (now the Division of Capital Asset Management) was set up to oversee the design and construction of public buildings. Important anti-corruption safeguards were enacted.
Now, to call for an independent panel like the Ward Commission is not to assert that the Big Dig's failings were born of the same kind of corruption that plagued the state back then.
But it is to suggest that political relationships, particularly during the Weld-Cellucci years, were too close between politicos and project contractors.
And to say that proper expert oversight was clearly lacking, just as warnings from outside parties like the inspector general were dismissed or downplayed.
Phil Johnston, who along with Andy Card sponsored the legislation that created the Ward Commission back when they were state legislators, says a similar body could get the public needed answers.
``This is a perfect example of a scandal that requires a broad commission," he says, adding that one crucial element would be for such a panel to have subpoena power.
Harshbarger is ready and eager to serve on such a commission.
It's a good idea. Let's get going.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. 