or the first time in a long time, Governor Paul Cellucci has had a very good month. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and it seems they have.
As Jerry Garcia once sang: He can't win for losin'.
First the good news. Cellucci owned the headlines as he excoriated a judge who refused to imprison an admitted child molester. He played solid defense by naming a retired judge to investigate complaints about the Teamsters Union's strongarm tactics with filmmakers. He scored points with working stiffs by urging free MBTA transfers after the transit authority raised bus and subway fares. And his administration looked downright proactive when it said it is considering a guarantee of wholesale oil prices to avert a winter home fuel crisis.
For a guy who supposedly has one foot out the door to a federal job (if George W. Bush becomes president, of course), Cellucci seemed mightily engaged in the affairs of state.
All is not well in Cellucciland, however. There is bad news at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and there is terrible news at the Big Dig, which the turnpike manages.
As James Kerasiotes, the former turnpike chairman, can tell you, this is the third rail of politics in Massachusetts. He put his arms around it, and the rest is history. Five months after his forced resignation, he's still glowing from the jolt.
Some of the Pike problems may be attributable to a sense that the Guv is on his victory lap, and we are seeing signs of lame duckitis. The Republican run in the governor's office may be nearing an end, and Democrats are looking to change the locks to state government in two years, Cellucci or no Cellucci.
Bad news? As reported yesterday by the Globe's Frank Phillips, Cellucci's chief legal counsel, Leonard Lewin, summoned turnpike board members Jordan Levy and Christy Mihos to his woodshed, telling them to go along with board Chairman Andrew Natsios's reform agenda - or else.
Yesterday, Cellucci upped the ante, telling the Globe he expects the board members to support Natsios.
This is risky stuff. At best, it makes Natsios look too weak to lead his board. At worst, if Levy and Mihos defy him, it makes Cellucci look powerless.
There really isn't an ''or else'' here because the gubernatorial appointees, whose terms will expire long after Cellucci and Lewin are gone, can only be removed ''for cause.'' Refusing to be a rubber stamp is not just cause, particularly on this board, whose members serve eight-year terms so they will be insulated from political pressures.
Moreover, if neither resigns, the Lewin-Cellucci preemptive strike could blow up in Natsios's face. The board, possibly as early as tomorrow, is supposed to take up a Mihos motion to strip Natsios of the czar-like appointment powers enjoyed by his deposed predecessor, Kerasiotes. Mihos's motion would return to a pre-1996 turnpike bylaw, which required the board's unanimous approval on senior management employees, including those on the Big Dig.
Now, Mihos and Levy are merely irritants to Natsios. If they change the rule, they will take away some of his power.
But the Cellucci/Lewin message to them was clear. Levy, a Democrat, former governor's councilor, and Worcester mayor, is openly questioning Natsios on some secondary issues. Convenience store mogul Mihos, a Republican, has privately complained that he's iced out of the decision-making process, despite Natsios's protests that he is working hard to include them, opening up the turnpike, and restoring fiscal credibility to the Big Dig.
Levy and Mihos are the junior members of the board. They are part-time appointees, who are paid $25,852 a year to attend two board meetings a month. Natsios, meanwhile, receives about $165,000 a year to preside over the Pike and the Big Dig.
Mihos and Levy were burned by Kerasiotes's trust-me-or-you'll-live-to-regret-it management style. He called the shots, they trusted him and went along, and the next thing we all knew last February, the Big Dig was an incredible $1.4 billion over budget. Levy and Mihos (as well as Cellucci) looked like chumps, the political world exploded, and Kerasiotes was a goner.
Now, for the terrible news. Since February's revelations of a $1.4 billion overrun at the Big Dig, subsequent project slippage and a new estimate last week have jacked up the cost by another $1 billion, raising the project cost to more than $14 billion.
There is no good news at the Big Dig, at least not until they cut the last ribbon in four or more years.
Only then will the third rail be unplugged.
