Development Cabinet

Published Jan 09 2007, 08:26 PM by David S. Bernstein

Today the Patrick folks announced the details of the "Development Cabinet," which had been mentioned along the way during personnel announcements. It will consist of five secretaries: Ian Bowles, Dan O'Connell, Leslie Kirwan, Suzanne Bump, and Bernard Cohen (whose title seems to have been mysteriously renamed Secretary of Transportation & Construction since last Thursday). They will meet weekly -- presumably with special advisor Dan Bosley, although the press release doesn't say -- to discuss economic-development things. Yes, that's right, weekly. Seems awfully ambitious; our pols like to take a lot of long weekends in the summer, DP.

[Update: Bosley was not mentioned in the press release because he's not taking the job after all. Patrick will chair the meetings himself, according to Statehouse News. More later.]

Last Thursday, on this very blog, I predicted that Patrick would unveil some "reorganizations of his agencies (perhaps along the lines of what business re-organizers call eliminating silos)."

And from today's press release:

"The work of government, too often, is performed in silos. We recognize the interconnectivity of much of the work our agencies and departments perform and want to assure better coordination," Governor Patrick said.

You can take the man out of the Fortune 500 corporate board room, but you can't take the Fortune 500 corporate board room out of the man.