IN ONE 24-hour period this week, I had to use the Ben Franklin Bridge three times to get to and from appointments in New Jersey.
Each time I forked over the $4 toll, I thought about the teenage daughter of a Port Authority board member who spent 18 months cruising over DRPA bridges for free.
Her father, DRPA official Michael Joyce, had scored her the use of a free E-ZPass transponder belonging to a fellow DRPA executive.
For 18 months, Joyce's kid sailed past suckers like you and me, all because Daddy couldn't grasp that, as a public servant, he had no right to give the public's money to his kid.
Joyce, whose security job came with a $180,000 salary and $9,000 car allowance, resigned over the flap. But he's not the only well-paid DRPA crony who oughta be locked in a toll booth on the Tacony for exploiting his position.
The Inquirer's merciless exposé of the authority has shown DRPA to be lousy with politically entrenched hogs who make a fine living - for themselves and, it often appears, family members - at our expense.
It was another grim reminder that, in our lovely local political culture, stewards of our public money think that they're entitled to private privileges.
Just look at the Philadelphia Housing Authority, where executive director Carl Greene appears to be enjoying an enviable perk in these days of high unemployment:
Job security.
Here's a guy who went AWOL when news broke last week that he was in hock up to his eyeballs. His home was in foreclosure, and he only recently paid off a $52,000 tax lien from the IRS on side income he apparently hadn't disclosed to his board.
And - oh - he'd also been slapped with a sexual-harassment complaint, and a former employee alleged that she'd been canned after questioning the opacity of PHA operations.
For at least three days, Greene ignored phone calls and e-mails from his board, including chairman John Street, who presented a puzzled face to the public when asked for answers about Greene.
Finally, yesterday, Greene surfaced to say that he was taking an extended leave of absence to get his personal affairs in order, so that he could return to the job "better and stronger."
Try that someday. Blow off work, and let your boss twist in the wind for a few days. Lemme know if it works out for you as well as it appears to be working out for Greene.
Then again, Greene's bosses are an odd crew.
