American literature has been shaped by remarkable storytellers like Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and John Steinbeck. But behind their groundbreaking books and stories lies equally incredible tales of struggle and triumph. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondry's podcast, American History Tellers. We take you to the events, times, and people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. In our latest series, we'll explore the lives of six of America's greatest authors and how their personal triumphs and tragedies influenced their writing and transformed modern literature. Follow American History Tellers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondry app. Support for The Big Dig comes from Bunker Hill Community College, now registering for online winter session. A three-week session starting January second designed to help students catch up on classes and get ahead. Bhcc. Edu/winter. And also from Cure Alzheimer's Fund, which supports foundational scientific research into the causes of Alzheimer's disease because research is the only path to a cure. Learn more at cureaz. Org. We're going to pick up right where we left off, the fall of Jim Kareciotis. What you have to understand is that Kareciotis ruled the big dig like no other single person ever could.

Listen, did I have autocratic tendencies? Yeah. And he did it by controlling a very powerful board. Did I want a board that was in lockstep? Yeah. The board of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. And at that point, you're not really looking for collaborators. You're looking for supporters. It never was a collaborative body. Basically, what you wanted was two votes. Why in the world would you want anything other than that? Good evening. It's day one of the new management era at The Big Dig. Yesterday's firing of Big Dig bought to- But with Kareciotas now leaving the picture, it's time to consider those other two votes, the other two people on this three-person board, Jordan Levy and Kristi Meijos. Levy and Meijos were The BigDig's ultimate oddcouple. They came from different political parties, different parts of the state, very different backgrounds. But they found a common, if unlikely, cause taking control of the big dig. Born in bread and Worcester to poor Jewish parents, he first made a political name for himself. Jordan Levy came up in the city politics of Worcester, a rough around the edges industrial city out in the middle of the state. According to the best of my abilities and understanding.

You can picture, Levy, like the character, Toby Ziggler, on the West Wing. Bearded, balding, rarely smiling. But in many ways, politics was just a step on the way to his true calling. Celebrating 20 years of the Jordan Levy show. This is WTAG 580, Wooster, and… Since the 1990s, Levy has been holding down a regular slot on WT AG 580 AM, where he is currently scheduled after Glenn Beck before Sean Hannity, if that gives you a sense of the station's character. All right, my friends, and we are back with you. We do change the world every single day, word by word. With your help, we'll continue to do so. That's Jordan Levy. Now, whereas Levi seemed to wear a constant scowl, Kristy Meijos appears to have been always smiling, always upbeat with thick, expressive eyebrows and a healthy main of dark hair. He made a name for himself as the owner of Kristi's Markets, a chain of some 150 convenience stores spread across several states. But then, one April night in 1997, a gunman shot and killed the night manager of one of his stores. Suddenly, the family business lost all its joy. He agreed to sell every store that bore his name to 7-Eleven, making Kristy Meijos a very wealthy man.

He had previously dabbled in politics, but in 1998, just as he was casting about for a new direction in life, an unexpected call came, a call from Jim Kerisiotas. Neither Jordan nor Kristy Meijos had a background in construction or engineering or transportation, which is probably why Kareotas welcomed them into the fold of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Listen, Jordan Levy, you could buy him for a ham sandwich. They were both people who Kerisiotas felt he could control. Give him a badge that says turnpike commissioner, and he'll be your best friend. Kristi knew that his appointment was my doing and that if not for me, he wouldn't have been there. So he was a loyal vote and was under control. Kristi Meijos wrote a book about his experience on the Turnpike board. In it, he describes how he and Levi were given offices with no windows, an empty filing cabinet, and one chair between them. On the day of their first board meeting together, the pair were shown into the conference room so they could await the arrival of Kareciotis, who entered with a full entourage in tow, called the meeting to order, and within 15 minutes, gabbled it to a close and strode back out.

See you in two weeks. They got paid $26,000 a year to show up twice a month, three times a month, whatever, like manna from heaven. At least that's how it went for the first year. But then- Jim Keresiotis has dug quite a hole for himself. Thanks to the Big Digs newly announced $1.4 billion cost over to the officials. The cost increase, the criticism, the investigations, and suddenly, Kareciotis was gone out of government, out of the Turnpike Authority, as if dad just never came home one day and left the kids to run the house. Were you prepared for what Mayos and Levi did in the wake of your resignation? Did you see it coming? No, I did not. What? From GBH News, this is The Big Dig, a study in American infrastructure. I'm Ian Kass. The Big Dig experienced two great shufflings of the leadership deck. The first was in 1990 when Salvuchi stepped down. The second was in 2000, when Kareciotis stepped down. But this time, there was no air apparent to take up the mantle and lead the project forward. Instead, there was chaos. This episode is about a power struggle that played out at the highest level of state politics over who had ultimate authority over the big dig.

