"Seniors’ persistence pays off with MBTA fare rollback" by Martine Powers | Globe Staff, December 16, 2013
It was repetitive, relentless, and tedious — at least compared to the seniors’ other tactics, such as the day they set out to block traffic and were taken briefly to jail.
But to the surprise of many, the meeting strategy worked....
Members of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, who staged the protest effort, say their campaign was brilliant in its simplicity: “We just kept going back,” said 89-year-old Ann A. Stewart, a Mattapan resident and former president of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council. Over the course of 20 months, they did not miss a single meeting.
The phalanx of senior citizens, always clad in matching blue T-shirts, would troop into the meeting room, shuffling through the narrow aisles between rows of seats, wheelchairs causing traffic jams in the doorway.
The polar opposite of Occupy!
One by one, they would approach the podium to deliver statements, tirades, and speeches that always said approximately the same thing: Because of the July 2012 fare increases that doubled the cost of a trip on The Ride to $4, they were suffering. Limited budgets caused them to cut back on trips to churches, grocery stores, and doctors’ offices.
At the front of the room, board members stared back — polite but largely silent, never giving an answer or a promise for a solution.
“I know that they just wanted us to get out of there half the time,” Stewart said. “It doesn’t bother us a bit, because we’re fighting for something that’s very important for us.”
The wall of silence cracked in the fall, when administrators agreed to meet with activists. Then just before Thanksgiving a phone call came. Board members had come up with a potential solution: Would the Massachusetts Senior Action Council agree to a compromise to lower the fares by $1?
“I think they said, ‘I guess I’ve got to appease these people some way, because they’re not going to quit,’ ” Stewart said.
That is such a loaded and charged word and to use it towards seniors needing transit service is shameless (although I appreciate the view of old folks as threats, thank you).
John R. Jenkins, chairman of the state Department of Transportation board of directors, did not find the seniors’ repeated appearances annoying or tiresome; they were educational, he said. And they made a difference.
As opposed to those stinky, smelly kids of Occupy.
“Certainly their presence in telling their story and putting a human face on the impact of the fare increases, affected the board as well as the management of the MBTA,” Jenkins said. “They were helpful to us in understanding that this was a step that we needed to take.”
Jenkins said the decision also came down to numbers. The board had anticipated a 10 percent decrease in ridership as a result of the fare hikes; instead, the drop-off was nearly twice that....
Oh, they were losing more money than what they thought when they decided too $crew seniors, and the rate will still be above what it was anyway! That's why the T changed! Not because angry seniors showed up!
Despite their victory, the activists say they have unfinished business. They want the T to institute a new fare structure dependent on income level for The Ride, so people below the poverty line would pay the same as the cost of a bus ticket.
“The T has committed to working with us on some type of means test, but they said they needed to put in more time and thought,” said Carolyn Villers, executive director of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council. “We’re going to make sure that’s not a forgotten promise.”
Throughout the struggle to cut back the fare increase, Villers said, the activists at times questioned whether their efforts were worth it. But they wanted board members to see people their cuts had affected.
The seniors’ decision to doggedly pursue those face-to-face confrontations meant the senior citizen agency often had to scare up legions of volunteer drivers and charter buses, but they were determined....
The activists’ efforts gained little traction until this past April, when discussion began on Beacon Hill about a transportation finance package that had the potential to institute important changes in the state’s transit agencies.
The senior activists were angry at Richard A. Davey, the state’s secretary of transportation, and the fact that he called The Ride “a budget buster.”
Scary, angry tirades of seniors. Aaaaaah!
They were also angry at delays in releasing a legally mandated survey about the effect of The Ride fare increases — a survey that would ultimately reveal that 22.4 percent of The Ride users reported cutting back on filling medical prescriptions as a result of the more expensive tickets, and 44 percent of all users of the service were spending less on groceries because of the increased fare.
That’s when they began to ratchet up efforts. They protested — once in front of the State House and later outside the state transportation building — and they planned to be arrested for blocking the street, preventing others from completing their commute in the same way they felt that their transportation was impeded.
They were packed up in prisoner transport vehicles and the backs of cruisers. Their shoelaces were removed, and they were booked in jail. (They were later released with no criminal charges or fine.)
“It was an experience for me, because I’ve never been arrested in my life,” Stewart said.
One of the seniors wondered what her church would think of her. Others were buoyed by thoughts of the actions of Rosa Parks.
