Fare Hike Four to Paterson: Not So Fast

In case you’ve forgotten who’s in charge these days, Governor Paterson’s nomination of Jay Walder to succeed Lee Sander as MTA chief was quickly met with a joint statement from Malcolm Smith, John Sampson, and Fare Hike Four members Pedro Espada and Carl Kruger. In the interest of “transparency and accountability,” the senators say they plan to put Walder in front of their committees before any decision is made. Kruger, for his part, tells The Daily Politics that he doesn’t consider the backbone of the region’s economy to be a particularly urgent agenda item.

“We’ll look at it over the course of the next couple of months,” said
Kruger. … “After that, we’ll finish our vetting process, which hasn’t even
begun yet, and we’ll have a better idea about the timetable (for a
confirmation vote).”

When Liz Benjamin informed Kruger that Walder has already spoken of restoring public trust in the agency — a task that will be much more difficult thanks to shameless hucksters like Kruger himself, the senator replied:

“I come from Missouri; don’t show me, tell me. I mean, everybody says
they’re for oversight and accountability. What does that mean? What
does it mean?“

I swear, this blog just writes itself sometimes.