Michelle McPhee takes it to Gov. Patrick.
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has 1,336 people on its payroll, with a staggering percentage making six-figure salaries. The state of Massachusetts just awarded the company that killed a woman with its shoddy work in the Big Dig another $30 million contract to build an airport garage when parking at Logan is down by 3,000 cars a week. A clerk of courts in Roxbury named Michael Neighbors did not show up for work most days over the past two years yet continued to collect his $110,000-a-year salary. A Register of Probate Court in Middlesex County was arraigned last week on charges he stole change and dollar bills from a copy machine.
Despite all this, Governor Deval Patrick looks us in the eye, wags his finger and tells us that the only solution to paying off the state’s debts is to raise tolls.
And if you don’t like it, Patrick said you’re nothing but an idiot: “We are awash in cynicism in the Commonwealth,’’ Patrick declared. “But the cynical are not smart. They are just pretending to be.”Then just call me Michele “Mickey” the Dunce.
UPDATE: More from Eric Fehrnstrom and the Herald.
SECOND UPDATE: More from Michael Graham and the Herald.