Comments on: A closer look at the MTA’s Red Line jobs-creation report

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:14:22 +0000

Cat fight, yeah!

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:54:18 +0000

Patience Marin, we’re going to show it to you……..!

By: marin

marin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:31:17 +0000

Radio silence from neily. Why won’t the Brew force Neily to produce the report verifying his claims? Shame on the Brew

By: marin

marin — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:13:35 +0000

Well, Neily, you’ve got a big mouthpiece here on the Brew. And when your facts are wrong, as they so often are, they can’t be left unchallenged.

And of course, the City has an interest in preventing cost overruns — as those would undermine the credibility of future projects.

Now, where would one find this ‘Risk Assessment Report’ you mention???

By: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs « A Baltimore Block

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs « A Baltimore Block — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:10:17 +0000

[...] The report is already being questioned by some, including Gerald Neily over at the Baltimore Brew. [...]

By: geraldneily

geraldneily — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:33:08 +0000

Marin, it seems every time I shed some light on one of the City government’s transportation ventures, you always come up with some beside-the-point argument, previously about my former career as a city bureaucrat or now about Davis-Bacon, as if that law rendered moot all labor negotiations.

OK, I now realize that the term “prevailing wages” has a specific legal meaning under Davis-Bacon, so I shouldn’t have used it, but it in no way replaces the full complexity of labor relations that the MTA must deal with and which determine economic costs and impacts.

If you are really interested in the subject of labor costs for the Red Line, instead of arguing with me, you should actually check out the MTA “Risk Assessment Report” which I cited – a serious document dealing with a serious subject, cataloguing various potential cost overruns, of which labor costs are a significant part.

On the other hand, the City government actually has no direct stake in potential Red Line cost overruns. If the cost escalates, the State of Maryland and its taxpayers (all of us) would be left holding the bag, while the City government could chalk up the extra costs as just more “economic benefit” to plug into their formula.

By: marin

marin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:51:31 +0000

I’m not quite sure where Neily arrives at his conclusion that MTA desires to pay “less than prevailing wages” on the Red Line. In fact, Davis-Bacon requires that prevailing-wage be paid on all federal contracts. Once again, Neily is just plain wrong

By: Nate Payer

Nate Payer — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:17:41 +0000

By the rationale the study gives, as reported in the Sun, spending $1.6 billion on any infrastructure would be good for the local economy–whether the project makes sense or not. This is just pork barrel now. Spending $1.6 billion to complete the devastating I-70 would get the same “results”, no?