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Chief Political Writer
An auto industry insider, intimately familiar with the Parsons fiasco, said Friday that the wrong people are being punished for the debacle in the wake of the release of an attorney general’s investigation into the emissions program.
"They are scapegoats," said Jim Kenney.
Kenney, who is vice president of the executive board of the Repair Excellency Council and president of the Mercer County Chapter of the Gasoline Retailers, has been working with state officials on the new emissions testing program since the beginning.
"(Department of Motor Vehicles Director) Dick Kamin is getting the short end of the stick. He’s not to blame. The blame should be shifted to the governor and the state Department of Environmental Protection. Ninety percent of the problem was caused by the DEP," Kenney said.
Gov. Christie Whitman announced Friday that Department of Motor Vehicles Director Dick Kamin has been offered reassignment within the Department of Transportation in the wake of the release of a report on a four-month attorney general’s investigation into the troubled auto testing system.
Whitman also announced that project manager Carl Passeri has resigned, effective June 30.
Passeri, who was paid $95,000-per-year, was responsible for coordinating the inspections program overhaul with Parsons Infrastructure and Technology, the Pasadena, Calif.
In addition, Whitman has reprimanded John Elston, administrator of DEP’s air planning office.
A report on the probe -- which was headed by former Supreme Court Justice Alan Handler and delivered to Whitman on Thursday -- lays much of the blame for the auto inspections at the feet of Passeri and Kamin.
But Sen. Dick Codey, minority leader, said Friday that the Whitman administration’s game plan was to blame the little guy.
"Sadly, the Whitman administration’s philosophy has always been, the buck stops at the bottom," Codey said. "It looks like another clear-cut case of forcing the Whitman ground troops to get blown up to protect the officers hiding in the bunkers."
Codey said the release of the attorney general’s report points again to the need to get a Senate task force back in place. The task force was derailed this week by the entire GOP Senate.
While the state put the new system into central lanes by hiring Parsons, gasoline retailers and repair shops were forced to install the new system in their stations if they wanted to continue to test cars.
Kenney said the source of the problem has been DEP’s inability to write emissions standards and equipment specifications in a timely and adequate way.
The system has failed to work in cold and hot temperatures and has created long lines and inconvenience to consumers.
New Jersey motorists were further inconvenienced by the state’s failure to adhere to the law implementing the program, which required waiting rooms for customers.
Sources close to the project said Elston raised questions at the time about the omission.
Elston also was the DMV official that told the auto repair dealers that it was Whitman who was responsible for the decision to temporarily halt the new testing system in the central lanes when the system began having serious problems.
The halting of the more advanced test there, and the return to the old test, hurt station owners who were forced to keep using the new test.
The new inspections system, designed to measure tailpipe pollution more accurately, has been plagued by breakdowns and other problems since its start. Equipment failed or froze in cold weather, and employees struggled to operate the new system.
The report is highly critical of two Whitman cabinet officials, Transportation Commissioner James Weinstein and Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert C. Shinn Jr. It says they failed to maintain vigilant oversight of the Parsons’ system. Kamin was also singled out for failing to inform his superiors of his knowledge of the extent of the problems.
Kenney agrees.
"DEP’s poor system management, lack of personnel and lack of knowledge were the problems," Kenney said.
"And it’s not Parsons fault. It’s the governor’s office."
The report also criticizes Whitman for distancing herself from the project so much that she missed the opportunity to postpone it prior to its chaotic launch, according to the newspaper.
The report said Whitman never had the chance to seek relief from the Dec. 13 implementation deadline because officials offered her only rosy predictions.
According to the Star-Ledger, the report concluded that Passeri’s interests seem to lie more with Parsons than with the state.
The report saves its harshest criticism for Passeri, saying he downplayed and even stifled criticism of Parsons, and misled superiors about a series of critical delays that hit the project.
The report also questioned why Passeri unilaterally authorized three payments to Parsons totaling $43 million before its work was completed.
"That’s absolute nonsense,’’ Passeri told the paper. "I did exactly what I was hired to do.’’
Whitman ordered the report in January after it appeared that some of her top officials had ignored more than 90 memos written by the consultant hired to monitor the project. The memos, some dating back more than a year, predicted many of the problems that later plagued the system in December.
The attorney general’s review was led by Handler and included two other private citizens -- former Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Timpone and former state Insurance Commissioner Kenneth Merin.
Kamin is reportedly on vacation in Tennessee and could not be reached for comment.
Passeri, who lives in Plumstead Township outside of Doylestown, did not answer his door bell on Friday.
Elston did not return telephone messages left at his office, as all three of those punished appeared to run for cover in the wake of the report.