“Even though we might be seniors,” Stewart said, “we’re kind of hardy people.”
Days later, after she had been bailed out, Stewart received a phone call from her grandson in Hawaii.
“I said, ‘You’ll be surprised to know that your grandma got arrested the other day,’ ” she recalled. “He was so tickled.”
Some are tickled to death by law enforcement in this country.
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Others needing to be appeased:
"Clergy take bidder for MBTA rail deal to task" by Martine Powers | Globe Staff, December 19, 2013
A group of well-known black clergy in Boston is lambasting one of the two bidders for the MBTA’s commuter rail contract, asserting that the company’s majority shareholder has engaged in discriminatory employment practices in Europe....
Related: French Are Racists
The timing of the letter, in the final days of a highly competitive bidding process, sparked an angry retort from a Keolis Commuter Services spokesman, who accused Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. of making a thinly veiled attempt at vilifying its sole competitor.
Lot of anger going around at the contract. $ee what effect money has on some people?
Keolis maintained that the actions of its majority shareholder had little to do with its own operations, that its railway operation in Virginia has a strong record on diversity, and that MBCR’s shareholders have their own problems, too.
The clergy’s concerns center on SNCF, the state-owned French railway that is the majority shareholder of Keolis. SNCF has faced allegations of discrimination against African and Muslim employees and has been criticized for collaborating with the Nazis 70 years ago....
I never heard a whiff of that when it came to the Bush family, and no matter how you feel about those guys from the past I'm simply tired of seeing the term in my jew$paper when we have real fa$ci$ts plundering and pillaging the planet now.
The pastors are seeking a meeting with Beverly Scott and Governor Deval Patrick to discuss the commuter rail contract. Their offices did not return calls for comment Wednesday.
Alan Eisner, spokesman for Keolis, said in a statement that the allegations from the ministers do not tell the whole story….
They share that in common with a certain regional flag$hit.
“This letter is a shameful, last-minute attempt by MBCR to use a group of highly respected, but uninformed Boston ministers to protect MBCR’s financial interests and draw attention away from MBCR’s dreadful 10-year management of the MBTA commuter rail system,” Eisner said.
The pastors said the idea that he was working to aid MBCR was false. Mark Scott said he was not aware of ever meeting or speaking to any representative of MBCR. Wall said the topic was mentioned in passing during his call-in radio show, which led him to seek out news reports about the company’s past.
“All the information that I have has come as a result of my own research,” Wall said. “I’m like a dog that won’t let go of a bone.”
And sadly, the Boston Globe is my cur$ed bone.
The commuter rail’s contract expires in June 2014, and two bidders are vying to run the system for the next 10 years: MBCR, which is led by former MBTA officials, and Keolis, an international transit giant. Officials are expected to select the winning bid within the next several months.
Won't have to wait that long.
The $1 billion-plus contract is the largest operating contract in state history.
“How can we sit by and let MassDOT even entertain a bid from a company that has all this baggage of racial discrimination? It’s just unbelievable,” said Wall, of Global Ministries Christian Church in Dorchester.
Eisner said he wished the clergy had contacted Keolis about their concerns.
“It’s unfortunate that the ministers gave the letter to The Boston Globe without contacting Keolis to understand how Keolis plans to enhance diversity within the MBTA commuter rail system, such as working with the state’s community colleges to provide first-in-the-nation, specialized degrees in transportation,” Eisner said.
The letter cited multiple allegations of racial discrimination, previously reported in French or international news organizations, including a 2010 lawsuit filed by hundreds of SNCF staff against their employer for victimizing workers of North African origin. That lawsuit, described in France’s English-language newspaper The Connexion, alleged that North African workers were passed over for job opportunities and received smaller pensions than their French-born counterparts.
The letter also pointed to widespread reports in April that SNCF’s black workers were all removed from Gare du Nord, one of Paris’s busiest train stations during a visit by President Shimon Peres of Israel, in an effort to prevent him from encountering Muslim workers.
Do I need to even comment?
“For young black and brown people, the commuter rail represents an opportunity to gain employment,” the letter said, “which may be hindered by the operation of the commuter rail by Keolis if the history of SNCF is any indication.”
The letter also incorporated other reports of ethnic or religious discrimination:
In 2010, the BBC reported that the French rail company apologized for distributing a note to passengers that called on them to report “all the activities of Romanians” to rail security in response to a rash of baggage thefts.
