Penn Pike's Joe Brimmeier assailed for eating it up (EDITORIAL)

There is some journalism school somewhere where they teach a "tollroad-execs-living-it-up-at-your-expense" formula story because you see the identical thing pop up all over the place, year after year in print, TV, radio and on the web - just the names, the meal menus, and the money are different.

The suspicious thing about these reports is that the toll industry's trade association IBTTA always gets a priceless plug  for running lap o' luxury, party-time events in exotic locales.

WGAL-8 TV in Harrisburg used the tollroad execs livin'-it-up template this week on Penn Pike CEO's Joe Brimmeier.

From a transcript: "News 8 On Your Side requested expense records for top management at the turnpike as the toll road faces increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and drivers. Debt is mounting. It's over $3 billion. Four years ago, drivers were hit with a 40 percent toll increase. Another 25 percent hike is coming next year. Despite the money issues, News 8 found tens of thousands of dollars being spent on meals and travel."

Strong intro, as hacktalk has it.

Trouble is the rest of the piece was a bit of a fizzer.

"Tens of thousands of dollars"?

Turns out in the last three years Joe Brimmeier has spent "nearly $20,000," the reporter discovered on travel and entertainment.

The TV piece listed 14 trips Brimmeier made out of state, 11 to IBTTA dos.  

That's living it up? This reporter should be sent to an IBTTA do to learn.

$6,000 a year!

By the standards of most chief execs, and not a few lesser execs, this surely has to establish Joe Brimmeier as a stay-at-home cheapskate.

But there was this scandalous detail.

In standard you-should-be-indignant-about-this tones viewers got the revelation that on a trip to Chicago, the Turnpike Commission took the hit for a lunch where Brimmeier spent $54 on a steak and lobster soup. They quoted him unrepentant even: "Frankly, I'm not changing my eating habits. If I enjoy a steak on my own time, I want a steak when I'm conducting business, too."

Matt Brouilette of the Commonwealth Foundation, a thinktank in Harrisburg commented sagely: "That is absurd. When in Chicago, you should be getting stuffed deep dish pizza, Polish sausage, or a Wreck from Potbelly's."

Seriously though, an argument can be made that the people of Pennsylvania would get much better value for their toll money if, rather than spending so much time in that office in Highspire or nosing around the State Capitol and eating other people's lunches, Joe Brimmeier spent a heck of a lot more in exotic... no, that's far enough down that road.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-02-08