How Presidential

This is a tragedy. Now, back to the Lake.


Mitt’s MIA as bigs dig into tunnel tragedy

By Kimberly Atkins
Boston Herald Reporter
Thursday, July 13, 2006 - Updated: 04:29 PM EST

THE POLITICS: Gov. Mitt Romney rushed back to his bucolic New Hampshire vacation home yesterday as fast as he had hurried here Tuesday to demand the head of the Big Dig chieftain Matt Amorello. Meanwhile, state and federal officials hunkered down to do the hard work of finding out why a tunnel ceiling collapsed and killed a Jamaica Plain woman.

"Unbelievable,” state Sen. Marc Pacheco said when told Romney had quickly resumed his vacation, saying he was sending the governor a formal request to suspend Big Dig manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff from doing any more state work until all criminal investigations of the I-90 Seaport connector tunnel catastrophe are complete.

“Maybe we’ll have to send it by Pony Express,” Pacheco added.

Romney interrupted his vacation Tuesday to hold a news conference calling for the ouster of Amorello, the Pike chairman. But as inspectors discovered dozens of construction flaws that shut down both sides of the I-90 connector tunnel indefinitely, Romney returned to finish his weeklong retreat at his 12-acre waterfront home in Wolfeboro along Lake Winnipesaukee.

“The governor is with his family in New Hampshire, but in frequent communication with the office,” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said in an e-mail to the Herald yesterday.

But sources said the governor never spoke directly with Attorney General Tom Reilly, who is heading the state criminal investigation into the ceiling collapse that killed Milena Del Valle Monday night. Reilly, who spent much of yesterday at the accident scene, canceled a planned appearance at a campaign forum in Cambridge “to focus his time on the criminal investigations,” campaign spokesman Corey Welford said.

Who does he think he is, George Bush.