MTA waiting for Mangano to get on board

This little waiting period has acquired the feel of standing on a railroad platform and wondering when, or even if, the next train will come.

When Patrick Foye became executive director of the Port Authority in January, he quit the board of directors of the region's other huge public transportation system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Foye was appointed to the MTA board by Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano while Foye was a top Mangano aide. Foye quit as Mangano's deputy county executive in early 2011 -- in a falling-out over the county's fiscal oversight board -- but stayed for another year in the nonpaid MTA seat.

Mass-transit watchers were still waiting this week for Mangano to submit new names to Andrew M. Cuomo so the governor could nominate a new voting member from Nassau.

As of Wednesday, state officials said they had no word on the expected three recommendations from which the governor could then send one to the State Senate for confirmation. The Long Island counties get one vote each on a board with 15 votes overall. Brian Nevin, Mangano's spokesman, said Thursday night that Mangano, focused on police issues, "will turn his attention to appointments next week."

A current board member, New York City lawyer Allen Cappelli, said of the post: "There are important service decisions on the board, including service cuts or restorations, that are best argued by someone whose community is directly impacted."

The MTA spends a billion dollars per month on its operating side, he noted, with an enormous capital budget for the region. Its Long Island Rail Road division alone logs an average weekday ridership of 282,358.

"We feel we are underrepresented on the board," given a vacancy, said Mark Jay Epstein, chairman of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council, a watchdog group of riders from Nassau, Suffolk, Queens and Brooklyn. Epstein said the council has asked about the appointment and was told there are names under consideration. "We've indicated we hope this person has knowledge of or uses the transportation system," Epstein said.

Nassau and Suffolk appointees each get a full vote on the board. Epstein cited a recent 6-4 vote against certain service restorations to show that board members' choices can directly affect service.

Several weeks ago came unconfirmed reports of a recommendation that real estate businessman and philanthropist David S. Mack of Kings Point return to the MTA board, where he'd served as vice chairman until September 2009. Asked on Jan. 30 about Mack, Mangano spokesman Nevin replied only that "the county executive has not forwarded any recommendations to the governor for the MTA board."

Mack declined Thursday to comment on the matter through a staff member reached at his corporate office in New Jersey -- other than to convey a message that "Nassau has always been in his heart and he would hope to help the county any way he can."

Suffolk's representative, Mitchell Pally, chief executive of the Long Island Builders Institute, is held over from a term that expired in June 2010. There is no word yet on whether he will be renominated. But at least that position is filled, and colleagues say Pally puts much time and effort into the task.