Executive Order  No. 94: Establishing a Governor's Commission to Examine the Financing and Organization of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and defining its powers and duties

WHEREAS, it is the responsibility of our Commonwealth to preserve and promote essential transportation services for all citizens, and

WHEREAS, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is a body politic and corporate and a political subdivision of the Commonwealth which is empowered to provide mass transportation services in the area constituting the authority, and

WHEREAS, the continued and improved management and operation of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is essential to the economic, sociological and environmental well-being of those citizens residing in the 79 cities and towns constituting the Authority, and

WHEREAS, the impact of the management, operation and service of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority extends to and affects the well-being of all citizens and communities within the Commonwealth, and

WHEREAS, in order to insure continued and improved mass transportation services it is necessary to examine Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority financing and organization within the framework of an appropriate state policy for aid to cities and towns and governmental reorganization,

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Francis W. Sargent, Governor of the Commonwealth, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Supreme Executive Magistrate, do hereby order as follows:

1. There is hereby created a commission, to be known as the Governor's Commission to Examine the Financing and Organization of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to consist of nineteen members, three members of the State Senate to be appointed by the President of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, three members of the MBTA Advisory Board to be appointed by the Chairman of the MBTA Advisory Board, and ten members to be appointed by the Governor, four of whom shall not live within the MBTA district. Among the ten members appointed by the Governor shall be the Secretary of Transportation and Construction who shall serve as Chairman of the Commission. Upon notification by the Chairman of vacancies, the appropriate appointing authority shall fill such vacancies as occur.
2. The commission shall give full attention to the development of an appropriate state policy for aid to the MBTA including consideration related to fares, schedules, cost-accounting procedures, budgetary review and assessment formulas. The commission shall prepare such fiscal, structural and operational recommendations as it deems necessary to accomplish said policy. The commission may form committees from its own members and may form task forces from outside its membership to assist in assembling information and formulating conclusions and recommendations. The Commission shall meet as often as is necessary.
3. The commission shall complete its examination and submit its final report to the Governor not later than December 1, 1972.

Given at the Executive Chamber in Boston this sixth day of September in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two and of the Independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and ninety seventh.

FRANCIS W. SARGENT

Governor Commonwealth of Massachusetts

JOHN F. X. DAVOREN

Secretary of the Commonwealth