MTA big concedes that agency hires crooked contractors

about 6 years in NY Daily

Call it a 12-stop program.

An MTA executive admitted Monday that the transit agency hires notoriously corrupt contractors in hopes of straightening them out.

“New York City Transit and the MTA as a whole for many, many, many years — certainly for the 30 years that I’ve been here and for many before that — have looked at this as a rehabilitative organization,” Senior Vice President Stephen Plochochi said at a transit committee meeting. “We don’t take this lightly; we don't let them get away with it.”

Plochochi’s statement came after MTA board member Charles Moerdler read a list of corruption convictions of two MTA contractors.

“My issue is when people commit crimes from bribery to worse we have a public responsibility as fiduciaries to make sure there is no reoccurrence,” Moerdler said, calling for high level monitoring of rogue contractors.

“If we have other companies out there that are willing to do the work, why on earth would we want to continue to go back to the well and deal with people who have repeatedly shown themselves to not rehabilitate their behavior?” asked board member Peter Ward.

Andy Byford, president of NYC Transit, said the contracts the transit committee were considering were necessary and needed to be approved. He gave assurances that monitors would be installed on both contractors.

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