WHERE'S THE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS?

A PUBLIC FUNDED HELIPAD instead of solving Boston's Grid Lock? or improving PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION?

Now the Bobble Heads need to figure out how to SELL a HELIPAD to the public!

Have you noticed how the Corporate Media PROPAGANDA MACHINES have jumped on board to promote the PROPAGANDA?

Emails reveal Boston official 'choking' on generous incentives to GE

GE expected to complete move to Boston in 2018

Published 7:40 PM EDT Apr 06, 2016

BOSTON —5 Investigates and Northeastern University School of Journalism have obtained hundreds of emails from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's office that shed light on the behind-the-scenes movements to bring General Electric to Boston.

The deal inked in January provides GE with property tax relief of up to $25 million from the city and up to $120 million in incentives from the state.

The emails started last June with the city of Boston "targeting the big companies ... most impacted by a Connecticut tax law change..."

No. 1 on the city's list -- General Electric.

By last September, GE executives were on their way to Boston, meeting Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker, but the meeting was top secret.

For the next few months, General Electric would only be referred to as "Project Plum" in the emails.

The September visit included a detailed tour for the GE executives, complete with a police escort, in which they were shown possible sites in the city.

The next day, the emails indicate the tour was hailed as a "big success."

The emails reveal city and state officials working for months, putting together the best possible deal for GE.

There were discussions about how much property tax relief to provide, which began at between $8 million and $12 million worth and grew to $20 million.

The increased incentives raised concerns in Walsh's inner circle.

"It's the number I'm choking on." wrote city assessor Ronald Rakow, concerned about the "disproportionately high" benefit given to GE in exchange for bringing 600 jobs to Boston.

The final deal provided even more property tax relief, up to $25 million.

Walsh's office now says the city assessor was reacting to an earlier version of the deal and that GE is now bringing 800 jobs and occupying more square footage in Boston.

However, in another email Rakow joked about the benefits being offered to GE: "I wish I had a multi-national corporation to relocate to Boston."

There were also concerns from the governor's office about gushing about the sweet deal being offered to the company.

The governor's chief of staff succeeded in removing a line in the proposal from Gov. Baker and Mayor Walsh to GE that called the deal "...the most substantial package of supports offered for a single business development in Boston."

"It is something that you might say," wrote chief of staff Steven Kadish in an email. "But not put in the proposal!?!"

GE is expected to complete its move to Boston in 2018.

This investigation was reported on for a seminar in investigative reporting taught by 5 Investigates' Mike Beaudet, who is also a journalism professor at Northeastern University. The following students contributed to the report: Stephen Daly, Adam Glanzman, Matthew Ingersoll, Kelly Kasulis, Catherine Lindsay, Alexandra Malloy, Daniel McLoone, Diana Novakovic, Owen Pence, Alejandro Serrano, Shondiin Silversmith, Miharu Sugie and Emily Turner.

VIDEO ON LINK

http://www.wcvb.com/news/emails-reveal-boston-official-choking-on-generous-incentives-to-ge/38901864

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2016/04/gov-baker-logan-airport-is-a-big-reason-ge-chose.html

Gov. Baker: Logan Airport is a big reason GE chose Fort Point HQ

Apr 6, 2016

Access to transportation is one of the key reasons that General Electric Co. set its sights on Boston's Fort Point neighborhood for its new headquarters, said Gov. Charlie Baker at a business luncheon in Waltham on Wednesday.

Not necessarily public transportation, he said, but air transportation.

El Al will begin flying into Logan Airport in summer 2015.

ADRIAN PINGSTONE

Logan International Airport, mere minutes away from where GE (NYSE: GE) plans to locate its headquarters in the Seaport, was likely one of the main drivers in GE's decision.

"The airport has dramatically expanded its domestic nonstop capacity and international nonstop capacity with all kinds of plans to continue to grow its international nonstop capacity over the course of the next decade," he said at the Massachusetts High Technology Council's annual meeting at Bentley University in Waltham on Wednesday. "That starts to look really special and that's not necessarily something we think about when we think about why GE put Boston and Massachusetts on the map."

It underscores the importance of investments in "a different kind of transportation," and how those investments could play a big part in attracting global companies, Baker said.

GE officials have said ease of travel was one of many criteria used to find a headquarters location.

GE announced last month that it will spend as much as $100 million to build out its new world headquarters that will be based at 5 and 6 Necco Way in Fort Point, representing roughly 2.5 acres.

It remains to be seen how much GE would use Logan, as talks about a proposed "public helipad" are currently in the works.

City economic development chief John Barros told reporters earlier this week at GE's press conference that the helipad proposed in government officials’ pitch book to GE would be a "public helipad" and thus not be located on either the Necco buildings or the newly built GE headquarters building.

