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Until a fire knocked out the LIRR track switching control system - a contraption of pulleys and levers installed sometime around 1920 - who would have guessed that one of Greater New York's primary transportation systems relied on technology installed at the time Al Capone was selling bootleg liquor?
LIRR President Helena Williams made upgrading the switches a priority when she took over in 2007. But where was the rest of LIRR management - and the elected officials responsible for overseeing this chronically mismanaged outfit?
Senator Dean Skelos can't evade responsibility for the management - or mismanagement - of the railroad. He controlled MTA capital spending from 1998 to 2008, and everyone knew he was the LIRR's principal go-to guy in Albany, collecting more than $62,000 in campaign contributions from unions, contractors and others doing business with the railroad.
But we never heard him sounding the alarm about the perilous state of the railroad's equipment. Maybe he didn't know - after all, he claims he didn't know anything about the rampant disability pension fraud at the LIRR, uncovered by a reporter's Freedom of Information request. You wouldn't expect the state's most connected and powerful senator (at the time) to know anything about the agency he oversees.
Sen. Skelos, the man who had veto power over MTA capital spending, should have spoken up loudly to upgrade the basic equipment we rely on to get to work and get home. And when the MTA pushed expensive mega-projects, like a new tunnel 10 stories under Manhattan, Sen. Skelos should have pushed back and said 'first things first'.
Why didn't he? Megaprojects cost mega-money, and those in line for the money hire Albany lobbyists to push their interests. New track switches aren't nearly as lucrative for the well-represented construction industry, or as sexy. But they will do a lot more to make sure we get where we're going on time, and cost a lot less overtime the next time the old pulleys and levers and baling wire system breaks down. Yet one more area, beyond our oppressive taxes, where Dean Skelos has failed us.
With more than a quarter century in Albany, his record is clear: Dean Skelos is guided solely by what is politically advantageous for Dean Skelos.
I'm George Sava, candidate for NY State Senate, Senate District 9, fighting to reduce property taxes, rebuild the economy and reform Albany.
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Sava for New York
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George Sava, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and an attorney, lives with his wife and their three young children in Woodmere. |
