Mass Pike Plan: Drive fast or pay up

(Article 2-17-09-1)



Motorist could get penalized for paying cash at tolls

by Hillary Chabot
DNN Reports!
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009

Using cash at the toll booth would cost Pike drivers big under one Massachusetts Turnpike Board member’s plan that would allow those with Fast Lane transponders to dodge any toll increase.

The plan, offered by Pike board member Mary Connaughton, could save the state up to $5 million a year and is one of several proposals offered by members to avoid an unpopular $7 toll hike pushed by Gov. Patrick

“We have an obligation to come up with a plan palatable to toll- and taxpayers,” Connaughton said, adding that the $7 hike, “isn’t going to happen. It’s too high.”

Connaughton’s plan aims to cut the high cost of toll collectors by encouraging the use of Fast Lane transponders. Those paying in cash would pay as much as a $7 toll hike while those with transponders would avoid the increase, Connaughton said

If 15 percent or more drivers start using Fast Lane, there could be $5 million in savings in toll collection costs, Connaughton said.

Other Pike board members have floated a smaller toll hike of $1.50 at the Allston-Brighton and Weston booths, and $5.50 at the Sumner and Ted Williams tunnels. Steep debt at the Pike prompted members to give preliminary approval last year to toll increases that would double cash tolls to $7 at the tunnels and raise tolls at the Weston and Allston-Brighton booths to $2 from $1.25.

The proposals, which transportation officials did not make public, will be discussed during the board’s next meeting on Feb. 24. The suggestions come as Patrick is set to reveal his transportation reform this week. He is considering avoiding the steep toll increase by raising the gas tax 29 cents.

In a draft proposal, Patrick outlined removing the tolls west of Interstate 95 and keeping the charge at tolls inside I-95 the same. The plan still faces a skeptical Legislature, however, and Pike board members are scheduled to vote on the hikes next week.

“They’re still forced to pay the bills,” said Sen. Steve Baddour (D-Methuen) who co-chairs the Legislative Transportation Committee. Pike members may have to approve their own alternatives if the governor and lawmakers can’t reach an agreement.

“We’re having very fruitful conversations on the reform side,” said Baddour, who is against raising tolls or a gas tax and is focused on cuts.

If one Pike board member gets his way, soon enough,

you could pay more if you use cash at the tolls.

(DNN Staff photo)

Malden Motorist, look out!

(Article 2-17-09-2)



Police chief orders more tickets for revenue

by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009

If you missed President Obama’s presser last week, don’t worry. Everything you need to know about the “stimulus” plan, you can learn from a police chief in Malden.

DNN recently uncovered Police Chief Kenneth Coye’s economic recovery plan for the Malden town coffers:

“We need to increase enforcement in areas that create revenue. . . Write ‘ONE TAG A DAY,” Coye wrote in one memo to his officers. In another, he was even more direct:

“In these difficult times it’s vital that we max on (sic) revenue potential,” reads the memo. “Any ideas that you have to increase revenue is (sic) welcome. . . Please write ‘one a day.’ ”

The phrase “in these difficult times” is key. Yes, times are tough, in Malden and elsewhere.

Some Malden taxpayers might even appreciate a break right about now - maybe a cop letting an expired meter slide for a change, or looking the other way at a citizen’s slow roll through a stop sign.

But Coye isn’t worried about tough times for taxpayers. No, he sees cuts coming to his budget and thinks “It’s a fiscal crisis! Quick-ticket every Beemer in town!”

It’s easy to dismiss Coye’s memos as mere quota-mongering for his cops. But ticket quotas for cops are commonplace, despite the denials from law enforcement.

This is actually a learning experience. If the taxpayers of Malden thought that the job of their local police was “to protect and serve,” now they know it’s really “to collect and conserve” - their own paychecks.

The Malden police chief has done a brilliant job of seizing the spirit of the Democrats’ economic stimulus plan. We hear “police” and we think “fight crime,” not “maximize revenue.”

We hear “stimulus package” and we think “create private sector jobs,” not “massive government spending.” Both assume that the fundamental problem is money - you’ve got it, and the government needs it.

