News Features

A Handy Guide to the Big Dig Screw-Up

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | July 27, 2006

Fay Spofford & Thorndike

Frank A. Tramontozzi; former Boston Transportation Commissioner

bigdig_statemoney
Williams J. Reed, senior vice-president; ACEC director

HNTB Corp.

bigdig_statemoney
Beth J. Larkin, vice-president; ACEC past president

Robert Sutton, CIM director

GZA GeoEnvironmental hired by Tom Reilly to collect data for Big Dig investigation

bigdig_statemoney
Therese M. Kwiatkowski, vice-president; president-elect of BSCES

Mary B. Hall, ACEC director

Construction contractors and subcontractors
These companies, many of them local, often won contracts by forming joint ventures with one another: Perini/Kiewit/Cashman; Slattery/Interbeton/JF White/Perini; Modern Continental/Obayashi, and so on. Spread that across 110 Big Dig construction contracts (not to mention joint ventures among the same companies elsewhere), and you get a sense of the intertwined relationships among these competitors. They are represented by Construction Industries of Massachusetts (CIM), among others.

Jay Cashman Inc.

Jay Cashman, Boston magazine “100 Most Powerful”; major John Kerry funder; recently took financial control of Modern Continental

James Michael Connolly, lobbyist; major GOP donor; close Cellucci associate

JF White Contracting Co.

bigdig_statemoney
Jack Harney, CIM director

McCourt Construction

bigdig_statemoney
Richard McCourt, CIM director

Modern Continental

Lelio “Les” Marino, founder/CEO (deceased, 2004), Kerry funder

Kenneth Anderson, co-founder

John Pastore, president

Slattery, a division of Skanska USA

Peter Kiewit Sons’ Inc.

Perini Corp.

Richard Blum, controlling shareholder; wife of US Senator Dianne Feinstein

Interbeton

Obayashi Corp.

Walsh Construction Company

Labor Unions
Thanks to a special waver of federal law, the Big Dig operated essentially as a union shop. Among the 20 political-action committees that give the most money to candidates in Massachusetts, seven are PACs of Big Dig unions. In fact, PACs of unions directly involved in Big Dig work collectively gave more than $1 million in contributions to candidates in 2004 and 2005 alone. Listed below are just a few of the locals involved.

Metropolitan Building Trades Council

Jim Coyle, general agent, former business manager IBEW local 7

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

Michael Monahan, business manager, local 103

Ironworkers local 7

Jay Hurley, Ironworkers District Council New England

bigdig_statemoney
Jimmy Coyle, business manager, local 7

Laborers Union local 223

Martin F. Walsh, former business manager, state representative

Sheetmetal Workers Local 17

International Union of Operating Engineeers, local 4

Louis G. Rasetta, business manager

With additional reporting by Adam Reilly.

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