The city has considered multiple sites within both downtown and Fort Point that could be utilized by both hospitals and private corporations, Barros said. “We’ve got to find a location with true public access,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure this thing feels like a public helipad.” What’s more, Barros said, a public helipad would likely be funded with public dollars.

It's become evident that new flights to international cities are often considered a boon for Boston's tech sector. When El Al began offering service from Logan International Airport to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport last year, for example, Boston's tech and startup sector was grateful.

The flights were hugely beneficial to companies including CyberArk Software (Nasdaq: CYBR), Cybereason, and dozens of Massachusetts companies that have offices or major research and development teams in Israel.

Robby Bitting, spokesman for Boston-based startup accelerator program MassChallenge, said the flights were well received.

"We've found the direct flights to Israel have been great for us (many of my Boston-based colleagues have visited our Jerusalem office and vice versa) and so any time Boston is connected to other major cities that's a good thing," Bitting said in a previous interview.

Flights from Boston to Cuba could also be on the horizon.

JetBlue (Nasdaq: JBLU) recently submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Transportation to start daily service between Cuba and Boston.

JetBlue proposed 15 daily roundtrip flights connecting four Cuban cities with six U.S. cities, including the airline’s focus cities in South Florida, New York and Boston. Service from Boston to Havana would be one flight per day, while the airline said it would pursue four flights per day between Ft. Lauderdale and Havana.

Wealthy White Guys had a brain fart about bringing the Olympics to Massachusetts, ignoring the primitive 19th Century Public Transportation system.

These privileged White Guys never attempted to navigate an MBTA that is FLAWED and overpriced, to say the least.

Tea Bagger Baker allowed the MBTA to shut down Boston during SNOW to manipulate his intent, ignoring that Boston survives only because of its poor Public Transportation System.

Mayor Marty Walsh commented during a public interview that he couldn't take Public Transportation to get to his meetings on-time. What's that tell ya Marty?

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION in Boston SUCKS!

You are not hearing any attempts to improve it from Tea Bagger Baker's clones, just to make it pay for itself on the backs on the poor.

Every public employee and elected official should be mandated to take PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!

WORTH READING: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/14/transportation/U7vNqP861gKQFRly2jmjdL/story.html

Then they would understand how POOR it really is.

A 10% fare hike for the T is too much

Anything above 5% is a social inequity

KATHERINE GERGEN BARNETT Feb 9, 2016

AS THE BITTER COLD has returned to the streets of Boston, I have been driven into the warmth of the T more than once on my bike commute home from the hospital. The scene there is familiar – workers weary at the end of the day, parents with children swaddled in snow pants, young adults making their way. The English language is wrapped into many other languages, many of which I now recognize from my 11 years working at Boston Medical Center, New England’s largest safety net hospital.

The MBTA, though rife with many concerns about functionality over the past year, has long served as a window into the population of Boston. As such, it is a great equalizer. According to estimates, the typical weekday ridership of the T is 1.3 million. On weekends and holidays it is around 500,000. These numbers make the Boston T the fifth-busiest transit agency in the nation. My patients are among these riders, using the rail lines carved through the city as their way of getting to one of many jobs, numerous appointments, and children’s schools.

This means of commuting may soon become financially untenable to some of Boston’s T riders. On January 4 this year, the governor’s Fiscal and Management Control Board released two possible scenarios for fare increases to go into effect in July 2016. One raises fares by nearly 7 percent; the other is more radical, increasing fares by 10 percent. This will not be the first time the MBTA has increased its fares recently. In fact, since 2000 the MBTA has increased fares five times: in 2000, 2004, 2007, 2012 and 2014. Fares have increased 6.1 percent per year on average between 2000 and 2014, which is significantly more than inflation.

The proposal for fare increases comes from a seemingly justifiable position: the MBTA is looking to address an estimated $242 million deficit in the next year. However, critics of the fare hikes, such as the Conservation Law Foundation, have correctly pointed out that a system-wide average fare increase of over 5 percent is not needed to balance the MBTA’s FY2017 operating budget. This deficit has already been closed with additional state assistance (held constant from last year at $187 million) coupled with cost reductions identified by the MBTA (such as the elimination of non-essential spending increases and reductions in unnecessary materials, services, and supplies), which will add at least another $55 million.

As a resident of Boston, I deeply want the T to become solvent and a dependable source of timely transport. However, as a physician who cares for individuals whose incomes are often 200 percent below the poverty line, I am extremely concerned what this hike in fares will do to the lives and well-being of many residents of Boston. Just recently, a patient of mine – a young woman who is already a mother of four and a grandmother – was late to her appointment. Knowing her medical and psychological issues were complex and urgent, I folded her into my schedule and she began the visit crying, stating that one of the reasons she was late is that she could not find the fare to travel across the city. The proposed increases may mean that she will become one of many who no longer are able to easily access needed appointments, subjecting her to potential poorer health outcomes and increased social isolation.

