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In politics, it’s often been said, it’s not what you know but who you know. Case in point: Governor Deval Patrick’s selection to fill the new $120,000 a year post of Director of Real Estate Services at the Division of Capital Asset Management. According to yesterday’s Boston Herald, attorney and real estate consultant Dana Harrell is not only a “frequent contributor to Patrick’s campaign coffers,” he’s also a neighbor, living “less than a quarter mile” from the Governor.
It’s worth noting that Patrick is continuing to hire and create new positions, just two months after warning that 1,000 state jobs would be lost due to the economic downturn. It turns out those numbers were highly exaggerated, as many of the jobs “lost” were simply vacant positions that went unfilled. Not only that, but the Patrick Administration has yet to implement any type of hiring freeze, despite the fact that state revenue collections are continuing to nosedive. Instead, Patrick is relying on a “no net new hires” policy that still “allows for critical positions to be filled,” according to the Herald.
Reportedly, Harrell has been brought in to “help turn the state’s real estate assets into moneymakers.” Here’s hoping he’ll start by inventorying the assets of the MA Turnpike Authority, which the Patrick Administration has been keeping a closely guarded secret, despite repeated calls by the Senate Republican Caucus to use some of these assets to negate the proposed toll hike and pay down the Turnpike Authority‘s outstanding debt.
