It's Monday. Here's what's happening
The much-anticipated revised bid from Boston 2024 will be unveiled this morning, 10 am, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Boston 2024 folks head to the State House to meet with Gov. Baker and legislative leaders in the afternoon... In other political action, Senate President Stanley Rosenberg plans to meet with Massachusetts sheriffs, 10:30 am in the Senate reading room. It's a closed press meeting... Attorney General Maura Healey plans to announce recipients of grants for youth summer jobs and attend the Chelsea Collaborative's summer jobs orientation program, 1:30 pm, 299 Everett Ave., Chelsea.
The week ahead: Olympic bid tries to clear the bar
Boston 2024's revised bid will suck just about all the political oxygen out of the #mapoli play space. And the question is, can the Olympic group launch a credible financing plan that leaves taxpayers off the hook? The opposition is not only entrenched, it is financially astute and will dissect every line and every dollar. And the public has grown doubtful, if not outright skeptical. The MASSterList (incorrectly) predicted the Master Developer concept would get more play and vetting from the media last week -- the idea of a private entity buying and developing parcels around the Widett Circle area and absorbing the infrastructure costs. Don't be surprised if the Master Developer is a major theme of the week, or we'll be wrong yet again. But Boston 2024's financial needs stretch well beyond the stadium, and include the proposed 170-acre athletes village at and near the UMass Boston campus.
With the short week (how many of you are working a full day on Thursday?) and a new Olympic bid on display, two top political issues may not make it on the radar screen: The MBTA reform bill; and the expansion of tax breaks for the working poor, in the form of a more generous earned income tax credit. Those likely will be hashed out in the weeks to come.
Olympic bid preview: Are cost overruns insurable?
The Herald's Jack Encarnacao tees up today's new bid announcement, including this quote from Boston 2024 Chairman Steve Pagliuca: "The first bid was a conceptual bid, and now we're moving to a very detailed, bottoms-up bid that we can share with the public. ... We're going to publish every piece of data we have about the plan, the venues, the operating budget." No Boston 2024's Chris Dempsey voices skepticism about insurance providing some risk management for the games. "They should be able to have hammered something out at this point that gives people even basic confidence that this is a possible thing, that this insurance product even exists." http://bit.ly/1FJXz5L
Margaret Marshall on gay marriage decision
From the woman who wrote the ground-breaking Goodridge decision in 2003, putting Massachusetts well ahead of the nation in legalizing gay marriage, comes some historical perspective on the role of the state courts to advance human rights, as well as her "elation" about Friday's Supreme Court decision. http://bit.ly/1dsfmYw
Anyone want a velodrome?
Boston 2024 officials are still looking for a venue for indoor
bicycling also known as a velodrome. "Worried about leaving behind anunwanted arena, the organizers, who initially proposed a permanentvelodrome, are now floating the idea of making it a temporary venue that could be dismantled or scaled down into a field house after theGames," the Boston Globe reports. "We have been very clear that wewill not build any permanent facilities that do not have a long term and sustainable legacy value for the region," Erin Murphy, senior vicepresident at Boston 2024 said to the Boston Globe.http://bit.ly/1GHv8pK
County Sheriff wants more detox beds
Essex County Sheriff Frank Cousins wants to build a 42 bed detox
center at Middleton House of Corrections. "These are the people who
are arrested for possession of drugs while committing quality of life
crimes," Cousins said to the Salem News. "We need to get these people out of the jail cells and into treatment." Cousins is currently
seeking grants to cover the first year's cost. It would be around $2
million to operate.http://bit.ly/1GKzZaX
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***SPONSORED***
Let's keep shark privateers out of Massachusetts... We've seen it all across America, the greedy shark privatizers taking over public facilities with a lot of promises...and leaving only abysmal performance in their wake. A few years ago, corporate privatizers took over the commuter rail side of the MBTA... where they ran up an appalling record of penalties for poor service and late and canceled trains.
Now, they're circling Boston Harbor again. Fortunately, now Massachusetts has an effective barrier to prevent unscrupulous or incompetent privateers from taking over vital public services... called the Pacheco Law. But the privateers and their political pals are hard at work trying to gut these Pacheco protections. Let's stop them!!
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The best of the weekend, ICYMI
MBTA PENSION QUESTIONS: The results for the T's pension fund just don't add up, says famed Bernie Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos, who tried to alert the world for years that Madoff's returns weren't feasible. Now Markopolos, a Massachusetts resident, has turned his attention to the T pension, and he suspects, after a six-month review with a team of researchers, that the retirement fund has overstated assets (to the tune of $470 million) and understated obligations. Fine work here by the Globe's Beth Healy,http://bit.ly/1KiSAiS with a follow-up in today's paper on T retirement board members endorsing a thorough review. http://bit.ly/1GUYKDy
MARTY IS A MONEY MACHINE: Matt Stout's Sunday Herald political column does a little math on Mayor Marty Walsh's fundraising prowess, which is considerable. Walsh raked in about $250K in the first two weeks of June, although some of that was carried over from earlier. He's got $1.7 million in the bank, notes Stout. http://bit.ly/1FJdfpK
GAMBLING'S DARK SIDE: Despite cheery reports about the arrival of slots in Massachusetts, in reality gambling addiction claims many victims. So hat's off to Yvonne Abraham for her column that zeroes in on one gambling addict named Steve who had pumped $7,000 into the new Plainridge Park Casino machines. The glitz, excitement, and entertainment are great, she writes, "as long as you can push the depressing stuff out of your head." http://bit.ly/1LDdzyD
Tweet of the weekend: The governor finds a sympathetic ear
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Baker poses at the Southwick Zoo in Mendon.
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Share your summer reading list:
Now that summer has begun and a holiday weekend beckons, it's time to imagine long stretches of reading books -- and not staring at your phone. So please share your reading list with MASSterList -- fiction, non-fiction, political and not. We will compile a master list of your recommendations, I hope, by the end of the workweek. Send to gdonnelly@massterlist.com.
How to reach me and MASSterList
Nothing makes me happier than comments, tips, suggestions. Please don't hesitate to weigh in on what we're missing and where we should look. Reach me at gdonnelly@massterlist.com or on Twitter @geodonnelly.
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