Following Applegreen’s abrupt withdrawal from lease negotiations with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) on the future management of the state’s highway service plazas, the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is calling for Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt to resign immediately.

“This entire selection process was extremely problematic from the start. Taxpayers were allegedly about to be shortchanged by nearly $900 million in order to benefit a politically connected bid. Now that Applegreen has walked away, the only way to restore public trust is for Secretary Tibbits-Nutt to step down and for new leadership to step in,” said Paul D. Craney, Executive Director for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

MassDOT originally awarded the 35-year contract to Applegreen despite independent analysis showing the rival bidder, Global Partners, would have delivered substantially more revenue to the Commonwealth. The Boston Globe reported that analysis by KPMG found that Global’s bid was worth $1.3 to $1.5 billion, while Applegreen’s was worth as little as $623 million. Despite this glaring discrepancy, Tibbits-Nutt’s agency pressed ahead with negotiations that would have cost taxpayers nearly a billion dollars in lost revenue.

“The taxpayers of Massachusetts deserve better and they deserve answers. They deserve to know why Secretary Tibbits-Nutt and MassDOT pushed a deal that was not allegedly financially sound, not transparent, and not in the public’s interest. Her resignation is the only step that can begin to restore confidence in this agency,” noted Craney.

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is also urging lawmakers to hold immediate oversight hearings to uncover how this process was allowed to unfold in the way it did and to ensure taxpayers are never again put at risk by such an another alleged politically tainted scheme.

“Taxpayers were about to be sold out for pennies on the dollar. That cannot be swept under the rug,” Craney concluded.