Blaming the Victim?
Yesterday, the Bloomberg administration managed to get into Channel 4's second story that this was a joint investigation with the FBI and the Department of Investigations which put out a 6:17 p.m. press release calling the investigation "longstanding."
The best I could determine from a source familiar with the matter is that "longstanding" means "years." Unclear how many.
Channel 4 reported that the scam may go back to the late years of the Giuliani administration. In the best case for Bloomberg, the fraud was suspected in, say, 2000 or 2001, and was only allowed to continue for the authorities to gather evidence. In the worst, "years" means "two years," and the city was ripped off for half a decade before the feds caught on.
The question is whether it's fair to (partially) blame the victim, DOT, here. Is the apparent situation, in which DOT relies entirely on two contractors for street lighting, and is ripped off by them, the sort of thing that could have happened just as easily in the private sector? Or is it a function of, at the very best, shoddy oversight and a relaxed attitude toward public money? We'll find out.
Yeah - DOT is the victim, like with the ferry crash. DOT is the victim too for the mess with city streets that have electrical shocks because DOT pays no attention to what Con Ed and others do on those streets; so yeah DOT is the victim when their contractors are criminals too because they fail to properly investigate the way theyre supposed to.
There will always be someone trying to do some scam in every large organization. Frankly, I had been a little nervous at the lack of scandal in the Bloomberg administration. Far from not having corruption, to me that indicated they hadn't caught anyone.
But lets see the evidence before we jump to conclusions.
In a climate where whistleblowing requires enormous courage, and where whistleblowers are subject to harm, ridicule and scorn (even after they risk everything to expose the problem/corruption), it's not surprising that only a few of these type cases are ever made by the Feds. It doesn't mean however that these type of things aren't done on a regular basis. Case in point: Brooklyn.
What is disturbing is that elected officials tacitly suborn corruption by their routine lack of courage.
Speaking of lack of courage, how about a thread about the political football over fines and punishment for the TWU?
Wishful thinking, Ben. Sadly, it is most likely the case that DOT is guilty of nothing more than its usual bureaucratic negligence and incompetence.
If Iris didn't get canned for her agency's killing and maiming of a bunch of ferry commuters, a streetlight scandal isn't likely to take her down.
It is most sad and unfortunate. Weinshall and Primeggia are the biggest barriers to NYC having a real transportation policy. It'd be great if this thing helped get rid of them.
If Iris wasn't fired after the Ferry homicides, then a little bid rigging won't even be a hiccup for her.
Mike and Chuck haven't been getting along too well lately - maybe Weinshall's bullet proof job protection is slipping.
Cranky- the scandals are out in the open for everyone to see. cf. Related Companies; Forest City Ratner.
Iris needs to go.
It's interesting that at first, Bloomberg sought to distance himself by stating that this is a purely federal matter, and now he is trying to pump up DOI's involvement.
I worked at DOT with Mike Primeggia and found him to be a top-notch traffic engineer. Take on Iris if you want, but unless you've got meat to put on the bones, lay off the career civil servants, willya?
Agreed. Primeggia is a pro. Iris, not so much.
Road,
Primeggia is a top-notch traffic engineer by 1960's standards. He knows how to move cars. That's it. A great day for him is a day when he successfully moves record numbers of vehicles through the city. Problem is: Mike's good day is an incredibly lousy day for everyone who has to live, work and play in the midst of all that traffic. MP would be harmless and maybe even beneficial if he worked in a city with real transpo policy leadership like, say, London. In other words: If the mayor said, "Mike, reduce traffic congestion," he could probably figure out how to do it. But here in NYC where Iris is an insanely defensive, non-visionary, bureaucrat administrator and the mayor has shown zero transportation and public space policy vision, the traffic engineers are the de facto architects of the city's transpo policy. In this context, Primeggia (aka Dr. No, aka Darth Primeggia), has been a complete disaster. It's not a big secret.
The truth is, DOT can't afford to do the work in house, too expensive for the agency. The bids in question were from a couple of contracts ago. When Hylan had it, they had trouble maintaining, and couldn't bid on the next contract. Why is it a problem if a few contractors bid on the contract when it comes up? (which is every two years). This is specialized work that takes training, and special equipment, not every contractor in the city is going to run over to DOT and bid. And why is it something of this nature happens, and the whole union is blamed? Not every union member is in the Mafia. The same thing happened to Toussant, when all he was trying to do was protect his membership. Before you put this to the firing squad, consider the families and working people this will hurt, alot of whom had nothing to do with this, except being union members.