Weekly round-up: The day the Olympics died
Guv shrugs it off, Massachusetts moves on
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Almost as abruptly, and anticlimactically, as Boston's Olympic dream went from an obscure study initiated by a senator from Lowell to a full-blown international incident, the city's quest for gold this week was disqualified.
After its unlikely beginnings, stream of changing venues and on the heels of a current of skepticism, the Boston 2024 bid for the summer games had its legs cut off at the knees. We'll never know how The Hub could have stacked up against Paris, Rome, Hamburg, et al.
The United States Olympic Committee, sensing that public sentiment for hosting the games was going in the wrong direction, and had been for some time, reached an agreement with the host city committee to pull the bid and focus elsewhere, most likely Los Angeles.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who had been the games' loudest elected Olympic booster, put the nail in coffin on Monday morning - or skillfully plotted his escape route - when he declared that if the USOC was demanding that he immediately sign a financial guarantee to backstop potential cost overruns with taxpayer money, then they better find another host city.
The writing, some might argue, was already all over the wall at that point, but if USOC committee members needed a push, Walsh gave them a shove.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who never wanted the Olympics on his plate in the first place, seemed to simply shrug it off. The governor insisted throughout the weekend, as rumors swirled about the games' demise, that he would remain neutral until he could read a report on the bid being prepared for his administration by the Brattle Group.
And even after the plug had been pulled, Baker kept talking about the Brattle Group and his interest in reading their report next month, as an urban planning exercise if for nothing else.
The governor likes to tell the story of how Boston getting chosen as America's host city in the first place bumped his inauguration in January off the front pages, depriving him of the printed proof for his parents that he'd done well.
If the public needed any more assurances that the governor was not losing any sleep over losing the games, the bid was less than three days in the ground when he was already joking about it: "What do you think? A market like this, or a velodrome?" Baker asked, looking at Walsh, as the two helped open the new Boston Public Market at Haymarket.
As the post-mortems were being written, the Legislature moved on from the Olympics to focus on the budget, more specifically how much they wanted to spend despite Baker's $162 million in vetoes.
Over the course of two days with little time devoted to much of anything besides taking vote after vote after vote, the House and Senate overrode roughly 87 vetoes, restoring about $97 million in spending, or 60 percent of the governor's rejected funding, but less than a quarter of 1 percent of the $38.1 billion state budget.
House leaders set the pace, overriding, among other items, the governor's veto of $17.6 million for kindergarten expansion grants to cities and towns and $5.2 million for the University of Massachusetts. They also put back "most, if not all" of the $38 million in earmarks slashed by Baker, standing up for the money, or pork, that House Speaker Robert DeLeo described as another form of local aid set aside by those who know their communities best.
"That's his prerogative," Baker said of DeLeo, when asked about the earmarks returning to the budget.
The exercise gave lawmakers an opportunity to contrast themselves with Baker, and remind both him and the voters that the when Democrats vote in unison they, not the governor, can have the final say.
Despite some more vocal opposition this year, the House and Senate also delivered to Baker's desk a bill establishing a sales tax holiday on most major purchases for Aug. 15 and Aug. 16.
The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the sales tax holiday despite some fiery speeches in opposition, including one from Fall River Democrat Rep. Alan Silvia, who scoffed at the notion that a meager 6.25 percent sale would generate enough new business to justify taking $25 million out of the budget that could be spent for education or opioid abuse treatment.
"This is politically popular, but it's terrible legislation," Silvia warned. But for elected officials, it was decided it's best to give the people what they think they want.
The rest of the pre-August recess agenda seemed to slide off a cliff.
House leaders hit the pause button on a public records reform bill over concerns raised by the Massachusetts Municipal Association and others that it would put new unfunded mandates on cities and towns. The measure is intended to reduce costs and speed access to public records, with real consequences for agencies that flaunt the rules.
The delay, until at least early September, created an opening for Baker to step in Thursday an announce a new directive across all executive branch agencies that would streamline the process for filling public records requests and provide a uniform, predictable pricing structure that's cheaper for requesters than what the law allows.
The Senate had also hoped to walk away from the State House for the summer break with a foreclosure bill under its belt, but opted to hold off until after the recess to answer some questions raised by senators, according to Ways and Means Chairwoman Sen. Karen Spilka.
The bill would clear titles to foreclosed properties in an attempt to prevent the new owners of previously foreclosed properties from getting caught in banking limbo.
And with that, it was time for recess.
STORY OF THE WEEK: You can't always get what you want, unless maybe you're the voting public, who played a role in both killing the Olympic bid and forcing another sales tax holiday this August.
About the Author »
Matt Murphy covers major media, lobbying firms, government agencies, political junkies as well as towns Statewide. He likes to cover politics and campaigns.
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