It might sound like a simple question. Isn't it the governor or the Secretary of Transportation or Bechel-Parsons, Federal Highway, the DPW? Any one of those folks we've talked about so far? The answer is no. True power over the big dig laid in a shadowy corner of state government that was only barely part of the government at all. This is part seven, the turnbike revolt. I think even as a kid, I could tell that the Massachusetts Turnpike was a little different than all the other roads in my life. It had its own special logo, the tall black pilgrim hat with a buckle. And as you passed under that sign, you took a ticket. It had a grid of numbers on it. And my job would be to study the grid, find the exit where we got on the exit where we were getting off, and then trace the lines to where they met, revealing our toll, the small tribute we had to pay for the privilege of driving this road. What I certainly never stopped to ask was why is this road different? Why is this the one road in my life with pilgrim hats and paper tickets and little blue toll booths?

It's time for the launching chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour. The answer lies in the long shadow of a man named Robert Moses. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Mr. Robert Moses, the nation's foremost city planner. For more than 40 years, Moses transformed the landscape of New York City: bridges, parks, housing, and, of course, highways. How is that financed? Is that the taxpayers' debt? That is financed by the issuance of bonds, which however, have the state credit. And the key to the Moses legacy, to his productivity, his longevity, his seeming invincibility, was the fact that he did not work for any politician and he did not depend on tax dollars. Instead, he paid for his biggest projects by selling bonds, basically getting private investors to fund the construction if he could pay them back. Toll roads are the perfect example. James Allowise, who we heard briefly in the last episode, was general counsel for the Massachusetts and Pike Authority. You have a captive audience of drivers. They pay tolls every day, and those tolls pay off the bonds. The magic of it all is that these bonds were not issued by the state or by the city.

They were issued by a quasi-governmental body known as a public authority. And so it becomes a very powerful tool in the hands of someone who knows how to use that tool because yours are basically autonomous. This model that Moses perfected spread rapidly around the country in the mid 20th century, forming a shadow government of transit authorities, water authorities, port authorities, and, of course, the turnpike authorities. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority set a target date at which time it hoped to- Our very own turnpike authority was created by the state legislature in 1952 with the of building the state's most important highway, what we call the Pike. 123 miles of it with 14 entrances and exits. The way it was set up, the Turnpike board had three members appointed by the governor, but their terms were staggered so that the whole board never changed out at once. The idea was to keep the authority independent, unpolitical, which in theory, served everyone's interests. For the bondholders, it protected their investment from meddling politicians. For the politicians, it protected them from the often controversial work of building a highway. Politically, no governor is going to want to be responsible for people losing their homes.

This is former Turnpike board member, Mary Conneton. So the governor remains insulated by seeing all that authority into an authority. Say, Wait a minute, that's not me. That's not me. That's a separate entity. So in a way, it's like it was designed to be unaccountable. And that's the issue. Why should someone that's not elected by the people have such an amazing amount of power. Why? A Massachusetts without a toll booth is like a Massachusetts without a Duncan Donuts. But did you know there was supposed to be- The Turnpike's power was actually only supposed to be temporary. The authority's official mission was to build the road, pay off all its bonds, and then go out of existence. That's right. All debts paid, all booves closed. But guess what? That's not what happened. Because once a public authority is created, it's like a weed. It'll spread. It will find new ways of justifying its existence, new reasons to issue bonds, new reasons to collect tolls. And in the 1990s, we believe that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority- The Turnpike Authority found a reason. -an appropriate operator of the project- The big dig. The big question in those years was when we build this thing, who's going to run it?

Who's going to own it, operate it, and maintain it. The Big Dig needed a long-term steward. And according to Jim Alawissi, the Turnpike Authority was the obvious choice. They knew how to maintain roads and they knew how to collect tolls. And so it all made logical sense. So in 1997, a fateful decision was made. The entire ownership of the Big Dig project was moved from the State Highway Department over to the Turnpike Authority. I've been thinking about what's going to happen to me next week, which is to take off one of my hats. Jim Kareciotis actually left his job as Secretary of Transportation to become head of the Turnpike Authority because that's where the real power was. Because it's time to make that change. And I can tell you that- To the casual observer, nothing had changed. Same project, same boss, just new titles, new letterhead. But underneath that, power was being concentrated, isolated from any checks. Once he became Turnbike chairman, it was total, unfettered, complete control. And I'm not sure the people yielding that control really stopped to think about how all this might play out. The big dig has had its share of problems in the past year, namely- So back to early 2000.