And earlier this year, the Agence France-Presse reported that US Senator Charles E. Schumer intended to introduce a bill that would allow American victims of the Holocaust to file lawsuits against SNCF in US courts.
Does the U.S. let Iraqis file lawsuits in Iraq against U.S. war contractors? And what American victims could there be other than descendants? So the rail company is just another institution to be bled dry of cash to continue the Holohoax looting racket? Need I even note Schumer's ethnic identity and religion?
In 2010, the company apologized for the role it played transporting Jewish people in Europe to concentration camps, but maintained that the company was commandeered by Nazi leaders and that thousands of their own employees were ultimately executed or deported.
Apology ain't enough!
Wall said that the contingent of religious leaders are looking to travel to France to interview the rail operator and its employees in person in an effort to learn about the company’s employment practices.
But MBCR’s corporate structure is also fraught with controversy: The train company’s majority shareholder, Paris-based Veolia Transportation, operates buses for the Boston public schools and locked horns with union members in October in a clash that prompted a wildcat strike.
Related: Boston Globe Gets the School Bus Going
See who the instigator was?
Veolia fired two of the bus drivers, though they were unionized employees. Eisner also pointed out that MBCR is 20 percent owned by Bombardier Transportation, a company that Eisner said has its own ties to Nazi Germany.
Wall said he has not had any conversations with Keolis’s competitor, MBCR, and said he had no plans to investigate the background of MBCR’s parent company, Veolia.
Both ministers said they did not put stock in Keolis’s argument that the majority stakeholder should be considered separate from the company at question in the T’s commuter rail contract.
“No, I don’t see a difference, not at all,” Wall said.
“With SNCF being a major stakeholder, they’ve got to have a huge influence on how Keolis does businesses and their corporate culture,” Scott said. “I don’t buy that.”
Eisner said Keolis officials wanted to meet with the black clergy to allay their unease.
“Keolis is very proud of its history and its reputation in the industry, and we feel that we would be a great asset for the MBTA,” Eisner said in a statement. “We would welcome the opportunity to meet with the ministers to discuss any and all of their concerns.”
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Globe will sort it out for us:
"T must consider bidders’ ethics, but so far no smoking guns" December 26, 2013
As the MBTA nears a decision on whether to rehire its commuter rail contractor or give its business to a competitor, one question is how much weight to put on concerns about the two firms’ ethics. Accusations and complaints have been simmering about Veolia, a French firm that owns most of current operator Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail, and the rival French firm Keolis ever since they emerged as the only two bidders for the 10-year contract. Most recently, a group of black ministers questioned Keolis’s diversity record in France.
While price and performance clearly must take precedence, corporate responsibility matters, too. To the extent that actions overseas reflect corporate attitudes that could spill over into Boston, they are worth the T’s scrutiny. But not all the complaints that have been lobbed at the two rivals fit that description, and so far no smoking gun has emerged to disqualify either firm.
The gravest problem facing Keolis — one that appeared to damage its bid for a commuter rail contract in Maryland — is the company’s historical ties to the Holocaust. France’s national railway, SNCF, owns the majority of Keolis. During World War II, with France under German occupation, SNCF transported thousands of French Jews to concentration camps. The company formally apologized in 2011, though many in France feel the railway has been scapegoated; thousands of SNCF workers also supported the Resistance against the Nazis. There are no credible claims that the company’s current leadership condones, enables, or profits from genocide.
More recently, a lawsuit has accused SNCF of providing smaller pay and pension benefits to employees of North African origin than to its native French employees. However, Keolis maintains that it is a separate business entity, and points to its own existing operations in Virginia, where it runs a commuter-rail operation with a workforce that is 45 percent African-American.
Meanwhile, Veolia, the majority shareholder of MBCR, has come under fire for its operations in the Middle East, where until recently an affiliated company provided bus service to Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
Oh, really? That not as much of a flap in my jewspaper as the long-dead Nazi connection.
That has made Veolia a target of activists who accuse the company of supporting Israeli settlement policies that have been condemned by much of the world, including the United States.
Keolis deserved the contract, and they need to be fired as the bus driver contractor. BDS, baby, BDS!
The historic responsibility of companies that collaborated with the Nazis, and the current responsibilities of Western companies that do business in areas under Israeli military occupation, provoke passionate opinions. But the T needs to apply a more practical test. Would awarding a contract to either Keolis or MBCR funnel taxpayer money to unethical businesses?
Keolis is the better choice by far!
