Hats are off to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today for laying down the law to the MTA and all other agencies that might be illegally giving perks to their (already wealthy) board members. The specific issue was the E-Z Passes given to many on and formerly on the board, including more than one car per person. These little boxes are worth quite a sum when put together and not only is it abusive to the taxpayer and straphanger who foot the bill, but now we see it is illegal.
From The NY Daily News:
Just hours after the Daily News revealed how some 60 past and present board members - many of them multimillionaires - get the free tags for life, Cuomo's office issued a stern warning that the practice is illegal.
Cuomo also told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to produce records of any other benefits doled out to board members who are supposed to "serve without salary or other compensation."
The letter to the MTA, penned by top Cuomo aide Benjamin Lawsky, was titled "Illegal Compensation of Board Members."
The MTA "should immediately terminate and rescind all free E-ZPass tags it has provided to its current and past board members," Lawsky wrote to James Henly, MTA deputy executive director and general counsel.
Lawsky cited a 2007 legal opinion by the state attorney general's office that two upstate state public authorities wrongly provided health care benefits free to board members.
Gene Russianoff chimed in to say that maybe these "hard workers" could get flowers and chocolate for their service to the MTA. I'd say that they should get nothing until they start making real progress on our dilapidated system. I put up with the squeaks, the humid dungeon weather down there, rude MTA workers and the overall nastiness that comes to the subways in the summer. If anyone should get free E-Z Passes, its the straphangers, not fat cats that get to take their yachts to work.
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