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Cuomo Lowers Boom On Free E-Z Passes

Attorney General Calls Perks Compensation; MTA Vows To Fight For Long-Honored Tradition In Court

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Perks pulled!

Lifetime E-Z Passes have been yanked from dozens of Metropolitan Transportation Authority board members

"Our position is that these perks of authority are not legal," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.

Six months after CBS 2 HD first told you about the MTA's practice of giving out free orange E-Z Passes to present and former board members – many of them multi-millionaires – Cuomo is demanding that they be revoked. He says MTA board members are supposed to serve without compensation. The E-Z Passes, he says, are compensation.

"If the law says no compensation then the law means no compensation and these gimmicks that are a way of providing compensation as perks as a way to get around the law, we believe, are illegal, and we're going to stop all of them," Cuomo said.

What CBS 2 HD discovered last November is that nearly 1,000 retired bridge and tunnel workers have lifetime free passes. Former board members have 52 and present board members have 34.

The big wigs can have as many as they want.

Former MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow has eight. Former board member Richard Nasti has four and six former board members each have three.

But Cuomo isn't just going after free E-Z Passes. He says free MetroCards and free train passes to board members are also illegal. And it's not just the MTA that doles out perks. Cuomo is going to crack down on other state authorities, like the Port Authority.

Drivers are squarely behind Cuomo.

"They should take them back," said Frank Lacka of Secaucus, N.J. "Why are they superior to the other person who works like a slave to support his family?"

Added Henry Baez of the Bronx: "I think it's unfair. I gotta pay for it."

The MTA has decided it wants to keep its time honored perk. It has decided to go to court and fight Cuomo.

While the MTA is digging in its heels, the State Thruway Authority, which also had been giving out free E-Z Passes to present and former board members, has caved. It agreed to revoke the perks immediately.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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