In those chaotic months when the white, hot light of public outcry settled on Kareciotas and his broken promise to keep the project on budget- Mr. Kareceotas in particular bears a deep, deep burden on this. One of the big questions was who the governor would appoint to replace Kareciotas, this deposed dictator of the Turnpike. And a rotating door of big, big Czar heading up the project. There was virtually no attention given to the two remaining members of the Turnpike board: Christy, my host, and Jordan Levy, the convenience store magnate, and the radio host, who together represented a majority of the board. They could have overruled Karesiotis any time they wanted to. They just never did. But the controversy of that moment stirred them into action. My host passed away in 2017, and Levy declined to be interviewed. I can't ask them why they did what they did. I think they would tell me it was out of principle. Others have told me it was out of political opportunism. The truth is probably a little of both. In any case, my host and Levi would not be silent any longer. I guess if I sat there like a good little boy with my hands folded, taped over my mouth, and just nodded my head like the rest of the puppets that have been doing it for years, then we'd all be happy in Massachusetts.

That's not my style. This is Jordan Levy being interviewed at the time. And this is what I intend to do to the fruition of this project. Back to your letter for a moment. Levy and my host focused their attention on Bechel, Parsons, the company managing the big dig for the Turnpike Authority. This is who they held responsible for this thing that had blown up right under their noses. We hired a company that is responsible for the management. For starters, they demanded money back from the joint venture to cover some of the cost increases. And then they put Bechel-Parsons on notice. Get straight with us or we will fire you from this project. There is no such thing in this world as the only company that can complete this project. That got people's attention. The first day I raised the first issue, people politically connected throughout this commonwealth called me and said, Jordan, do you know who you're dealing with here? Do you know what you're about to take on? I challenged back to them, What's your answer? What do you want to do? How much more are you going to ask the taxpayers to pay?

Within the political establishment, Democrat and Republican, the prevailing view was that firing Bechdol would be catastrophic. At this moment in 2000 and 2001, the big dig was finally crossing the halfway mark in terms of construction. From the street, you could peek down into the bowels of Boston and see tunnels taking shape. Over on the Charles River, the concrete towers of the new bridge were rising up day by day to meet the skyline. It was happening. Now, the situation at the Turnpike was threatening to seriously rock that boat. I don't know that they wanted anything but attention to be perfectly candid. I think Jim Alloweesi represents the establishment view here, that Myhos and Levi were way out of line. You can tell by my reaction. It's like I have no time or patience for gadflies. That's how I view them. It's just unhelpful. But the gadflies were just getting started, and they set their sights on a new issue, something that would take the conversation out of the realm of political insiders and put it right in front of the public. The issue of tolls. Let's start from the beginning of your story. This will require just a bit of a detour.

Could you take me back to the day of your accident on the mass turnpike? Yeah, that was a long time ago. One day in the late 1980s, Doug Barthol was driving to work on the turnpike. It was early, maybe 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning when he pulled up to the old Allston toll booth, the very last toll on the pike before the road ended in Boston. I was just about to throw my quarter in the basket and a pickup truck hit me from behind. I didn't even see it coming, rammed my car through the gate. A little Azulu, a bug on the windshield if you're driving a big pickup. Instead of coming up to me and saying, Are you all right? He said, Could you move a little bit out of the way, please? Then he got back in his truck and he drove off into the night. No one even came to help. Sabarth limped home in his battered Azulu and tried to put the accident behind him. For years, he didn't do anything about it. But strangely, the piece of the incident that naught at him was not the behavior of the other driver or the response of the police or anything about road safety.

It was that toll booth. Why was it there in the first place? I went to the Newton Library, and in about five minutes, I found the legislation that said these tolls were supposed to have come down. The insult on top of the injury. Because remember, the toll booths were only supposed to be temporary. They were supposed to have come down once the Turnpike had paid for itself. Once you realized that, Barthes called up an old friend, and together they started an organization called Free the Pike, a decision that would have ripple effects they could not even imagine. Pretty quickly, they realized this toll issue was much bigger than they had thought. It was a sleeping giant, a dirty scab that they were now picking at. All right, and with me now are State Senator Cynthia- The interview requests were just constant. -and Doug Barthol, an anti-toll activist. I got an 800 number to ask people if they wanted to volunteer, and that rang off the hook so much that we had to hire a firm to take the inbound calls. Tolls are a sensitive issue anywhere. It's a tax, essentially, that you have to pay by hand out the window of your car.

