Gov. Maura Healey speaks with MBTA workers at Cabot Yard in South Boston on Wednesday, Aug. 2 after announcing a new contract with the Boston Carmen’s Union. Photo by Sam Drysdale | State House News Service

Leave it to the local press to miss the significance of the first big management move by new T chief Phillip Eng. 

The Boston Herald’s top political columnist huffed about supposed cronyism after Eng’s decision to bring in four new high-level managers – all veterans of New York’s transit system no less – with a combined pay of more than $800,000. 

The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld blasted Eng, the former Long Island Rail Road chief, for bringing in “cronies” from the New York transit system and emulating the bureaucracy-heavy UMass system, “which routinely hires “assistant vice chancellors” to pad its massive administrative workforce.” 

In fact, not only is it a big move, but one the bodes well for Eng’s efforts to whip the troubled transit agency into shape, or at the very least, make the trains run on time. 

It’s pretty clear that Eng, upon taking over the T this spring, took a look around, sized up the T’s top managers and the agency’s messed-up and completely dysfunctional work and safety culture, and hurriedly radioed back to New York for help. 

Eng Wants Action 

That help comes in the forms of three top Metropolitan Transportation Authority he had worked for previously in New York – Dennis Varley, Rod Brooks and Sam Zhou – and a fourth who had not previously worked under Eng. Varley is chief of stations, Brooks will work on safety, operations and capital, while Zhou has come aboard as assistant general manager of engineering and capital. 

Doug Connett, another veteran of New York’s public transit system, will be chief of infrastructure, a new post that “will provide direction” to the T’s 1,000-person Infrastructure Directorate, covering everything from employee productivity to programs improving service quality, according to the T’s announcement. 

Eng wants to get things done. And he has brought in some trusted lieutenants as he starts to tackle the T’s many and varied problems and deep dysfunction. 

Rather, it would be more troubling if Eng simply decided to rely on the management team already in place at the T and hope for the best. That would be like a new coach taking over some pathetic perennial also ran, like the Detroit Lions, and trying to run it back with the same staff and same players. 

Moreover Eng, and presumably the Healey administration, was savvy enough to bite the bullet and risk some bad publicity in order to get his management team into place quickly. 

Trusted Lieutenants 

Eng hired his three former colleagues from New York without posting the jobs or putting them out to bid, with only Connett, who had not worked with before, going through the traditional route. 

Circumventing the public hiring process is often a red flag, used and abused by politicians to bring in unqualified patronage picks. 

However, in this case, however, it may have enabled Eng to avoid tipping off Beacon Hill legislative leaders, who have then tried to foist their own, pet candidates into these new, well-paying T management jobs, an idea Peter Lucas, another Herald columnist, has also floated. 

Of course, Eng has been quite diplomatic about the new hires, with public statements clearly aimed at easing anxiety among T workers over what amounts to a management shakeup. 

Eng told the Herald and WBUR the new top managers are “reinforcements to support the team that’s there.” 

“This is not replacing folks, this is supplementing and building the team stronger,” Eng told the paper. “It’s also helping folks here to think outside the box.” 

Scott Van Voorhis

Sure boss, whatever you say. 

Now I guess it may be frustrating for some to see the T essentially taken over by a bunch of carpetbaggers from New York, the city Bostonians profess to hate but also envy. 

But we are way past the point of misplaced local pride when it comes to the T. If Eng and his fellow New Yorkers can get the T back on track, it will be a remarkable feat worthy of the kind of duck boat parade reserved for Boston sports teams that win it all. 

Let’s be real – you might want to wait on those parade plans. That said, while odds are stacked against Eng and his group of so-called cronies from the MTA, at least there is a hope of a better future now for the T, which there certainly a few months ago. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.