Joe Battenfeld: Public deserves to hear from Registry of Motor Vehicles manager

Jul. 23--Some tough questions for Thomas Bowes, head of a state board at the center of the growing Registry of Motor Vehicles scandal:

* Why were thousands of unprocessed out-of-state driving violations left sitting unopened in mail bins at your office?

* Were any of your superiors aware this was going on?

* How did you get your job considering you had no experience at the registry?

* Did you have fun on your recent London family vacation?

* How is your Braintree mayoral campaign going?

So many questions. So few answers.

We were hoping to get some clues at a legislative hearing on Monday, but the Baker administration apparently decided it wouldn't be such a good idea to have Bowes and other officials publicly grilled by lawmakers.

The administration essentially thumbed its nose at the Legislature, refusing to compel key witnesses like Bowes and ousted Registrar Erin Deveney to show up and produce relevant documents like internal registry emails.

The only officials who did show up for the hearing were Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack and acting Registrar Jamey Tesler, as well as a lackey for auditing firm Grant Thornton. And they made clear they would only be able to answer limited questions.

And Gov. Charlie Baker himself decided to spend the day far away on a trip to Colorado.

This did not please House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who issued a rare blistering statement calling on full cooperation from the Baker administration and vowing that lawmakers "will not be thwarted in the discharge of its oversight responsibilities."

That's strong language for DeLeo, indicating the Legislature may be serious in its threats to use its subpoena powers to get the administration to comply and force witnesses to the table.

This Beacon Hill battle is all about control. It's clear that Pollack and Baker have decided to hunker down and try to control the flow of information coming out, which includes weekly sanitized updates on the scandal. The last thing they want is a legislative hearing at which they won't have any control.

The public -- as well as the Legislature -- deserves more than this. The registry scandal is the most serious breach of government in years, resulting possibly in the deaths of seven motorcyclists killed in a crash with a West Springfield trucker in New Hampshire in June.

Bowes, as the Herald first reported, is a Braintree town councilor and mayoral candidate who, according to his campaign bio, spent decades in the insurance business before getting hired for the critical job at the registry. How he got the job -- through political connections possibly -- is key to understanding how this scandal happened.

The registry -- more specifically the Merit Rating Board run by Bowes -- should have revoked the trucker's commercial driving license due to a recent OUI bust in Connecticut before he killed anyone.

The fact that these seven deaths could have been prevented is reason enough for the Legislature to demand more answers than the ones they've been given so far by Pollack and Baker.

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