What is the fundamental premise of the Obama plan? It’s that we need to take $1 trillion from taxpayers - or more accurately, since we’re borrowing every penny, from our children - and give it to the government. Just like Chief Coye, Obama’s complaint isn’t “not enough money.” It’s not enough government money.

That’s why Obama rejects meaningful tax cuts for businesses, and cutting taxes on capital gains for investors. He’s ignoring the job growth potential of small businesses and entrepreneurs, instead preferring to rely on the brute economic force of STD research and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Obama has spoken at length about how overseers and Internet watchdogs will ensure that this $1 trillion “will be spent the right way.” But that presumes that he, or anyone else in government, knows what the right way is. He assumes that the 100 bucks in your pocket today would be better spent by the Obama administration tomorrow.

I doubt if most Americans would agree - including those Obama supporters like Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle who until recently worked so hard to keep their own cash out of government hands. As National Review’s Mark Steyn wrote, “Who knows better than a senator who’s voted for every tax increase to cross his desk that all this dough is entirely wasted?”

On NBC this weekend, Rep. Barney Frank bragged that the “stimulus” bill would dump billions on state and local governments to pay for things like firefighters and cops. That includes, one assumes, Malden cops, who would in turn hit the streets looking to max their revenue. It’s the liberal circle of life.

I think I’ve got the perfect compromise: Let’s pay police officers to collect the back taxes of Obama’s nominees. We’ll have the budget balanced in no time!

Greed: Malden Police Chief Kenneth Coye
(above) recently sent out a memo, ordering
each policeman to issue one ticket per day
for revenue purposes. (DNN Staff photo)

Suicidal caller rings close to home

(Article 2-12-09)



A shaken Howie Carr details distraught caller,
family tragedy

by Howie Carr
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 - EXTRA!

Anyone who hosts a radio talk show for any length of time will eventually get a call from a listener who’s contemplating suicide.

But the way the economy has been tanking, I think it’s going to be happening more and more.

Still, I wasn’t expecting “Carol” to lose it on me last week. She said she was 54, from Jonesport, Maine. After talking briefly about her 23-year-old neighbor who she said is collecting $690 a month on SSDI, she began speaking about how she’d been looking for a job for 2 years but couldn’t find one.

“My mortgage is only $414.21 a month,” she said, “and I can’t afford it in the United States of America.”

She told me she’d tried to kill herself last February by taking “100 pills” but that her daughter had found her. But now, she said, she was thinking about it again.

Now, this is not the kind of call I solicit. My job is to entertain you, not depress you. So when “Carol” mentioned suicide, my first response was to try to snap her out of it without appearing to be a callous brute, which is what I basically am. “Don’t kill yourself,” I said. “Sell those pills to the junkie and you can get some of her SSDI.”

But by then she was crying, so I had to try a different tack. I told her what a bad mistake it is to kill yourself. “Your family never recovers from a suicide,” I told her.

She said she didn’t want to be a burden on her two daughters.

“It’s a bigger burden to kill yourself, Carol,” I said, “because that way, they’ll always be asking, what could I have done?”

We went on for a while, and finally I had to cut her off. But other callers wanted to keep talking about Carol’s obvious despair over her financial plight, so I told them what I knew about suicide in times of economic turmoil.

In 1931, my maternal grandfather killed himself. He worked in the post office in Monroe, N.C. I’ve never really been clear about why he did it - a common theme, I’ve discovered - but one reason I’ve heard was the Depression. Supposedly he’d lost some money, but I don’t know for sure.

All I know is, my grandfather went down to the basement of the post office and blew his brains out, and that was basically the end of my mother’s family. The relatives urged my grandmother to put her five kids into an orphanage. She kept things together by giving piano lessons in return for food.

Another caller, “Judy,” addressed her remarks to “Carol.”

“You’re not alone,” she said. “The economy has affected a lot of us. Suicide, if you’re thinking about it, is final. It’s not a final solution, Carol, but it is final.”

I hope “Carol” was still listening. She deserves better. So do her daughters.

Drama: It was 1994 when WRKO radio talk show host Marjorie Claprood
(above) shook the radio world, when she had to keep a suicidal caller on
air until police were able to trace her call and then show up at her home.
Millions of listeners tuned in as the drama unfolded. Today Marjorie says
it was a call she still will never forget. (DNN Staff photo)