Passenger Trains > Senate Confirms Carper and Naples to Amtrak Board

Senate confirms Carper, Naples to Amtrak board

Thomas C. Carper and Nancy Naples have been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve on the Amtrak Board of Directors.
Carper is the former mayor of Macomb, Ill. As mayor from 1991-2003, Carper led the fight to preserve passenger rail service in the region and state. In 1991 Carper was appointed by the Amtrak Board of Directors to the Amtrak Mayors’ Advisory Council and served as its chair from 2000 to 2001.

While serving as mayor, Carper attained leadership roles in various statewide organizations, including Board of Directors of the Illinois Municipal League (1993 to 2003), chair of the IML Non Home Rule Committee (1994 to 2003) and the Board of Directors of the Illinois Humanities Council and the Illinois Arts Alliance.

After Carper’s tenure as mayor, Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich named him the regional director for the West Central region for Opportunity Returns, a regional economic development plan. He graduated from Western Illinois University and served in the U.S. Army from 1967 to 1970 in Thailand and Vietnam. He was a small business owner/operator from 1971 to 1991 when he was first elected Mayor of Macomb.

Nancy Naples is the former Commissioner of Motor Vehicles in New York. A strong partisan Republican, whose husband has been a major financial contributor to the Republican Party for many years, Naples was appointed State Motor Vehicles Commissioner by then-Gov. George Pataki in January 2006 following a 12-year political career in Western New York. She served as a Cabinet member for the final year of Pataki's term.

Naples was elected in 1993, 1997, and 2001 as County Comptroller of Erie County, New York. In 2004 she ran for Congress, narrowly losing to then-Democratic Assemblyman Brian Higgins 51%-49% for the right to succeed Republican Jack Quinn. Naples was comptroller when the Erie County fiscal crisis developed and she resigned in June 2005, six months before her term expired.

She said she was resigning in order to highlight the fiscal crisis and the need for state control board of the county's finances. Critics pointed out that Naples' resignation deeply damaged her credability; on the one hand, she was criticized for not being more forcefully vocal in the face of the financial crisis facing Erie County, and on the other hand was roundly criticized for resigning her position at a time that the county needed her purported financial expertise more than ever.

Naples had a career on Wall Street and in her family's insurance company before running for office. In 1998, it was reported that Pataki considered her as a running mate for lieutenant governor. In her capacity as motor vehicles commissioner, Naples served as the chairwoman of the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee. As commissioner, in keeping with the Pataki administration's long-standing record of using partisan political state officials in public service announcements funded by state tax dollars, Naples recorded a series of statewide television and radio commercials on traffic safety and safe driving.

On June 1, 2006, The Buffalo News reported that Naples was considered by former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld as a possible running mate for lieutenant governor; Weld was at the time a candidate for New York governor at the time. Weld later selected New York Secretary of State Christopher Jacobs, also from Buffalo, as his running mate, before ending his quixiotic run.

March 17, 2008

The article trumpets that Naples is a partisan Republican, but makes no mention of party affiliation of Carper. Does this mean he is a Democrat? Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is very happy for Carper receiving the appointment, so I will assume he is a Democrat (I've never heard of the guy, so I don't know. A Google search did not yield the information I was looking for).

What's the source on this release, raillady?

It sounds too stridently partisan to be an Amtrak or government release.

Given the mess and infighting created by 14 months of the Spitzer administration, a lot of people in NY see Pataki's administration as a time when things actually got done.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> What's the source on this release, raillady?
>
> It sounds too stridently partisan to be an Amtrak
> or government release.

Looks like it came from the UTU website: http://www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=41015

See also:

http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df2/df03172008.shtml#Carper

ken15

So much for the theory of the Amtrak board being nothing but Bush-appointed cronies and Republicans who want to kill Amtrak. Another nail in that coffin, but the rumors and accusations will continue nonetheless.

smitty195 Wrote:
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> So much for the theory of the Amtrak board being
> nothing but Bush-appointed cronies and Republicans
> who want to kill Amtrak. Another nail in that
> coffin, but the rumors and accusations will
> continue nonetheless.

Perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that recent legislation passed by congress requires that one or more Amtrak board members must now be Democrats.

http://www.macombjournal.com/articles/2008/03/16/news/news0.txt
"Carper gets Amtrak nod
By Chuck Gysi/chuck@MacombJournal.com
MACOMB - Former Macomb Mayor Tom Carper is the newest member of Amtrak's Board of Directors.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin announced Friday that the Senate confirmed Carper's appointment early Friday morning.
Durbin had recommended Carper for the position last year to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Bush, citing the former mayor's work to preserve passenger rail service in Illinois.
"I am thrilled with the opportunities that Tom Carper and his years of experience will bring to Amtrak," Durbin said in a prepared statement announcing the vote. "As mayor and regional director for West Central Illinois' economic development plan, he has brought together business leaders, community leaders and elected officials around a common goal. As a member of the board, I have no doubt he will do the same to improve passenger rail in the United States."
Carper was mayor from 1991 to 2003 and was in the forefront of leading the fight to preserve passenger rail service in the region and Illinois. In 1991, Carper was appointed by the Amtrak Board of Directors to the Amtrak Mayors Advisory Council and served as chair from 2000 to 2001. While serving as mayor, Carper attained leadership roles in various statewide organizations, including Board of Directors of the Illinois Municipal League (1993-2003), chair of the IML Non-Home Rule Committee, (1994-2003) and the Board of Directors of the Illinois Humanities Council and the Illinois Arts Alliance.
After Carper's tenure as mayor, Gov. Rod Blagojevich named him regional director for the West Central region for Opportunity Returns, a regional economic development plan. His position is based in Macomb.
The former mayor graduated from Western Illinois University and served in the Army from 1967 to 1970 in Thailand and Vietnam. He was a small business owner-operator from 1971 to 1991.
Amtrak's Board of Directors sets corporate policy and oversees the management of the company. The board is made up of seven voting members appointed for five-year terms by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. Among the seven members is an ex officio federal government representative, a position held by the secretary of Transportation."