Posted on 12/09/2007 5:35:33 AM PST by raccoonradio
Howie Carr column ping
Gov gives generously to 100G gang
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 9, 2007 | http://www.bostonherald.com
One thing we can all agree on about Gov. Deval Patrick - he’s a very special guy.
What we didn’t know is that he presides over an equally special staff.
How special are they? Well, according to the Herald’s Find-a-Hack Web site, the globe-trotting governor has 16 “special assistants” on his payroll.
And yes, they are special. These specialists specialize in making between $65,000 and $115,000, with seven over $100,000. Call those in the six-figure club special, special assistants.
As you read in the Herald earlier this week, of the 70 people on the governor’s payroll, 11 are making more than $100,000.
By way of contrast, consider those at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, who basically get the job done. Of the Registry’s 831 employees, two make more than $100,000.
Then there’s the Lottery. It’s having major problems competing against casinos, but it still makes millions and, of its 431 employees, six make more than 100 large.
Which brings us back to Gov. Patrick. What exactly has the guy accomplished in his first year in office? Other than the Cadillac, I mean. Not that I’m complaining, you understand. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. First, do no harm.
Still, you have to wonder how much you have to pay people who basically sit around all day and do nothing except calling UMass trustees asking them to oust Steve Tocco six months early.
Let’s go down the payroll. First Deval, at $140,535, followed by Lt. Gov. Tim “Lefty” Murray at $124,920 - not too shabby for a former Worcester city councilor who once dreamed of becoming the next Ditto Dan Foley.
Next comes the chief legal counsel, one Ben Clements, at $120,000. Most people at the State House couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Presumably he at least assisted in the nationwide search that ended with moonbat Margot Botsford on the Supreme Judicial Council after her spouse donated three times the legal limit to Deval’s 2006 campaign.
Batting cleanup is David Morales and, yes, he is a special assistant, acquired on waivers from Team Travaglini after his boss Bobby Trav resigned as Senate president.
Morales makes $115,000; ditto Charlotte Golar Richie, whose qualifications are impeccable. She used to be a state rep, from Dorchester. Then she made a decision that almost ended her career at the public trough: She went to work at City Hall for Mumbles. Now, sadder but wiser, she’s home for the holidays at the State House.
Next come a couple more special assistant newcomers at $105,000: Ron Marlow and Lily Mendez-Morgan. That hyphenated last name is a nice touch - whoever she is, Mendez-Morgan is going places in this ultra-PC administration.
Also at $105,000 is David Simas, who used to be Bristol County’s elected register of deeds in Taunton, which brings us to another interesting contrast. Most of the registers of deeds are now vassals of Secretary of State Bill Galvin. Galvin has 629 employees and only three make more than $100,000. He has at least three registers of deeds who are veteran hack pols, ex-Mayors Dick Howe and Gene Brune ($97,270 a year) and ex-Sen. Andrea Nuciforo ($86,092). That Galvin. What a cheapskate.
The next $100,000 “special assistant” is James Leary, another dim-bulb state rep hired by his fellow three-watter from Worcester, Lefty Murray. They could make a movie about those two flyweights. Alas, the title is already taken - “Dumb and Dumber.”
An assistant legal counsel is parked at $100,000, which is also how much Doug Rubin makes. Of course Rubin is a “special assistant,” but he’s also Deval’s chief of staff, presumably of all the staff who make less than 100 grand. Rubin was involved in Deval’s campaign, and before that he worked for Treasurer Tim Cahill. Ditto Michael Morris, still another “special assistant” at $95,000. Also at $95,000 is Ron Bell, who used to be a community activist of some sort before he became . . . special.
Bill Veeck, the late baseball executive, used to say that it wasn’t the high cost of talent that was destroying the game, it was the high cost of mediocrity.
As baseball goes, so goes state government.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1049659
Howie nails it as usual.
Meanwhile, the library at my alma mater, Salem State, is
closed down due to structural problems...has had various problems—most likely
built by friends of hacks and okayed by hack politicians.
>>The library, Cady noted, has been plagued with problems from the beginning. Initial construction began in the 1960s during an infamous period of corruption in Massachusetts that shortchanged a number of public works in the state. “The building has always had issues,” Cady said, recalling corrective projects started immediately when the library opened in 1969. “There was a lot of remediation work in the 70s, and through the years specific areas have always been problematic,” Cady says. “We have done a lot of patchwork analyses and fixed problems in various parts of the building.”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6492564.html
(incorrectly calls SSC a university; not a univ. yet)
>>an infamous period of corruption in Massachusetts
which hasn’t ended
“began in the 1960s during an infamous period of corruption in Massachusetts”
I was born in 1960, I don’t think it has ended.