But they are especially sensitive in this state because only some people have to pay them. All the highways that were built by the Interstate program, say, I-91, 93, 95, they were and are all toll-free. They had to be. There was really just this one big toll road in the whole state, the Mass Pike. And the people who drove on it knew that. And there was a meeting we had in framing him, which was very well attended. And at one point, a priest stood up from the audience and said, This isn't about tolls. This is about honor. And when you frame an argument that way, you tap into a much bigger emotion. And when it's coming from a priest. Yeah, that was icing on the cake. It took three tries, but by the year 2000, Free the Pike gathered enough signatures to actually put a question on the ballot that would effectively end tolls on the mass hike for good. The Turnpike Authority's very existence was at stake, not to mention the jobs of all those people out collecting tolls. I mean, this thing was a golden goose, and a lot of people wanted to keep it alive.

From CNN Center in Atlanta, coverage of election 2000 continues. Here again, Judy Woodrow, Bernard Shaw, Jeff Greenfield, and Bill Schneider. On election night, 2000, while most of us were anxiously watching the results from Florida, trying to understand what all these numbers meant. Leading Algore by 0.15 %. Doug Bartholomew was eagerly awaiting the results of his long-shot campaign to end pike tolls. They lost. There was a political cartoon that night of me walking back to a car that had broken down and I had a gas can with me and the name of the car was free the pike. It was like, Yeah, we're out of gas. But what does all that have to do with the big dig? Basically, what happened is this. As the project's cost went up and its reputation sank, federal money started to disappear. That whole vision of the Interstate Trust Fund paying 90 cents on the dollar, that was not going to happen. Not even close. By the end, it was more like 50 cents. That left a bunch of billions of dollars that the state now had to come up with. And those little blue toll booths were a pretty convenient way to help close the gap.

That when it comes to the big dig bill, no matter how slice it up, people are fed up. It's a disgrace. Using mass hike toll money to build the big dig was touchy. Because, again, these tolls were like a tax just for the people who happened to use this one road. It's outrageous that east-west commuters have to pick up the taddle. It's not like the toll payers were footing the bill for the entire big dig or anything, but the optics were bad. Can you believe that? Pinning it all in the Western suburbs? To make it worse, in 2002, the tolls were supposed to go up. We decided to find out what the people think of those ideas. My host and Levi, the two renegade board members, they may not have been steeped in the world of transportation, but they understood the world of politics, and they made a brilliant political move. They took all the outrage over the big dig in Bechel, Parsons, and they combined it with all the outrage over tolls. The answer, make Bechel pay for its mistakes, not the toll payers. In other words, there would be no toll increase. Why did you and Jordan Levy decide that this was the wrong time to do that?

Well, a number of things. Here is Myhos at the time, making his case on TV. Under our enabling legislation, we have the unfettered right to raise tolls, lower tolls, do whatever we want on tolls because, in fact, we're an independent authority. More specifically, Myhos and Levy wanted to delay the toll increase to give themselves more time. They were at that moment trying to negotiate with Bechel-Parsons to get money back, money that could potentially cover what those tolls were supposed to bring in. We looked at it. We said, Let's do something that's fair. Let's put off for six months. This doubling of tolls on just two segments of the pike. Once again, Mycos and Levy were pretty much on their own. The financial experts, the political establishment, they were all saying the toll hike is necessary. Even delaying it could be a disaster. You have to realize that these toll increases had been planned for years. They had been written into the bonds that were sold by the term pack authority, bonds that were supposed to be safe investments, no risk, no drama. Now, at the last minute, going back on this toll plan, a plan that Mayhost and Levi had previously signed off on, by the way, that's a bad look for the whole state.

But as long as they were united, Mayhost and Levy were unstoppable. People started calling them the Turnpike twins, and in theory, they answered to no one. But that theory was about to be tested. All right. Thank you all for being with us. And when we continue, Lieutenant Governor Jane Swift joins us. The woman who would rise to challenge the Renegade board was named Jane Swift, and she was not exactly popular. I love my job. I have a very difficult job, and I think I've learned a lot in the last year and a half of doing this- As Lieutenant Governor, Swift's public image had been defined by two controversies. First, there was Baby Gate. The globe had the babysitting accusations. That Swift used state paid staff to babysit her 14-month-old daughter. At first, Swift was adamant, saying she did nothing wrong. Then there was the private helicopter ride. The Herald had the story of Swift taking a state helicopter to Thanksgiving dinner. Believe it or not, these were both national stories, I think, because they spoke to a bigger cultural issue. The labor force participation rate for American women hit its all time peak in the year 2000.

