Jim Malkin, the Vineyard’s representative on the Steamship Authority board, is no longer aiming to represent the Island for a third term.
The Dukes County Commissioners announced Malkin’s withdrawal from Steamship board candidacy on Monday afternoon. County officials have decided to extend the deadline for Steamship board member applications to Friday, Jan. 9.
“We sincerely thank him for his years of dedicated service,” the release said of Malkin.
Malkin was first appointed to the Steamship Authority in 2020, taking over for longtime board member Marc Hanover.
Malkin wrote in his letter to the commissioners that he had “focused on three critical issues” during his six years on the board: a new general manager, a new reservation system, and an information technology overhaul. He credited his strategy of engagement over confrontation when dealing with the board members as having led to “positive results.”
“I am pleased to leave the SSA with a new General Manager, a new reservation system, and a thorough review of the IT infrastructure underway,” Malkin wrote. “I am confident that my approach was crucial to obtaining these results. I appreciate the tremendous support I have received from the County and so many Islanders and I wish the appointing authority success in finding a strong candidate who can navigate the cross currents of interest and opinion that wash along our shores.”
Malkin did not specify exactly why he chose to withdraw his candidacy in his letter, but it came days after the state Office of the Inspector General released a report that said the Steamship Authority wasted millions of dollars in public funds in its attempt to develop a new website. He was not immediately available for comment.
Are you frigging kidding me? A new reservation system? The same Ole gm? What a farce. You can’t make this up, truly a time to step down if not before. Oh wait, let’s give the gm another couple hundred grand to swat fllies
Finally something so incontrovertible that even the Steamship and the forever gravity-defying Mr. Davis is unable to close their eyes and ignore. Never have there been acknowledgements nor accountability.
For our part, Mr. Malkin is a substantive part of the story of Mr. Davis’s tenure: that is a fact. Tragically, there was no accountability held to the Steamship Authority’s responsibility. He turned out to be an institutionalist, and his remarks quoted in this article are spin, even if parts are true, there is no acknowledgment of the full reality.
How tragic for all the money and time wasted, inexperience and incompetence for years now have set the Steamship back perhaps a decade or more. All of this in the Inspector General report has been known, all of it is cold comfort, because it’s too late. Where’s the article on that?