MASSterList: Funding magic formula | Hungry students | Filling the swamp

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MASSterList: Funding magic formula | Hungry students | Filling the swamp

WILL THE MASSACHUSETTS REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY WAKE UP?

California goes where no state has gone before: Mandatory solar power on all new homes

Speaking of energy: In Massachusetts, we’re arguing about whether residential homes should have updated energy audit scores before they’re sold to buyers. In California, they’re now requiring all new homes to have solar power, reports the New York Times. Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington D.C. have considered requiring homes to be “solar ready,” but those ideas aren’t even close to what California is doing, the Times reports. NYT

THIS WOULD REDUCE THE PROTECTION FOR THOSE THREATENED AND SUBVERT THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW. Raising a red flag on the red-flag gun bill

From SHNS’s Matt Murphy: “A group of House lawmakers, mostly Republicans, who are concerned with a ‘red flag’ gun bill that House Speaker Robert DeLeo has said he will call a vote on later this month are trying to refocus the debate away from firearms and onto mental health. Rep. Joseph McKenna, a Webster Republican, wrote to Democratic leaders last week urging them to consider an alternative proposal that would create a legal structure for someone's guns to be taken away only after they have been committed for mental health treatment.” Btw: Boston police commissioner Bill Evans is appealing a court ruling that said his decision to revoke a Boston man’s gun license to carry was “arbitrary and capricious," the Herald reports. It’s not the same issue per se, but it does show the tricky nature of any law that involves taking away someone’s gun rights. SHNS (pay wall) MASSACHUSETTS JUST GAVE AMAZON $20 MILLION TO EXPAND IN AN AREA OF BOSTON THAT CAN'T HANDLE ADDITIONAL TRAFFIC, WILL BE SUBJECT TO RISING OCEANS AND THERE'S NEVER ANY SANITY IN COST ACCOUNTING, MUCH LIKE THE GE TAXPAYER SCAM. WE CAN THANK GOVERNOR CHARLIE BAKER FOR SALIVATING FOR RE-ELECTION CLAIMS! Bernie Sanders. (photo: Antonella Crescimbeni) Amazon Pays Nothing in Federal Income Taxes Yet Receives $137 Million in Tax Rebates Is Amazon ignoring its own criteria in HQ2 search? Writing in CityLab, Richard Florida issues a scathing review of the Amazon HQ2 process, saying data shows the e-retail giant is ignoring its own stated criteria as it winnows its list of hopefuls and has managed to use the process to get cities with no chance of actually scoring the grand prize to do years’ worth of legwork on where to locate future warehouse operations. But he saves his harshest rebukes for the “mayors and civic leaders of America’s most liberal and economically dynamic cities,” who he writes have been “rushing to subsidize one of the world’s largest corporations and its richest man rather than investing in processing social needs.”  Sound like anyone we know? For what it’s worth, Florida thinks Washington D.C. is going to land HQ2, though he puts Boston in a tiny group of “serious contenders.” CityLab