This was the era of The Working Mom, and Jane Swift became one of its unwitting symbols. If a man brought his kids to the office, he would be celebrated as a wonderful father. She brings her kids to the office and she gets crucified for it. This is Swift Secretary of Administration and Finance, Steve Crosby. Then all of a sudden, this woman that they knew nothing about except the helicopter and the babysitters becomes governor. She had a tough, tough time getting past that. Swift took the Oath of Office in April of 2001, after the sitting governor resigned. At age 36. She was the first female governor in the state's history and the youngest female governor in American history. Just a month later, she gained a third distinction. Hi, everybody. The first sitting governor to give birth to twins, no less. Thank you very much. As I'm sure you're all aware, I will be discharged from the Brigham and Women's House. People openly debated whether or not a woman with three small children was capable of being governor. It'll be more maternity leave than work for the next two weeks. On TV, reporters pressed Swift on whether or not she would breastfeed.

Potential challengers started eyeing the next election just a year away, assuming that she would be a weak candidate. And in these impossible circumstances, Swift was faced with a political mess that was the big dig. A mess that her predecessors had all too readily unloaded onto her lap. Jane Swift, like Jordan Levy and many other key players in this story, declined to be interviewed. To her credit, she knew the tolls were likely political suicide. This is Swift's chief of staff, Peter Forman. But she firmly believed that as governor, she had a role here to make sure that the Turnpike Authority made good on the plan. So she chose to make this her fight. She did. She did. And she was right. It would be political suicide. In the fall of 2001, all the pieces were set for a major confrontation between the Turnpike Authority and the governor's office. Myos and Levi were determined to delay the toll increase, and Jane Swift was determined to make it happen. Then, just as the pressure was starting to build, there was something else. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack. When 9/11 happened, that is very important context.

Raphael Lewis took over the globe's transportation beat in 2001 and soon found himself covering several of the state's public authorities. The Massachusetts Port Authority was similar to the term bike authority in that it had always been a place where the nepotistic political appointees had gone. As you may recall, though, the Mass Port Authority runs Logan Airport, which is where 10 hijackers walked through security carrying knives and razor blades and boarded the two planes that would slam into the Twin Towers. Can you blame the leaders of the Mass Port Authority for 9/11? Absolutely not. But what it did was shine a very harsh light on the fact that there was essentially unprofessional political leadership. And bad stuff can happen when unprofessionals are running an important bureaucracy. Sound familiar? Look to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and now we have the largest at that time infrastructure project in the history of the country going awry. Political leadership, nepotism, the whole same thing. So 9/11 upped the ante, especially for Swift, because all eyes were now on her to fix these authorities. It's pretty explicit that you, as the governor, was like, Well, if I'm going to own the bad parts of this, I want control of it.

But it also upped the ante for the Turnpike Board because people stayed at home after 9/11, toll revenue dropped, and that question of how to keep funding the big dig became that much more pressing. But in October of 2001, Meijos and Levi got an opening, a chance to make Bechdel pay up. Facing the threat of being fired, the President of Bekyl personally came to the authorities headquarters along with senior staff, and actually made an offer. We'll give you $50 million back. It's not as much as what Meijos and Levi were hoping for, but in simple numbers, that was more than enough to delay the toll hike for six months. All in all, a win. Now here's where things get contentious and a bit murky. When those negotiations broke off for lunch in a surprise move, the Bechel team went across town to the governor's office for a separate meeting. They did come see me, I remember that. With Steve Crosby, Secretary of administration and Finance, who does not have a clear memory of what transpired. But who knows what I might have said? I mean, I probably said something and indicated frustration with the Mijos and Levi.

I talked to one other person who was in that meeting, Big Dig, spokesperson Andy Pavan, who told me that in so many words, Crosby assured the Bechel staff that the governor's office would handle this situation at the Turnpike. Apparently, the Bechel delegation took that as a message. Because later that same day, when the Bechel team returned to the Turnpike to resume negotiations, they rescinded their $50 million offer and walked out. As far as my host was concerned, the governor had just stabbed them in the back. Without that money from Bechdel, the Turnpike was backed into a corner, and it would be very difficult to deliver on their promise not to raise tolls. Three weeks later, the Turnpike board met formally to address the two big issues driving this whole feud, raising tolls and potentially firing Bechdol, Parsons. But just as the toll issue finally came up for a vote, a cell phone started ringing. It was the governor's office. My host took the call while the media and staff all waited. I do remember I was in Quincy at the celebration of John Adams down at the Church of the Presidents. It was Peter Forman, the governor's chief of staff.