Does anything in the past practices of either company suggest that hiring them would hurt passengers or workers in Boston? Unless more evidence surfaces, neither company fails that test. Both deserve a chance to continue making their case for the contract.
--more--"
And the winnah is….
"Proposed commuter rail contract to cost $325 million per year" by Martine Powers | Globe Staff, January 08, 2014
State officials, preparing to announce their choice to operate the commuter rail system, revealed on Tuesday the price tag for the contract: $2.68 billion over eight years, with the possibility for two two-year extensions that could bring the total price to $4.3 billion.
That would make the base deal, the largest operating contract in state history, about $335 million per year, higher than the $214 million a year initially paid to the current operator, Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., when it was first awarded the contract a decade ago.
Transit and financial specialists said the figures were on par with previous estimates, but many details remain unknown until Wednesday, when the T is due to release specifics about the financial penalties and perks included in the contract that could balloon costs.
(Blog editor's chin drops to chest)
The commuter rail bidding process has been shrouded in secrecy since August, when proposals were submitted by the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, which has been running the system since 2003, and the sole challenger, Keolis Commuter Services.
Last week, people with knowledge of the process said that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority had chosen Keolis for the contract.
The T will officially present its decision Wednesday to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s board of directors, the body that will make a final decision on whether to approve the T’s choice.
The board will also probably receive an earful from Massachusetts Bay executives, who plan to make a presentation at the meeting on parts of the procurement process they believe were conducted unfairly, including being given a single sit-down meeting with T officials.
After board members hear the T’s recommendation, they can approve its choice or ask the T for further review.
Transportation specialists said the contract is appropriate for a system of the T’s size….
But the inclusion of carrots and sticks that will undoubtedly be in the contract, including bonuses for on-time performance and payments for extra work requested by the T, will drive up the price, said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a budget watchdog funded by businesses and nonprofits.
“The actual amount will turn out to be larger,” he said. “The question is how much larger.”
**********************
“Whoever doesn’t get this will be very, very disappointed,” said Paul Regan, executive director of the MBTA advisory board, an oversight organization that represents cities and towns served by the T. “It’s billions and billions of dollars — and it’s bragging rights.”
Why does all this personal chest-bearing factor in to so many actions in this $hit $ociety?
**********************
Massachusetts Bay Commuter’s history with the T was plagued by controversies surrounding some of these penalties and perks. Both organizations have been criticized for what some called lax parameters for instituting penalties when service was poor, allowing the company to avoid paying millions of dollars that some believed it owed. A policy in place at the beginning of the contract allowed the company to charge a premium when purchasing materials required by the T, making more money than what was outlined in the contract. The state auditor’s office lambasted that practice….
An additional reason they should be rejected.
--more--"
Related:
Commuter rail company plans two new facilities
Too late.
French firm Keolis wins commuter rail contract
French rail firm Keolis built an inside track
MBCR asks T to release rail contract documents
MBTA releases commuter rail bid details
Politics as usual? Not at MBTA
Commuter rail firm faults MBTA on bid vetting
Looks like sour grapes to me as well.
More sour grapes for sure:
"Judge backs T on Israel posters; Says ad campaign demeans Muslims" by Akilah Johnson | Globe Staff, December 24, 2013
A federal judge rejected a pro-Israel group’s assertion that its free speech rights were violated when the MBTA turned down a subway advertisement on the grounds that the ad was “demeaning or disparaging.”
I think he should have allowed it to show what arrogant and extremist a-holes Zionist Jews are.
The ad is paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a New York organization that seeks to combat the spread of Islam in the United States. With bold, all-capital-letter text placed against a stark black background, the ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel; defeat Jihad.”
Better watch that type, guys.
It is also important to remember that Islamic Jihad is simply a cover for covert western intelligence agency false flags and war promotion. This is all about advancing the Jewish war agenda.
Officials with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rejected the ad in November on the basis that it violated the agency’s advertising guidelines, which include rejecting advertisements that demean and disparage individuals and groups, promote alcohol or tobacco, and depict graphic violence.
On Friday, US District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton sided with the state’s transportation authority, saying in the ruling that “it was plausible for the defendants to conclude that the . . . pro-Israel advertisement demeans or disparages Muslims or Palestinians.”
It demeans anyone with a human soul and conscience.
MBTA general manager Beverly A. Scott said in a statement that the agency is “gratified” by Gorton’s decision.