I am thus joining others in imploring the governor to look for different means than a passenger fare increase of up to 10 percent to bridge any gap in the MBTA’s funding. Asking for a greater than 5 percent fare hike every other year (a predictable and modest increase that people can budget for) from riders is a social inequity. What is more, we need to start thinking about transportation more holistically: the well-being of our T system can be fed, in part, by revenue sources such as higher taxes on individual drivers. State and federal gas taxes are at an all-time low and our bridge and tunnel tolls are the lowest compared to other large metropolitan areas. Bringing our T system back to health by means outside of radical fare hikes also means that, as a city, we can recommit to bringing people to appointments, schools, and groceries safely and with a sense of true equity.

Dr. Katherine Gergen Barnett is the vice chair of primary care innovation and transformation at the Boston University Medical Center’s Department of Family Medicine.

http://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/a-10-fare-hike-for-the-t-is-too-much/

Thursday, February 11, 2016

By George Donnelly (@geodonnelly) and Keith Regan

Today: Focus on paid family leave, farm animal protection

U.S. Deputy Labor Secretary Chris Lu joins Rep. Ken Gordon and Sen. Karen Spilka for a press conference to discuss paid family leave. Businesses that offer paid family leave, including Google, Spotify, Tamr and InkHouse PR, are expected to discuss their experiences. Spilka and Gordon are sponsors of bills (H 1718 and S 1008) establishing a family and medical leave and temporary disability leave insurance program, Room 350, 12:15 pm.

A proposed 2016 ballot question aimed at phasing out practices that confine animals on factory farms and the sale of products resulting from such conditions is up for a public hearing before the Environment Committee. Room A-2, 1:00 pm.

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will take the stage in Wisconsin. The debate will be hosted by PBS NewsHour, aired on PBS and streamed live online. PBS NewsHour co-anchors Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff with moderate, 9:00 pm.

Ahead of tonight's debate, here's a question: Is Bill a problem with the Clinton team? The Globe's Joan Vennochi thinks so. "A gaunt, vegan, and cranky Bill is a problem for Hillary. Separating him from the campaign trail is a good idea." http://bit.ly/20NNcPe

Pending T fare decision stirring groundswell of opposition

We've entered an era of fiscal accountability at the T, one that is encountering a day-to-day legacy of inefficiency and neglect at the agency. The new T fiscal control board continues to peel the onion as revelations emerge almost every week. It's a bloated bureacracy. Overtime seems to be out of control. Collecting fares is a challenge. It has mysterious pension liabilities. What should have been a straight-forward expansion of the Green Line is threatened by a $1 billion cost overrun even before the project is fully underway. Deferred maintenance and repairs top $7 billion. Then there's the $240 million operating deficit.

Progress is being made, but the T board seems determined to place a disproportionate financial burden on its ridership and is eyeing a fare increase of nearly 10 percent as one option in an attempt to close its operating deficit. The T board realizes it risks pricing itself beyond the means of people who need its services the most. Various groups, including the Conservation Law Foundation, the Pioneer Institute, and Transportation for Massachusetts, have objected to the increases. An opinion piece on the CommonWealth magazine site by Katherine Gergen Barnett, a doctor at Boston Medical Center, makes a compelling case against a 10-percent increase. "Asking for a greater than 5 percent fare hike every other year (a predictable and modest increase that people can budget for) from riders is a social inequity," she writes. It will hit those beneath the poverty line hardest. http://bit.ly/1TUnW4z

New privatization plan at T receives cautious reception

The T's fiscal control board yesterday explored the idea of outsourcing various non-core services, including fare collection and money handing, where 165 employees work. The T employees would be redeployed elsewhere is the agency, and no dollar figure has been pegged to the initiative. Bruce Mohl of CommonWealth magazine covered the meeting, noting the union did not bash officials about the idea, but instead brought actual employees to voice their concerns about the proposal. http://bit.ly/1TdFau0

Meanwhile, the T is taking another college try at discount passes. The head of the MBTA's governing board wants the transit system to explore whether to bring back bulk sales of discounted passes for area university and college students, Boston.com's Adam Vaccaro reports. The idea has been met with lukewarm responses from colleges in the past. http://bit.ly/23XNIcz