I used to Listen to Howie all the time in his old time slot on FM. Even won some pretty good prizes (2) on a Friday crime/police beat type article (forgot the segment name). Plus, missed the airing and got tracked down via e-mail had won.
Now, with new HD radio (not “high def”) AM will sound like FM and FM, CD quality. Difference being between satellite, it’s free, no subscription. Many stations are already in HD format plus will run stock market etc across the bottom of the screen.
Guess, I have no idea where he is on the dial now or when. I listen only in the car during the day, maybe early evening.
Thought Howie had a great show $ staff.
AM680,AM560 3p-7p
Thanks..guess I stay on FM as my car radio takes some digital configuation when driving to switch to AM in the same change over mode as if adjusting balance, etc so
takes my focus off the road.
I will check it out..it was just about the inconvenience of pulling up AM.
Howie’s affiliates to the best of my knowledge (AM
unless indicated otherwise):
WRKO 680 Boston
WXTK FM 95.1 Cape Cod
WHYN 560 Holyoke
(No longer on WCRN Worcester)
WVMT 620 Burlington VT
WNTK FM 99.7 New London NH
WUVR 1490 Lebanon NH
WGAN 560 Portland ME
WVOM-FM 103.9 Howland/Augusta ME
WEGP 1390 Presque Isle ME
Also
from today’s Inside Track in the Herald:
http://bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1049649
“Tracked Down:..WTTK (sic; actually it’s WTKK) Best & Brightest ringmaster - and soon-to-be Herald op-ed columnist (debut Wednesday!) - Jay Severin chatting up the National Security Fellows at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard about the presidential campaign...”
The Monday ping. Michael Vick gets 23 months. Cue
Sen. Byrd: “God created the dog...Poor dog died.
Died, died, DIED...the dog...died...”
Howie Carr
Monday is Max Robins Day! Call in and ask our TV Guru any of your nagging boob tube questions.
MONDAY DECEMBER 10
1st Hour
2nd Hour
3rd Hour
CHUMP LINE! Call 617-779-3469 and leave Howie, Sandy or Happy a message about today\’s stories or anything else buzzing around your bonnet and we may play it back on the air!
Max Robins the TV Guru will be with us to answer all of those nagging questions about your favorite show on the boob tube...
4th Hour
first hour.
1st Hour
Quarterback Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for plotting to run an interstate dogfighting ring this morning. Was this sentence excessive?
Max’s new site—absolutely, Howie
“You Got A Radio? Inside Dope on TV Biz Monday on Howie Carr
By Max - Posted on December 6th, 2007
Why is “Lost” so lost? “Heroes” down for the count? Is there a “The Sopranos” movie in the works? Post your questions here and we will give you the real deal. Listen pal, if you want the real inside on the Hollywood writer’s strike, tune in to “Max Robins Mondays on the Howie Carr Show on WRKO — AM 680” or listen on line at HowieCarr.com. That’s where Howie and yours truly will dish dirt on friends and enemies alike. We kid because we love. We can’t give answers without your questions.
Wow, Howie and Sandy are goin apes*t on each other today.
I came in late. Sandy did certainly have an edge to her voice. I got what I thought was a comm problem, and it was them bleeping out Howie, and her “request” for him to watch his language had a nasty tone to it.
I heard the silence for his “bleep”...wow, did he say
“feces” or words to that effect! :)
Evidently. I can’t remember if it was before or after a caller brought up Penn&Teller’s cable show.
It was just before the caller brought it up. There was the silence then Sandy pointed out that Howie had swore on the air (”did we cut it out?” asked Sandy and she replied yes, and
the next caller asked about Penn and Teller’s show which is
called Bulls—t, though he said ‘it’s a word we can’t
say on the air... )
From today’s Herald, Inside Track:
“And that if you’re really jonesing for chocolate this holiday season, word is there’s boxes, boxes and more boxes of “Carr Bars” wasting away at WTKK! The talk station reportedly commissioned the candy when they thought they had Howie Carr signed up as their new morning man. But the radio bigfoot beat feet back to WRKO. Paging Building 19 . . .”
The Tue. ping. Howie said yesterday he’ll read off the
“Yuppie Christmas letters” during his last show before
Christmas break, a week from Friday.
I can’t wait to hear the yuppie letters, they are always entertaining.....!
While Howie was away, Feinberg gave Sandy waaaaaaaaay too much power, kept calling her “the boss” I think it went to her head, some days I can’t listen to her, she sounds like a whiney little cry baby, seems like if she can’t have her way she will whine til she does, other days, she does make good contributions but I still think she’s got too much power.
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