“We will continue to administer our guidelines evenhandedly, so that our customers will not be subjected to advertisements that demean or disparage any person or group,” the statement said.
While the MBTA applauded the ruling, lawyers for the nonprofit did not, saying an appeal is imminent.
“This thing’s just wrong; it’s just wrong,” Robert J. Muise, a lawyer with the American Freedom Law Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm whose mission is to fight for faith and freedom, said during a phone interview. “We’re dealing with government censorship. We’re not talking about Macy’s telling us we have to modify our ad. We’re talking about the government.”
Yeah, for THEIR FAITH and THEIR FREEDOM!
The dispute over the proposed subway poster sprouted from another controversial ad on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that first appeared in October on 80 posters at T and bus stops. That ad depicts four maps with the title “Palestinian Loss of Land — 1946 to 2010.” Text with the maps says: “4.7 million Palestinians are classified by the UN as refugees.”
See: My Baby Takes the Morning Train
In response, the American Freedom Defense Initiative sought to put up 10 of its own ads in the same stations where the other posters appeared.
At issue are the words used in the proposed ad, which riffs on statements made by the author Ayn Rand, specifically the use of “savage” and “jihad.”
The American Freedom Defense Initiative argued, according to the ruling, that it used the terms war and jihad to “clarify that their message is aimed at people who engage in terrorist acts that target innocent Israeli citizens and not Muslims or Palestinians in general.”
The MBTA countered that “the ‘reasonably prudent person’ would believe that the advertisement demeans and disparages Muslims or Palestinians,” the ruling said. The transportation agency also pointed out, the suit said, that courts in New York and Washington, D.C., “concluded that the advertisement equates Muslims with ‘savages.’ ”
Gorton said the advertisement’s wording was ambiguous and subject to interpretation. And the transit agency did not have to apply the best interpretation of the vague statement but only a reasonable one because the T advertising program is not regarded as a public forum. It was, therefore, “plausible for the defendants to conclude that the . . . Pro-Israel advertisement demeans or disparages Muslims or Palestinians.”
In contrast, the Palestinian Refugee ad, the judge said, “conveys information that portrays Israel in a negative light” but does not violate the MBTA’s advertisement guideline, as a reasonable person may disagree or dislike it without finding it degrading or reproachful.
“Thus, the question is not whether the advertisement upset some transit riders but instead whether a reasonably prudent person would find that it ‘ridicules or mocks, is abusive or hostile to, or debases the dignity and stature of Israelis or Jews,’ ” Gorton wrote.
“The quote plaintiffs selected to express their message does not criticize ‘savage’ acts but instead contrasts the state of Israel with the ‘savages’ who oppose or fight against it.”
--more--"
Also see:
My Baby Takes the Late Night Train
Night spots laud extended T hours
Must be why my baby wasn't on the train home.
Maybe that found $20 million should have been put back into the pension fund.
"After loss, Coakley prods MBTA board to tighten rules" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff, December 24, 2013
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said Monday that she is widening her investigation of a failed investment at the MBTA pension fund, and she urged its board to adopt more stringent ethical standards or face legislation to overhaul its rules.
The stepped-up pressure from Coakley follows a Boston Globe report last week that the MBTA Retirement Fund was sold a $25 million investment in 2007 by its former executive director, Karl White, less than a year after he left to join a New York hedge fund.
The money is now gone, but the T retirement fund has not reported the loss to members or the public, even though its board has known about it since at least 2011.
Coakley said it is “outrageous’’ the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s retirement board has not applied the same ethical and conflict-of-interest standards and public disclosures that are in place at other pension operations.
“This is a clear warning signal of practices and procedures that are not held to the same standard as our other public pension funds,’’ Coakley said. “How many times do we have to learn this lesson?’’
Had standard ethics rules applied, White could not have done business with the authority where he used to work for at least a year, and possibly ever, under state rules. If the T retirement board does not voluntarily adopt tougher guidelines, Coakley will ask the Legislature to impose new rules, she said.
The hedge funds run by Fletcher Asset Management are now in bankruptcy, and federal authorities — including the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission — are investigating the company and its owner, Alphonse Fletcher Jr.
A spokesman for the $1.6 billion pension fund, Stephen Crawford, declined to comment specifically on Coakley’s call for greater transparency at the T. In a statement, he said: “We welcome the Attorney General’s assistance in recovering the Trust’s funds from Alphonse Fletcher and those that aided and abetted his scheme and willfully cooperate, as we have done to date, with any investigation into the investment.’’
