"Key state highway official is fired; Snow, ice removal spur investigation" by Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff / January 29, 2011
A high-ranking state highway official was fired yesterday and two employees were placed on leave as a result of an internal investigation into the state’s snow and ice removal operations. The Department of Transportation has turned over the investigation to the attorney general’s office for a possible criminal investigation, and Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey B. Mullan has hired an outside firm to review snow and ice practices, a source familiar with the investigation said.
Thomas Waruzila, who was in charge of state highway operations in a 77-town district anchored by Worcester and Framingham, was “terminated for failure to adhere to MassDOT’s policies and procedures,’’ Department of Transportation spokesman Adam Hurtubise said.
Hurtubise would say only that the issue came to the department’s attention from a third party, and that the internal inves tigation has been turned over to Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office. A spokesman for Coakley declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
But the source familiar with the matter said the investigation related to highway snow and ice contracts, and that Mullan had hired the international auditing firm KPMG to review the state’s snow-removal operations....
Waruzila, who had worked for the state for decades, served in 2005 as acting commissioner of an agency then known as the Massachusetts Highway Department, and he had hoped to be named to the position on a permanent basis. But he lost out on the promotion to former deputy commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky, with the Boston Herald reporting at the time that Governor Mitt Romney was pressured by women’s organizations as an aspiring presidential candidate to select a woman....
The Globe quoting the Herald, huh?
Maybe I'm reading the wrong paper.
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