I think I stepped out of the ceremony, out onto the sidewalk to try to get a hold of him. Forman had been trying to get a read on Myos for weeks. And as the big toll vote approached, he sensed that Myos, despite all the bravado, wasn't sure what to do. In part because I think he knew he had no Plan B. He did not not have any secret plan in his coat pocket about how he was going to recoup the money or replace it or get back to to do anything. That day on the phone, foreman says he asked MyHos to at least tell him how he was going to vote. My house wouldn't commit one way or the other. So foreman tried to stress to my house just how high the stakes were. There were just so many times you can tell somebody, This was agreed to. You undo this. This has real consequences. We're not talking $10 or $15 here. This can affect bond ratings. This can affect state budgets and finances. Even then, he didn't tell me, but I could tell in his voice. He sounded like a man who was about to take a big plunge into something uncertain.

And didn't want to tell me that he was doing it. They hung up the phone and Myhos returned to his seat. He recalls in his book, someone leaning over as he sat down and saying, quote, tell them to fuck themselves and vote your conscience. Myhos and Levi voted to delay the toll increase by six months. Then they voted to hire a team of outside specialists that would review Bectyl Parsen's performance and make a recommendation within 90 days on whether to terminate the company's contract. With that, the Turnpike was now in full revolt. Before we press into the strained saga of the Turnpike twins and Governor Swift, I think it's important to remember that this is all more or less palace intrigue we're talking about. Powerful people trying to get more power. Meanwhile, down below, beyond the castle walls, there is a whole kingdom of regular people just trying to go to work every day and get this project done. I don't think a lot of people really know what's going on down here. You hear so much bad publicity about the pay business and a lot of guys down here that come down here day in, day out and get the job done.

The project employed 5,000 people: crane operators, pile drivers, sand hogs, carpenters, working day and night to keep this thing moving. When people come in and they see for themselves, then they realize that on top you just have an illusion, but down below is the real action. We were completing three million dollars of construction a day. Three million dollars of work every day. $90 to $100 million a month. That's over a billion dollars a year. For four straight years. There was that much work going on. Mike Lewis was the fourth and final project director of The Big Dig, after Peter Zook and Pat Moinahan, if you're keeping track. He was in charge when the Turnpike revolt began. But we can't let that influence us. We have to keep building the project. We have to keep going. Because if we stop, it's really going to get bad. When you think about the scale of this project on the ground, the number of moving pieces, those queens and prince s waging their petty little war for control of it, look a little absurd. But keep in mind, those are the people with authority over this whole operation. Were there days when it was actually ambiguous who you should answer to?

Yes. It was unclear who the head of the term back authority was. Right. Even if everybody had the best intentions through their own lens, those intentions weren't always aligned. Yeah. I mean, it's the largest public works project the nation has ever undertaken, and it's almost headless at moments, or at least the head is- It's a hydra. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. And the three heads are all attacking each other. Right. Good evening. It's fair to say the Mass Turnpike Authority Board is in a state of disarray with acting Governor Jane. In November of 2001, Jane Swift made her next move, and it was a big one. The three members of the Turnpike board were in a meeting on the morning of November 16th. Paul Johnson was standing just outside the door watching the meeting when something weird happened. All I remember is I saw the governor's lawyer go into the room. The lawyer was carrying two sealed on the slopes. I had to literally force my way into the room as if you were attending the seventh game of the World Series at Fenway Park. Once inside, Johnson witnessed a bizarre scene.

The chairman, mid-meeting, halting all business to make a surprise announcement. The governor has, and I regret this on both a personal and professional level, has filed notices of terminating my colleagues, Director Levy and Vice Chairman, Mayos, for cause. And with that, Chairman David Forsberg walked out. We were now in uncharted waters. The governor had the power to appoint turnbike board members. But no one could say for sure if she had the right to fire them. There was a flurry of consultation with the legal staff. And then... But despite being dismissed, board members Jordan Levy and Christy Meijos stayed right where they were on the advisory... Mayos, with his usual knack for theater, simply moved over into the chairman's seat and the meeting went on. The Vice Chairman assumes the duties of the chair. It was a scene from Hollywood. Paul Johnson was there at the meeting for a reason. He was Jordan Levy's lawyer. I found my way to Johnson after many months of chasing down leads for this episode. It seemed like for various reasons, no one wanted to talk about this particular piece of the story. Off the record, maybe if I was lucky.