Coakley said the hedge fund losses are a red flag that there may be other problems in the retirement board’s operations. While she would not elaborate on specifics of the investigation, she said that in cases where her staff identifies a “lack of a protocol,’’ the office will probe further to see “if it’s an indicator of a greater problem.’’
The MBTA pension fund does not hold public meetings or publish minutes of its sessions and is fighting a law the governor signed last summer to make its records public.
Why does the pension fund have a penchant for $ecrecy?
The Fletcher funds filed for federal bankruptcy protection in 2012, but there has been no disclosure of that loss to MBTA pensioners or taxpayers, nor is there mention of the troubled investment in the pension fund’s annual report. The trustee in the firm’s bankruptcy case attributed the failure to a fraud that has “the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme.” The MBTA fund has said it is cooperating in those probes.
Oh…. no.
Related: Mass. leaders back significant boost to pension fund
Better check that pension then.
The T’s retirement board is incorporated as a private trust, which effectively makes it exempt from public records law and oversight by the Massachusetts Ethics Commission. The state’s highest court upheld those privileges in 1993.
Who$e idea was that?
Since then, though, the raft of scandals from Wall Street, such as the Bernard Madoff scheme, has shown that investment funds need to be much more open, Coakley said.
“This needs to change,’’ she said. “We’re certainly a couple decades wiser.’’
*******************************
In addition to the need to keep workers’ retirements safe, Coakley said, the public has a strong interest in the health of the pension fund, given that taxpayers contributed nearly $1 billion to the T’s operations last year.
If the pension fund were ever to have difficulty paying its liabilities, “We believe that it is likely taxpayers would be on the hook to foot the bill,’’ she said.
Are you flipping kidding?
Crawford disputed that. “The pension fund is fully capable of meeting its obligations to its retirees and beneficiaries,’’ he said. “The trust is solely responsible for meeting that responsibility — not the Commonwealth.’’
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And they were warned well ahead of time?
"Auditor’s warning to MBTA ignored year after year" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff, December 24, 2013
The auditor’s note appears in the MBTA Retirement Fund’s annual report year after year: Pension managers have omitted information considered “an essential part of financial reporting’’ and which is required to be disclosed under governmental accounting standards.
That lack of disclosure, or transparency in the finance world, is endemic at the MBTA pension board, which for more than two years has failed to disclose a $25 million investment loss in a hedge fund that has now been accused of fraud.
And this is the bastion of Democratic liberali$m! Imagine how bad it is in an icky-pooh Repuglican state!
A more complete audit could have shed light on the troubled investment sooner, say specialists in accounting and people who have reviewed the T fund’s audits.
“These are precisely the kinds of things you cannot catch when you don’t have these reports,’’ said Iliya Atanasov, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank, who authored a recent report critical of the T’s pension management.
The omitted information is called “management’s discussion and analysis,’’ and it’s meant to provide important context to the basic numbers pension funds and other entities provide to their auditors. The MBTA pension fund would not say why it fails to provide this information.
“With a loss of this size, and especially if foul play is involved, if there was management discussion, this should have been included,’’ Atanasov said.
A spokesman for the $1.6 billion pension fund, Stephen Crawford, said fund officials believe the disclaimer is a common one and “does not detract from the overall accuracy of the reported information.’’
This guy disassembles and double talks with the best of them. Must be how he got the job.
A spokeswoman for the T fund’s outside auditor, KPMG, declined to comment, due to customer confidentiality.
The T board does disclose basic financial information it is obligated to provide to its auditors. However, most pension operations and public companies go beyond that to provide the management discussion, which offers insights and explanations of the past year.
A spokesman for the Financial Accounting Foundation, which oversees the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, said Massachusetts is one of 30 states that require most public entities to follow generally accepted accounting principles.
The group encourages this because it “establishes good accountability.’’
KPMG would not say why it continues to review financials from a client that does not provide required information, referring questions to the American Institute of CPAs.
To keep the paychecks coming in?
Mary Foelster, director of government auditing and accounting at the CPA group, said it was “not the responsibility of the auditor to enforce the inclusion” of missing information. She said it’s up to the T retirement board “and perhaps those overseeing the entity as to whether the required” information “is included.’’
Attorney General Martha Coakley has launched an investigation of the fund, which has little public oversight.
