Maura Healey and Michelle Wu – who had been purported to usher in a brand new period of progressive politics – are enjoying the identical old-school Massachusetts cronyism recreation, placing ex-flames and political allies in plum positions on the general public payroll.
The day the Democratic governor nominated her former romantic associate for a seat on the Supreme Judicial Court, the Herald confirmed that former Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty and his former aide have landed candy, high-paying jobs within the Wu administration on the Boston Water and Sewer Commission.
Flaherty, a former unsuccessful mayoral candidate who simply retired from the council this 12 months, is now making $164,000 a 12 months as deputy basic counsel for the BWSC – lengthy a main place for metropolis hacks to land a job. He was employed on Jan. 16, in line with a BWSC spokesman.
“This is what other Deputy General counsels make and is in keeping with salaries for similar positions across comparable government agencies and authorities,” BWSC spokesman Stephen Mulloney mentioned.
Flaherty’s longtime former council neighborhood liaison, Paul Sullivan, was additionally employed Jan. 16 as assistant deputy counsel at $139,050 a 12 months, data present. Flaherty and Sullivan’s salaries are a big bump from their council pay and can sweeten their pensions.
Wu additionally rewarded Flaherty final 12 months with a highly-coveted seat on the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority board of administrators.
Though extra of a average, Flaherty was nonetheless total an ally of Wu’s on the council.
The Water and Sewer Commission is managed by the mayor, who picks the three commissioners to supervise the company. The Boston City Council, the place Flaherty served, has last say over the BWSC commissioners.
With his jobs on the MCCA and BWSC, which means Flaherty, of South Boston, has a big hand in growth choices within the metropolis of Boston.
It reveals that Wu, who portrays herself as representing a brand new period in Boston metropolis politics, is aware of the best way to play the old-school patronage recreation in addition to anybody from a earlier period.
Healey, in the meantime, took the brazen step on Wednesday of naming her former girlfriend, Gabrielle Wolohojian, to the state SJC.
The far-left Healey apparently feels she will get away with placing an ex-galpal on the state’s highest court docket – a patronage transfer no male politician would in all probability even dare strive these days.
“There is no one more qualified, I am very comfortable in saying that,” Healey mentioned Wednesday. “I don’t want the fact that she had a personal relationship with me to deprive the commonwealth of a person who’s most qualified for the position.”
No doubt the weak Governor’s Council will broom the appointment via regardless of the shady moral look of it, and the Democratic-controlled Legislature gained’t say a phrase of dissent.
That’s the best way issues work in Massachusetts, the place Democratic patronage politics is alive and nicely.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”