But when I finally got on the phone with Paul Johnson, he seemed eager to talk and he asked me a strange question. Did I remember the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crucade when our hero arrives in a hidden cave filled with treasures in search of the Holy Grail. There in the cave is a grizzled old knight dressed in chain mail who's been there 700 years just waiting for someone to finally come looking. That, Johnson told me, was how he felt when he got my call. For Johnson, the legal dispute between the Turnpike board and Governor Swift is not an embarrassing chapter in state politics that is best forgotten. It is a historic case, the ultimate test, in this state at least, of just how independent a public authority truly is. Our system of government is really designed to avoid tyranny. It's not designed to be the most efficient form of government in the world. And part of that is public authorities. It's part of the world of checks and balances that no one entity has all the power. Public authorities are sometimes even described as the fourth branch of government. They were designed to be at arm's length from the other branches, beyond the reach of the capricious and short sighted politicians.

That was the authority's strength, and it was part of the reason investors were willing to buy their bonds in the first place. Remember, those bonds are a huge engine of infrastructure spending of all kinds. So if a governor can simply decide one day that she doesn't like what the authority is doing and then purge all its leaders, that independence doesn't mean much anymore. For Johnson, that was the bigger principle at stake here. How do you respect the principle of an independent authority when times are tough? With The Big Dig, times are tough. I respect that. But is that a rationale for disregarding the independence of public authorities, which is what drives this financial stream to create infrastructure in the United States of America? That's a big question, and it needed to be answered quickly. We couldn't have ambiguity as to who's in charge. Johnson first met Jordan Levy on November first. His client was then fired on November 16th, and on December fifth, they stood together before the state's highest court. By legal standards, that's a mad dash. That's a complete sprint. Johnson was there to argue that, Myhost and Levy could not be fired because the original legislation creating the Turnpike Authority did not even have a provision for firing board members.

It was a policy decision made by the legislature in 1952 to create an authority that was truly independent. At least that's what they argued. The court didn't buy it. The state Supreme Court said, Everybody has to be accountable to somebody. And that somebody was the governor, Jane Swift. But the court left a little opening to that. She could only dismiss a board member if she had a good reason. Members may be removed for malfeasance, misfeasance, or willful neglect. The question now was, were Myos and Levy malfeasant or misfeasant when they refused to raise tolls on the mass spike? That question would be settled at a second hearing scheduled from March of 2002. Good evening. Tonight, acting governor, Jane Swift, sticks to her guns. But in the meantime, both sides tried to sell their argument to the public. At that point, it becomes improvisational theater. I didn't tell them what they were being charged with. We gave them a 20-page document outlining places where we thought they had been financially irresponsible. Jane Swift presented herself as the voice of fiscal responsibility. They will now have a chance to come in and make their case. Then the topic became of interest on Talk Radio.

Good afternoon, everybody. This is Howie Clare with you today on The C... Columns like Howie Carr dubbed Jane Swift the Queen of Toals, and that changes the whole dynamic. The toll issues made it public. Again, Steve Crosby, who by this time was Swift's chief of staff. That's like the price of a gallon of gas going up. Something everybody could understand. Do you think it's unfair to charge Western commuters so much? Yeah. Why should one-My house and Levi were able to tap into that same well of resentment that the Free the Pike movement had. Would it affect your choice for governor? Possibly. While Swift found herself in the very awkward position of fighting for a toll increase in election year. Well, first of all, let's be clear. It was not my plan. It was a plan that the legislature- And however you viewed the parties involved, it made for good drama. I remember this being front page news. So it wasn't bad for me either. I was having a blast with this. Reporters like Raphael Lewis gave a lot of credence to the concerns my host and Levy were raising about holding Bechel accountable and making sure toll payers were getting a fair deal.

I was pretty sympathetic to them, frankly, and it felt to me like this was a big footing going on from Beacon Hill. We've had the power and the courage to tell the people of Massachusetts the truth. Levy and Mayhos worked that narrative. The underdogs, the rebels, the crusaders. Unfortunately, this is the thing media likes. Here are these two people. And there will be a due process and it will be about The Big Dig. Fighting for God truth in the American way. We're an independent authority. It's supposed to be. Yeah, it's supposed to be. It was like a comedy show. It was just no one could believe what was going on. For months, as all this played out, the term-bike board did not meet, could not meet because no one knew who was actually on it. Contracts could not be confirmed, claims could not be settled. Decisions remained on hold while we debated the merits of a 50 cent toll increase. But folks who use 16 and 17 don't pay. Yes, they do. They come through the town tolls, for heaven's sakes. And it just made government look ridiculous and made the governor look ridiculous and made them look ridiculous.

