THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2002 — With little more than a month to go until the Democratic primary, an effort is afoot to undermine one of Treasurer Shannon O’Brien’s most sterling accomplishments — the assertion, repeated in two campaign ads, that she "blew the whistle" on $1.4 billion in Big Dig cost overruns that were being hidden by project head James Kerasiotes.

On Saturday, the Boston Globe took issue with O’Brien’s claim. The paper quoted Secretary of Administration and Finance Kevin Sullivan, the former secretary of transportation, who attributed the disclosure to his predecessor, Andrew Natsios, rather than to O’Brien. "The initiative came out of the administration and finance office and from Natsios," Sullivan told the Globe. "It was not from the treasurer’s office. This was driven by the administration and finance office and governor’s office for months before she was even aware of the problem."

It’s fair to say that Sullivan’s statements may contain a kernel of truth. Indeed, sources in Governor Paul Cellucci’s administration told me in February 2000 that both Natsios and then–lieutenant governor Jane Swift formed a block of opposition to Kerasiotes. That said, Sullivan’s statements overlook a key piece in the puzzle. Today, people tend to forget that a powerful administration figure was inclined to protect Kerasiotes for still-unknown reasons — Cellucci himself. Kerasiotes, after all, was a favorite of the Weld-Cellucci administration, which had lauded him for having the strength of personality to oversee a gargantuan job like the Big Dig. There was no great impetus during those years to disclose all-but-certain Big Dig cost overruns. Certainly, Cellucci wasn’t pushing Kerasiotes on the Big Dig costs during his 1998 Republican-primary battle with Treasurer Joe Malone, who tried to make an issue of it. Back then, Cellucci campaigned on a platform of removing tolls and lowering taxes — proposals that look like a joke today in the midst of much-needed tax and toll increases.

Indeed, when examining the role O’Brien played in forcing open the cost overruns, it’s helpful to look at the words of her predecessor, Malone, who — whatever his other flaws — tried to bring this important issue to light. In September 2000, Malone described the culture of silence around Big Dig cost overruns for Boston magazine scribe Phil Primack: "[It] gets into the tribalism of this state. There’s a whole establishment in this state, not a very big one, but it bought in to this thing [the Big Dig] and if you were a critic, you were ... put down by a chorus of voices."

Malone’s comments help put O’Brien’s accomplishment into perspective: her refusal to sign off on a bond prospectus that included Kerasiotes’s phony numbers helped pierce the silence surrounding the Big Dig. Sure, her decision was helped along by the fact that the people in control of the Big Dig were Republicans. And certainly her own political self-interest played a part; had she signed off on the bond offerings, she herself may have become a target of an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But all that goes to the fact that O’Brien made a real and vital contribution to disclosing some honest numbers on a massive construction project. On February 11, the Boston Herald reported what everybody then understood: without O’Brien, no real numbers would have been uncovered. She "forced Mass. Turnpike Chairman James J. Kerasiotes to come clean about the overruns earlier this month," the Herald wrote. Inspector General Robert Cerasoli, embraced this chronology in his March 2001 report, finding that "in preparation for a December 1999 bond issuance, [the Treasurer] conducted a similarly extensive due diligence review."

Furthermore, as Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy reported in March 2000, it wasn’t until the Wall Street Journal started sniffing around the Big Dig cost overruns that the Boston dailies — the Globe included — got around to addressing the issue.

The strong Boston sentiment against making waves has already caused enough trouble. Those, like O’Brien, who question the prevailing conventional wisdom certainly shouldn’t be whacked for doing it.