This is a direct, eye witness report.
This afternoon, Thursday, April 3, 2014, the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Transportation unanimously approved the Governor’s nomination of Bob McEvoy of Brunswick to the position of Director on the Board of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, in spite of vociferous opposition by TrainRiders Northeast.
The nomination now moves to the full Senate for final approval, and is expected to receive overwhelming confirmation there, finalizing the appointment.
The Governor’s representative did an excellent job presenting the nominee to the Committee. The nominee himself made a thorough and compelling case for his nomination, and his desire to perform this public service. Senator Stan Gerzofsky added a highly effective endorsement of McEvoy’s candidacy.
Opposition to the nomination came from TrainRiders Northeast. Saint Wayne of TRN (http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2014/03/ms-quinn-excuse-me-maam-we-have-question.html) avoided damaging his brand by sending his hired consigliore to the podium to do the dirty work. His minion repeatedly soiled himself by raising issues of Kool-Aid Konsistency with other NNEPRA Directors, inferring that they are there to serve as rubber stamps.
This comes as no surprise, since Saint Wayne made contact with the Governor before the hearing to let him know that the way things work is that TRN puts forth three candidates that suit them, and the Governor picks one to put forth as a nominee.
Committee members, to their everlasting credit, did a great job of challenging the consigliore’s protestations as irrelevant to the issue before them. It didn’t take long to become apparent that he had been sent forth as a sacrificial lamb, and how Davis avoided major public, personal embarrassment by doing so.
The other major voice of opposition was extra-terrestrial Jeff Reynolds, who recently claimed to be living on a different planet than members of the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition. Apparently he’s moved back to this planet, since he claimed to be ‘a neighbor of the nominee.’
He also claimed he isn’t a member of TrainRiders Northeast. All we ask is that he establish his bona fides by proving he’s not.
For those of you who might get a kick out of watching Reynolds and his organization’s attorney pontificate on an issue not being considered, you can watch this painful video.
Oops: we’re having technical difficulty integrating the video into the post, and will work to provide it tomorrow. We’re going ahead and publishing this report now, without waiting until we solve the problem.
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