And crazy is appealing, right? People love crazy. It's a story. All right, well, we shall see what happens over the next few days. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for coming. Just see Miles. Until finally, everyone got their day in court. The court held its hearings in a large room with high ceilings and hugely high windows. Again, attorney Paul Johnson. The justice wore their black robes. There were seven sitting in the panel. There was a lot at stake. They knew it, and they knew they needed to come up with a decision. I think you've accurately stated the standard, again, as far as your where-I proceeding, as this one is, we do ask that- In some ways, the case was sweeping. Who had ultimate authority over the big dig? But it was argued on very specific terms. Were these two board members acting misfeasantly or malfeasantly when they voted to delay the toll increase by six months? Well, what evidence was there of lack of financial responsibility other than the toll? The evidence I'll describe-Each side got 15 minutes to make their argument, strictly timed. There's a red light that goes on when you've got 30 seconds to go or something like that.

At that point, it doesn't matter if you're mid-sentence, mid-argument. You wrap it up real quick. Yes, sir. On Tuesday, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3. The final ruling was close, but decisive. Acting Governor Jane Swift overstepped her powers when she fired Christy, Meios, and Jordan Levy from the mass turnpike of-This was the majority said, ultimately a difference of opinion about how to pay the authorities debts. It was not malfeasance or misfeasance or willful neglect, and therefore it was none of Jane Swift's business. The majority says in its opinion, and I'll just read one sentence, It is the independent judgment of the members that lies at the heart of this matter. I think that summarizes it in one sentence. The independent judgment of the members, meaning, in this case, Myhos and Levy. So Jane Swift took ground one, the renegades took ground two, but in the end, everyone lost. Well, almost everyone. Massachusetts has long been a place noted for its opportunity. But I wonder how many of you thought- Jane Swift was so politically damaged by the whole toll issue that a wealthy businessman who didn't even live in the state of Massachusetts decided to jump into the governor's race.

-in this race who has a lifetime of experience in the- That would be Matt Romney. -i speak the language of business. It was later revealed that Christy Meijhs had personally and covertly commissioned a poll on Romney's behalf that helped convince him to run. I am announcing this afternoon my decision to end my campaign for governor. Swift dropped out before the primary even took place, clearing the way for Romney's rise into national politics. She never held elected office again. I have a lot of plans. I'll be back at the State House tomorrow morning with my armor back on, ready to make sure. Then in the summer of 2002, just after Myhos and Levy reclaimed their seats, the state legislature passed a bill expanding the Turnpike board to five members, meaning the renegades were no longer a majority. Swift appointed the two new members. With that, the Turnpike revolt was over. The toll increase went into effect. Bechel-parsen stayed on the job. The big dig got built. In addition to all the people who didn't want to talk to me about this story, there were others who told me it wasn't really worth talking about, that this was all a distraction, a quirky side show that changed nothing.

And I hear that point, but I think there's something very revealing in this whole drama about how quickly a project can spiral when the narrative turns negative, how people can turn on each other, how all of us can lose focus on what it is we're building. But maybe more than anything, this story captures the strange nature of the public authority. This creature that, as one writer put it, is neither fish nor foul, not quite public, not quite private, but has come to play a huge role in our lives. We entrust authorities with running the subways, providing electricity. And yet, I would guess that most people have no idea how they actually operate and who they answer to. The sad thing about the Turnpike revolt is that even with all the attention heaped on it, the actual issues at the center of the feud didn't get addressed. How should we cover the cost increases of the big dig? How should we hold Bechel-Parsons accountable for mistakes they may have made? How should we structure the leadership of this massive project? Raising tolls, firing people, expanding the board. Those were quick fixes, patches to keep things moving.

But the full reckoning would have to come. And this time, no one would be laughing. This is a very sad day in the Commonwealth, and I want to express my sympathy to the family of the woman passenger who was killed while driving through the I-90 connector tunnel last night. Today, we pray for her and for those who loved her. That's next time. All of us have been on the road. We've been useless, words and papers. All day, I've stayed away. From the doors of the engines, The show is produced by Isabelle Hibbert and myself, Ian Kass. It's edited by Lacey Roberts. The editorial supervisor is Stephanie Leiden, with support this episode from Elena Eberwine. May Lay is the project manager and the executive producer is Devon Maverick-Robbins. If you want to know more about the shadowy world of public authorities, there is really one book you should read, The Power Broker by Robert Carroll. It makes this little podcast look like a little podcast. All the archival audio of national news is courtesy of C-SPAN. The local stuff is from GBH, and you can see it at gbhnews. Com. O-r-g. The artwork is by Matt Welch.

Our closing song is ETA by Damon and Naomi. The Big Dig is a production of GBH News and distributed by PRX. Gbh. From PRX.