Allen Cappelli

Allen Cappelli is out of the MTA board.

(Staff-Shot)

There are certainly plenty of appointees languishing in various posts in government who don't deserve their jobs because their loyalty is primarily to their party and the politicians who appointed them, not to the public they are supposed to serve.

We've all run across a few of those.

Then there is Allen Cappelli. If anything, he's that rare political appointee who took a supposedly cushy, titular post as a member of the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- an unpaid post no less -- and ran with it. In the years since his 2008 appointment by former Gov. David Patterson, he became as forceful and effective an advocate for Staten Island commuters and drivers as we have seen.

Would that some of our full-time paid elected officials worked as hard.

"As a resident of Staten Island held captive, forced to commute by automobile, I understand firsthand the frustrations with the inequitable system that's currently in place," Mr. Cappelli recently told the Advance.

Put aside partisanship

The Livingston attorney and longtime operative in the Staten Island Democratic Party, a self-avowed "Mario Cuomo disciple," won favor in the party for his tireless work on numerous campaigns, but was able to put aside partisanship in favor of the larger responsibility he felt to borough commuters in his MTA position.

So it was that he worked extremely well with such officials as Republican Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis and state Sen. Diane Savino to restore X-1 bus service on the East Shore as well as service on as S76 and S93 routes after the MTA's draconian service cuts amid the 2009 fiscal crisis.

He also fought to reopen the No. 1 train's old Whitehall Terminal after Hurricane Sandy destroyed the new one.

A savvy bridge-builder, Mr. Cappelli used his powers of persuasion and relationships on the MTA board gain support for discounts in the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge toll for Staten Island residents and businesses, after having worked with state Sen. Andrew Lanza and Assemblyman Michael Cusick to win the governor's favor for Verrazano toll relief.

But disdaining the go-along-to-get-along approach, Mr. Cappelli was also the lone dissenting vote when the 21-member MTA board voted earlier this year to impose another round of toll hikes.

'Fighting for Staten Island'

"He is always fighting for the people of Staten Island," former MTA chairman Joe Lhota told the New York Post.

Despite that stellar record of service, however, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, son of Mr. Cappelli's idol, refused to reappoint Mr. Cappelli to the MTA board when the latter's term expired recently.

Perhaps it has something to do with Mr. Capelli's support for former state Comptroller Carl McCall 9against Andrew Cuomo) in the 2002 gubernatorial race. The governor does seem to have an awfully long memory.

Then again, as we see from the barrage of campaign-style TV ads we see touting the governor's successes, the governor always seems to have other irons in the fire.

No doubt, his choice of Peter Ward, president of the Hotel Trades Council, the union representing 32,000 hotel workers in the metropolitan area and the Capital District, to replace Mr. Cappelli is further evidence of the governor's agenda.

A spokesperson for the Cuomo administration said of Mr. Ward, a Grasmere resident, "As the president of the Hotels and Motel Trade Council, Peter Ward is uniquely qualified to serve on the Board of the MTA. He understands the importance of our transit system both to everyday New Yorkers and to the region's economy as a whole, and will serve the organization well in the years ahead."

'A lot to learn'

"Uniquely qualified"? Why, because he heads a union the governor wants to propitiate?

Mr. Ward, a Grasmere resident, more humbly concedes he as "a lot to learn" about the MTA, transportation issues and just about everything else -- stuff that Mr. Cappelli knew like the back of his hand.

"I have a great willingness to learn," said Ward, a Grasmere resident. "My goal is to be a board member who is going to work extremely hard to hear the interest of the riding public on Staten Island and in all of the boroughs."

He added, "I believe very strongly that keeping affordable, reliable, safe transportation is a key foundational element of a sound economy in a city like New York. If you don't have those things, everybody suffers."

That's fine, and we have no doubt that he's sincere. But we still don't understand why Mr. Cappelli had to be replaced in the first place, and with no consultation with Staten Island elected officials.

Mr. Cappelli said, "I thought I did a good job. My record is worth reappointment...I was a bit disappointed. Serving the board has been a passion of mine. I value being a position to fight for the community that I've grown up in and raises my children in. It has been an incredible honor to be of service this past seven years."

We're with Ms. Malliotakis, who said, "The governor has made a very bad decision in removing Allen from the MTA board. "

Apparently, the governor felt it was more important to have a neophyte -- but his neophyte -- in the position than to allow the commuters of this borough and the city as a whole to continue to benefit from Mr. Cappelli's energy and expertise.

And so Staten Islanders suffer for the governor's unjustifiable, politics-driven preference.