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"After $25 million loss, MBTA retirement fund must open its records, meetings" January 02, 2014
The MBTA Retirement Fund does not hold public meetings or publish minutes, and it’s fighting a law the governor signed last summer to make its records public. This is a staggering show of arrogance, as the FBI and SEC investigate a failed $25 million investment for possible fraud. The fund’s board members must open its meetings and its records, and be held accountable to both retirees and taxpayers. And if the board resists, the Legislature should force its hand.
As reported by the Globe’s Beth Healy, the board that runs the MBTA retirement fund operates in a secret world in which standard ethics and disclosure laws do not apply. The story of the failed $25 million investment shows where immunity from public scrutiny can lead. In 2007, board members handed over $25 million to Karl E. White, the pension fund’s former executive director, to invest in Fletcher Asset Management, a New York hedge fund where he had taken a job as chief investment officer. White persuaded his former colleagues to make the investment just nine months after he left his top position at the pension fund.
The $25 million is gone, and the hedge fund is in bankruptcy — but the T retirement fund has not yet officially reported the loss to its members or to the public. It routinely ignores warnings from the state auditor about omitting essential information from reports.
Under ethics rules for Massachusetts public employees, White would have been prohibited from selling investments to his old employer for at least a year. But those restrictions didn’t apply to him. The MBTA is a public agency, but the MBTA pension fund board is incorporated as a private trust, which makes it exempt from public records law and oversight by the Massachusetts Ethics Commission. The fund’s status was upheld by the Supreme Judicial Court in 1993; and based on that ruling, the board has refused to comply with a law Patrick signed last summer requiring the MBTA fund to make its records public.
Patrick calls the situation “troubling.” But that’s an understatement. It’s an insult to MBTA retirees and to the Massachusetts public.
Attorney General Martha Coakley launched an investigation into the case and urged the board to adopt more stringent ethical standards or face legislation to overhaul its rules. But state officials should not sit around waiting for board members who have already displayed contempt for transparency and oversight. The MBTA should follow the same rules as other public agencies and pension funds — and the state should swiftly pass legislation to make sure that happens.
I'm not appeased, sorry.
--more--"
Also see:
Storrow Drive to close for road repairs
Mass. readies 3-month plan for Callahan bypass
Callahan Tunnel closure begins at 11 p.m.
Callahan Tunnel: Ripping off the Band-aid
Moving ahead in the shut-down Callahan Tunnel
"MBTA to inspect system’s third rails" by Martine Powers | Globe staff, December 12, 2013
MBTA inspectors planned to begin scrutinizing the third rails of the T’s subway tracks Thursday night after the end of T service in an effort to prevent fractures similar to those responsible for widespread commuting delays this week.
Two cracks on Red Line rails — one on Tuesday night, the other on Wednesday morning, both at JFK/UMass Station — prompted Beverly A. Scott, general manager of the Massachusett Bay Transportation Authority, to call for a widespread audit of the third rails on the Red, Orange, and Blue lines.
See: Cracked 3rd rails trouble MBTA
The third rail delivers electric power to the trains. The cracks are believed to have been caused by cold weather, which caused the metal to contract and fracture at the points where the rails were welded together. A crack in the rail is not dangerous — without power, trains simply come to a stop — but T officials intend to inspect the welding on third rails in the system to ensure that future cold spells do not cause the same disruptions....
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And the T will run later thus there will be even less time for maintenance on the aging system.
"Red Line resumes service after suspicious item cleared" by Melissa Hanson and David Abel | Globe correspondent | Globe Staff, December 12, 2013
The Red Line was shut down for 75 minutes as rush hour was beginning Thursday afternoon after a rider reported a suspicious bag on a train at the Park Street station, said MBTA Deputy Chief Kenneth Green.
The MBTA Transit Police called in a bomb squad to examine the duffle bag, which had wires protruding and canisters inside. They determined that the bag was not a bomb and reopened the station at about 4:45 p.m., Green said. It was the second time in two days the Red Line was shut down.
Superintendent in Chief Joseph O’Connor of the Transit Police said explosive technicians examined the bag and determined it was not a threat….
What was it then?
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Also see:
Man arraigned in cane attack at T station
Plympton man charged with assaulting T officer
2 women face charges that they stabbed man at T station who asked them to stop rapping so loudly
Box cutter used in South Station attack, police say
East Boston man allegedly kicks MBTA bus window and transit officer
Pedestrian hit; off-duty T driver charged
She was driving with a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit and it was her second offense?
I hope this post appeased you, readers.
