Weekly roundup - All the trimmings
Crickets at the capitol
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The signs of the season were all there: impromptu charity dance-offs, high school football (some being played at Fenway Park) and a capitol empty enough by Wednesday that it would have made an ideal refuge for a turkey to ride out the holiday.
But before attention fully turned away from negotiations over solar incentives and looming decisions on the state budget to how best to beat the Thanksgiving traffic, there was enough happening this week to overshadow the fact that Senate President Stanley Rosenberg's Movember moustache didn't make it through the month.
Gov. Charlie Baker, despite seeing much of his first-year agenda pushed off into 2016 by the ever-deliberative legislative process, appeared ready to start writing the next chapter of his first term.
Baker started his week in Lynn, a North Shore city in need of revival and just minutes from the governor's Swampscott home. It was there, with other political and business leaders, that he announced the city as a "test case" for a coordinated and focused revitalization effort, include buzzwords like "expedited permitting" that might someday be replicated in other urban centers.
The next day he was at Amazon's Kendall Square offices in Cambridge receiving a demonstration on the tech and retail company's newest gadget the Echo, a wireless voice-activated speaker with computer technology that operates in a manner similar to personal phone assistants like Apple's Siri.
"Alexa, play Blink 182," the governor instructed, so enchanted by Alexa that he would later declare that his children would all be getting one for Christmas.
So, yes, the governor is apparently a huge Blink 182 fan, but that's beside the point.
Baker's real purpose for being in Cambridge that morning was to announce the formation of a new team he's calling "BizWorks," a cross-secretariat strike force on call to help businesses looking to locate or expand in Massachusetts navigate government programming.
Baker is not the first governor to talk about implementing a "single point of contact" for businesses to interface with the state, but he said BizWorks, along with a regional planning process to better link the needs of employers with the mission of higher education and workforce training, will get deeper into the details than any effort before.
The events marked what appears to be a shift in focus for the administration heading into year two to economic development and job creation. Baker himself had to restrain himself from spilling too many details about forthcoming jobs legislation that he intends to file early in the new year, but dropped a few hints, including the likely inclusion of financial incentives for schools to align courses of instruction with the job skill needs of regional businesses.
The governor had more to be thankful for this holiday week than just scratching a few gift ideas off his checklist. A new Suffolk University poll for the Boston Globe found that the most popular governor in America continues to enjoy unabated support from residents.
In addition to his 70 percent job approval rating, 43 percent of respondents said the Republican was doing a better job than his predecessor Democrat Deval Patrick. Majorities also supported the two most controversial provisions of Baker's substance abuse prevention bill - 72-hour supply limits on opioid prescriptions for new patients and three-day involuntary hospitalization holds on addiction patients.
If Baker's popularity is going to get challenged in the short-term, the test may be coming up soon on two fronts.
The poll showed that the state budget sits atop the list of issues facing the administration, and Standard and Poor's fired a warning shot across the bow when it downgraded the state credit outlook to negative.
Citing "a multi-year trend on spending and the use of reserve funds," Standard and Poor's - one of the three big rating agencies - did not take the more drastic step of downgrading the state's AA+ bond rating, but did put budget policy leaders on notice.
A downgrade in the state bond rating would be a major stain on a Baker administration that prides itself on being fiscally conservative and not over-committing to major, expensive initiatives.
While the fiscal 2016 budget was balanced without tapping into reserves, the governor has partnered with the Legislature twice in his first year to freeze capital gains tax revenue deposits into the "rainy-day account" to free up more spending capacity, but probably does so again at his own risk.
Baker and his team have, for the most part, been reluctant to point fingers at his predecessor for challenges they have faced early in their administration, but this comment from A&F Secretary Kristen Lepore succeeded in raising the hackles of the Patrick tribe.
"Since day one of this Administration, we have stressed the importance of bringing spending in line with revenue, achieving structural balance, and building our Stabilization Fund, especially in good times. We have made significant progress in each area, but we have always acknowledged that this requires a multi-year fix to overcome issues which we inherited," Lepore said.
The Democratic Party and a former staffer, who now lives in Chicago, took deep umbrage, pointing to the fact that under Gov. Patrick the state's bond rating was actually upgraded to its current level in 2011 and remained there for the duration of his term with a "stable" outlook.
"Like their decisions on the MBTA budget and plans and their decisions on the state's solar and clean energy future, the Baker Administration, having filed its first budget, now owns the bond ratings and the jobs outlook, both of which were in very good shape over the past several years," Democratic Party spokesman Pat Beaudry said.
The MBTA Fiscal Management and Control Board also had some preliminary discussions about increasing fares at the T, with a more tangible proposal likely to be presented in January.
Fare increases are never easy, and seldom well-received, no matter how much the transit agency needs the cash to improve service.
Several board members called for a serious discussion of means-based fares that would be adjusted based on a rider's ability to pay. While such a system might blunt the impact of fare hikes on low-income riders, others on the board questioned the feasibility of implementing such a system.
In the meantime, the board voted to ban future political advertising on the T after a Davis Square ad critical of the Israeli military's treatment of Palestinians brought high tension to the T board's meeting.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving, and don't forget to drop off your unused turkey carcasses to Michael Dukakis.
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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