May 17, 2007 11:40 pm US/Eastern
Turnpike Boss Says Driving Range Unacceptable
by Joe Bergantino
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The I-Team has uncovered another golf driving range inside a Big Dig building.
This one is in East Boston, inside a building designed to vent exhaust from Big Dig tunnels. It has a net at least one story high.
"I think this is very improper and unacceptable, and we're not going to stand for it," Turnpike Authority Chairman John Cogliano said Thursday.
It is not clear who was using the range.
"It's my understanding it was a small number of police personnel," Cogliano told us. He was referring to State Police based inside the building.
But Cogliano said he didn't know for sure whether Big Dig workers were also using the range – or whether it was the only one inside a Big Dig building.
Last night we reported the discovery of another driving range inside a ventilation building near the site of last summer's deadly tunnel collapse in South Boston.
"I have instructed personnel to look at other facilities we control to ensure there is no other activity of that nature going on," Cogliano said Thursday.
The pike boss dropped another bomb.
He told us the former management of the Big Dig -- under the leadership of ousted Chairman Matt Amorello -- may have signed off on the arrangement.
"The prior management team, from what I was told, was aware of it and may have allowed it," he said.
Amorello told the I-Team on Thursday he know nothing about the East Boston driving range and was shocked that Cogliano would blame him.
He called Cogliano's accusation slanderous, and said he plans to contact an attorney.
State Police told us they're conducting an internal investigation to figure out who set up the driving range and whether troopers were using it while they were on duty.
And the governor's take on all of this?
"The oversight of this project has been shoddy for a very long time now," Gov. Deval Patrick told the I-Team, "and something like this just being disclosed this way is very troubling to me -- as iI think it is to you, too, and to your viewers."
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