How to talk to your kids about Donald Trump

Here's a funny take by Steve Almond in the Globe about The Donald as a parenting challenge. "It may be that your six-year-old -- who is after all struggling to negotiate his or her own power in the world -- will identify with Donald Trump. Don't be surprised to hear statements such as, 'I like Donald Trump because he will kill all the Islams with his bare hands!' Or, 'No, I will not eat kale. Donald Trump says kale is for losers who love having diarrhea.'" http://bit.ly/1T90q34

Millennium Tower's 13,000-square-foot penthouse sells

It was put on the market over a year ago for $37.5 million. So chances are good it went for under asking (and we'll know soon enough when the sale is recorded in the Suffolk Registry of Deeds). The penthouse on the 60th floor of Millennium Tower is the largest of 442 residences at the old Filene's Basement site. Megan Woolhouse of the Globe explores the meaning of the mega-purchase. http://bit.ly/1POqyPy

Building a Millennial agenda

Sen. Eric Lesser, 30, and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, 66, are leading a Millennial Engagement Initiative to bring to the forefront concerns the next generation has about government and improve its engagement. "Based on the polls, they were very interested in social action, but they believed you only had to work in nonprofits and as volunteers and that the political system was not worth engaging in," Rosenberg said in a story by WGBH's Mike Deehan. http://bit.ly/1ShYQwL

Legislators hear marijuana warning

A Colorado police officer briefed Beacon Hill on the dangers of legalizing marijuana, saying marijuana products in his state are "getting into the hands of kids, drivers are driving under the influence," MassLive's Gintautas Dumcius reports. Colorado legalized marijuana in 2012, and Massachusetts voters likely will weigh legalization through a ballot petition this fall. Jim Gerhardt, a police officer from Thornton, Colo., said to expect advocates to place pro-legalization ads featuring "soccer moms" and retired police officers. http://bit.ly/1o1m4KA

State to tighten nursing home oversight

Health regulators say they will step up oversight of the state's nursing homes, Kay Lazar of the Globe reports. Changes include a streamlined system for filing complaints and more staff to investigate reports of abuse or neglect. The changes come in the wake of a series of Globe articles detailing conditions at nursing homes owned and operated by an out-of-state company. http://bit.ly/1oucsbS

Southie power plant site to be redevelopment

Exelon Corp. has put the New Boston Generating Station up for sale, with a half-dozen developers stepping forward to express interest in redeveloping the site, Tim Logan of the Globe reports. The 18-acre property's location is seen as a major draw -- it sits along the Reserved Channel and not far from one of the fastest-growing parts of Boston -- and some observers say the hulking structure itself could be ripe for creative re-use. http://bit.ly/1RsGfNA

Falchuk decries Galvin's 'confused' voter label

Evan Falchuk, who ran for governor under the United Independent Party banner, is crying foul over some of Secretary of State William Galvin's comments about the surge of voters registering to vote as members of the party, Kyle Claus of Boston magazine reports. Although Falchuk is on board with Galvin reaching out to voters to see if they meant to register as unenrolled when they checked the "independent" box, he said the use of the word "confused" may have crossed the line into "politicking." http://bit.ly/1V4NBWs

With third retirement, Baker will reshape SJC

With Justice Fernande R.V. Duffly announcing her retirement on Wednesday from the Supreme Judicial Court, Gov. Charlie Baker now has an opportunity to reshape the state's highest court, the Globe's David Scharfenberg reports. "It gives the governor the opportunity to put his indelible mark on another branch of government," the chief counsel of the Mass. Bar Association tells the Globe. http://bit.ly/1O4wX3r

Attorney panel will help choose SJC nominees

Meanwhile, Greg Ryan of the Boston Business Journal takes a look at the SJC Nominating Commission that Baker formed to help select candidates for the court, and says it includes attorneys from some of the state's largest businesses. EMC's general counsel and the retired attorney for General Electric are among those Baker tapped for the commission. http://bit.ly/20XhXOb

Senator seeks to boost jaywalking fines

Sen. Harriet Chandler testified Wednesday on behalf of her bill to increase the fines for jaywalking in the Commonwealth from the current $1 level to $25 for a first offense, Tom Quinn of Worcester Magazine reports. Chandler says stronger fines-fines would go up for second and third offenses-would help increase pedestrian safety. http://bit.ly/1o1L8kR

Baker on Trump

After dipping his toe in the water of presidential politics for a brief moment, Gov. Charlie Baker said he doubts he'll endorse again while expressing concerns about frontrunner Donald Trump. "I have concerns about Donald Trump. I think his temperament and seriousness about all this are troubling and they concern me, but the voters get to make the call." Matt Murphy of the State House News Service has here: http://bit.ly/1PnVpB1 (paywall)

REMEMBER: To send your tips to me at gdonnelly@massterlist.com. Op-eds and other commentary are invited for publication on MASSterList.

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