What are we to make of the supposedly apolitical office of the state
Inspector General, releasing a selectively exonerating statement about
Therese Murray yesterday, the day before she is to be elected president
of the state senate?
As first reported by Statehouse News Service, and included in
Herald and
Globe articles today, the
IG released a statement saying that, while the investigation into the
international tourism marketing earmarks is ongoing, the IG has thus
far uncovered “no evidence to suggest that any state officials (elected
or appointed) were provided trips or airplane tickets by MIMP or any
related parties.”
That aspect of the story is peripheral to the main allegations made in
the article I ran that precipitated the IG's investigation. The main
allegation is that Murray, along with state representative Dan Bosley,
curtailed a competitive-bid process in order to ensure that the
contract went to their prefered recipient, William MacDougal's Tourism
Massachusetts (aka Massachusetts International Marketing Partnership).
Moreover, my story relayed concerns that Murray's powerful position as
senate Ways & Means chair -- and presumptive senate
president-in-waiting -- was preventing any serious inquiry into the
allegations.
The IG's decision to release its statement yesterday certainly bolsters those concerns.
Senator Murray has claimed, through other media outlets, that
MacDougall's company was chosen through an extensive open selection
process. (She has not contacted the
Phoenix since the story ran). But documentation says otherwise.
Below I am attaching some of this documentation.
The first is a letter from Robert Ward, president of the Massachusetts
International Trade Council, to Senator Murray. The Trade Council was
responsible, under the 2003 legislation written by Murray herself, for
selecting the vendor for the contract. (After a Request for Proposal
was released, three organizations submitted bids, including
MacDougall's) In this letter, dated January 3, 2005, Ward explains that
the Trade Council's three directors had all resigned. "[W]ithout a
board we are unable to proceed with the awarding of the International
Tourism Fund contract," Ward writes, adding that he plans to have the
$2 million returned to the state comptroller's office.
The second letter is dated the following day, January 4, 2005. It is
from Ranch Kimball, then the secretary of economic development, and is
addressed to Senator Murray and representative John Rogers, who was
chair of house Ways & Means at the time. He reiterates that
"[w]ithout a Board of Directors, MITCI [the Trade Council] cannot award
this contract." He suggests an alternative resolution: transfering the
$2 million to the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism.
The third is a letter from Senator Murray in response to Kimball, dated
January 21. (It is dated 2004, although it is obviously from 2005.) In
it, she argues that "the correct course of action... would be to
reappoint previous members or appoint new members to the MITCI Board of
Directors. This quick and rather simple action would allow the Board of
Directors to award a contract to a successful bidder."
She does not argue in that letter what she has recently seemed to claim
in the press: that the advisory board, which she was a member of, had
the authority to award the contract without the Trade Council.
The Trade Council nevertheless transfered the $2 million back to the
comptroller. And less than three weeks after Murray sent that letter to
Kimball, the House finalized a supplemental budget package, which
called for that $2 million to go directly to MacDougall's company, in
this earmark:
For the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism; provided, that the office
shall grant not less than $2,000,000 to the Massachusetts International
Marketing Partnership, Inc. for international tourism marketing efforts;
provided further, that the grant shall be made not later than June 30, 2005; and
provided further, that the grant shall be contingent upon certification by the
comptroller that $2,000,000 has been transferred by the Massachusetts
International Trade Council, Inc. from the Massachusetts International Tourism
Fund, established pursuant to section 60 of chapter 141 of the acts of 2003, to
the General Fund ................................................. $2,000,000
A few months later, the Fiscal Year 2006 budget included another $4
million earmark for MacDougall's company. This time (and again a year
later, when another $5 million was awarded), the earmark specifically
claimed that MacDougall's company had been "awarded the contract" under
the rules of the 2003 legislation:
...that said office shall grant not less than $4,000,000 to the Massachusetts
International Marketing Partnership Incorporated, the business entity awarded the contract pursuant to
section 60 of chapter 141 of the acts of 2003.
If in fact MacDougall's company was properly selected from among the
bidders and awarded the contract, as Murray has publicly suggested,
that should be easy to prove: there must be documentation of the
official decision. I am aware of no such documentation.
I have much more about all this
in the original article, including the opinions of people involved in the process that the Trade Council board members resigned because Murray wanted them to award the contract to MacDougall, while the Council's own staff had reported that MacDougall's company was undeserving and in fact ineligible.
None of this is to argue for or against Murray's elevation to president
of the senate. It is to point out that serious questions remain about
what Senator Murray did, far beyond whether she received any travel
rewards. For the IG's office to release its statement, when it did, was
anything but apolitical, and would seem to strongly suggest that the
office is inclined to support Senator Murray's public image -- which
cannot lend much confidence to those hoping that even the most powerful
in the state are subject to independent oversight of their actions.