Therese Murray's Helping Hand

The Boston Globe today tells the tale of William Hayhurst III, who vaulted from 623rd to 1st on the Boston Fire Department hiring list thanks to a special law championed by state Senate President Therese Murray, described in the article as a friend of the Hayhurst family. Bostonians are worried enough about the state of the BFD these days without a pol from the Cape sticking her nose in and making patronage hiring decisions, don't you think?

Funny, it seems oddly similar to the way Murray stuck her nose in and funneled the state's international tourism marketing contract to Bill MacDougall, an acquaintence of Murray's, as I described in this article back in February. Murray, as I wrote then, intervened to get MacDougall the multi-million-dollar contract, after the agency responsible for choosing a contractor "not only... recommend[ed] a different bidder... it concluded that MacDougall's bid was ineligible -- i.e., it did not meet the statute's criteria."

It's quite a campaign slogan -- Terri Murray: champion of the ineligible contractor and the unqualified firefighter.

You might recall that after my article appeared -- and after she publicly denounced the article as pure fiction -- Murray requested that the state Inspector General investigate the MacDougall contract. She did this to defray concerns of some of her colleagues, whose votes she needed to become senate president upon the resignation of Robert Travaglini.

Some senators suggested that the vote be postponed until after the IG issued its findings. They would still be waiting: almost a year later, the Inspector General has yet to issue a report.