The Mack Stops Here

Poor (well not really!) Mr. Mack, he can’t seem to win nowadays. He gets blasted for his rant about riding the Long Island Rail Road. Then comes the restriction on the use of his (& other board members) E-Z Pass tags & LIRR passes. This is followed up by news of the State Police wanting him to turn in his honorary Deputy Superintendent badge.

Well it is now official, he has turned in his badge & Carl McGowan of Newsday has the story:

David Mack may be running out of perks.

After agreeing to give up some of his privileges as a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member, the Kings Point real estate executive has turned in his honorary State Police badge.

Mack told State Police Superintendent Harry Corbitt several days ago he would return the badge and a uniform, a State Police spokesman said Friday.

“We don’t anticipate that there will be any problems,” said Lt. Glenn Miner. “I’m told that the items are on their way, if they’re not already here.”

Mack, a longtime police buff, still owns a badge issued by the Nassau police.

The flap over the State Police badge, reported by The New York Times on Friday, was resolved 17 months after Mack received a termination letter signed by William Howard, a police liaison for the governor’s office, Miner said.

Mack was named an unpaid deputy superintendent in charge of facilities management in 1995, shortly after Gov. George Pataki took office. Mack attended State Police ceremonies dressed in uniform and seated with other deputy superintendents, Miner said.

Mack helped State Police locate properties for use as barracks, Miner said. “Because of his background in real estate, he was helpful in trying to find these properties,” he said.

Mack also consults on real estate issues for the Nassau County Police Department, where he has been an unsalaried assistant police commissioner for nearly 20 years, said Sgt. Tony Repalone, a Nassau police spokesman. In a 1992 Newsday story, Mack said he was given a shield by former Police Commissioner Samuel Rozzi.

“There are no plans to relieve Mr. Mack of his status within the police department,” Repalone said Friday.

Mack could not be reached for comment Friday.

He was removed from the State Police post soon after Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer replaced Pataki, Miner said. But Mack did not immediately turn in his badge and uniform.

Miner conceded that the termination letter sent to Mack on Jan. 19, 2007, may not have specified that he was expected to return the badge.

After the issue came to the attention of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo during a review of people who possessed badges but were not on the police force, Corbitt asked Mack to turn in the badge.

Mack, an MTA vice chairman, caused a stir earlier this month when he defended the MTA’s policy of granting free passes to current and former board members. He told reporters he wouldn’t ride the rails if he had to pay for a ticket.

Cuomo and Gov. David Paterson weighed in, saying the policy may violate state law. On Wednesday, Mack voted with other MTA board members to restrict systemwide passes held by current members and take away lifetime passes given to former board members.

I don’t feel the least bid bad for this bastard who has no respect for the “common people” of the tri-state area.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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