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By George Donnelly (@geodonnelly) - with Sara Brown
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We regret to inform you it's Monday. Here's what's happening
Gov. Baker joins Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and Attorney General Maura Healey to announce the recommendations of the Opioid Working Group in Room 157, State House, 11 a.m. ... State officials make an $88.5 million Springfield Union Station funding announcement in Springfield. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito joins Congressman Richard Neal and Mayor Domenic Sarno... Boston Mayor Martin Walsh hosts a USA Women's Soccer viewing party with members of the Boston Breakers, the city's professional women's soccer team, City Hall Plaza, One City Hall Square, 8 pm. The team is slated to play against Colombia.
The week ahead: Here comes the Master Developer?
The Dorchester Reporter (Lauren Dezenski) broke the news last week about Boston 2024 deploying the concept of a "master developer," a deep-pocketed, well-established player who would buy land around Widett Circle, the proposed site for the Olympic stadium, build out the area and have development rights thereafter. The Herald reported out the story later in the week, quoting Boston 2024's Rich Davey as saying he likes the idea. Expect the Globe to either discover or advance the story early this week. This seems to be the way the Boston 2024 people will have sell the of the Olympic venue conundrums -- shifting the acquisition risk away from the taxpayer to the private sector.
Tom Brady will make his appeal to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday, and it will dominate the headlines for a few days. It's good odds Tom will get a break -- there are simply too many lawyers in the room. So look for the four-game suspension to be reduced. Goodell will play judge and jury. Here's a thorough take by Ben Volin yesterday http://tinyurl.com/ogzvw5x and a solid pro-con analysis in today's Herald by Jeff Howe. http://tinyurl.com/q2qvbp5
At long last, a casino opens in this week in Plainville. How did we ever make it to 2015 without one? Expect plenty of stories, like the Globe's front page article this morning, on what it all means. Here's Steve Crosby, state chairman of the state Gaming Commission: "This is as big a change in the cultural, social, and economic face of Massachusetts as I have seen in almost 50 years." Does it really mean that much to be able to drop money into a fancy electronic slot machine? Hyperbole reigns.
The biotech boom continues, as three local life sciences companies are expected to complete initial public offerings this week. The Boston Business Journal's Don Seiffert has the story. http://tinyurl.com/phz97uk
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Follow-up: Learning more about 'critical' state employees
It may not be the most "critical" story out there, but it does raise some questions about the Baker administration's workforce reduction plans. And I can't let it go yet. In the process of hashing out the early retirement incentives designed to save about $170 million, Administration & Finance was asked by the Legislature to flag "critical" employees who would not be eligible because, well, they were important to an agency's mission. But the Baker people seem to have gotten away with a bizarre definition of a "critical" state employee. To A&F, a critical employee is someone whose position is supported by outside funds, and thus, whose departure would not save the Commonwealth money. A "critical" employee is actually an irrelevant one, as far as saving the state money goes. On Friday I relayed the story of Donna Brennan, a longtime state employee on the Merit Rating Board who wants to take the retirement incentive. Because the insurance industry funds her job, she is not eligible, as are workers in many departments. The same goes for Division of Banks and Department of Public Utilities. The question remains if anyone has been tagged as "critical" in the old-fashioned sense -- as the Legislature asked. Shira Schoenberg of MassLive covered this strange semantic policy last month, and it seems no lawmakers have objected to the weird definition of "critical."
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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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Another key BRA official leaves...
...And now Mayor Marty Walsh has additional opportunity to reshape the agency, writes the Herald. Enrico Lopez is leaving for Florida, where his wife has a new job. "...Lopez was often the first stop for developers' proposals, and he supervised the project managers who track them through the approval process," the Herald's JackEncarnacao writes. http://tinyurl.com/ouhe234
State's new definition of poor has big policy implications
A new methodology of categorizing low-income students has drastically reduced the numbers believed to be low-income from about three-quarters to half, according to a story in the Globe by James Vaznis. The percentages are lower across the state as well. "The new calculations are expected to lead tom major changes by the Legislature in the way state aid for needy students is distributed to local schools and could even affect how much school systems receive in state reimbursements for construction projects," Vaznis writes. http://tinyurl.com/n9mc5tq
The weekend's best stuff, ICYMI
Go south, young men and women: Providence is making a comeback from the throes of the recession, in part because it is relatively cheap and has easy access to Boston. Some young techies are nesting there too, as early-stage startups gravitate towards inexpensive rent.
My question is, where's the story on Worcester? Isn't it making a comeback, too? Wait a minute, Paul McMorrow, now an economic development official, wrote one for the Globe a year and a half ago focused on reviving the downtown.http://tinyurl.com/ow6zvey
If we win, do we lose? Just what is the endgame of the city's suit against the state Gaming Commission? Some activists in East Boston are horrified that the city will prevail and put Suffolk Downs back in play. "...Walsh has a history of accommodating casino plans at Suffolk Downs - and that his ties to the track have deepened recently," writes the Globe editorial writer Alan Wirzbicki.http://tinyurl.com/no3th3r
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FIX PUBLIC RECORDS. The public records law hasn't been updated since 1973, and excessive fees, other barriers, and lack of accountability keep us in the dark. Instead of a sunshine law, we have a flashlight without batteries. It's time to bring transparency into the 21st century with electronic records, lower costs, and fees for unlawful denials-just like in 46 other states. The law's failures are well documented, but so are the solutions: aclum.org/public_records
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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 atgdonnelly@massterlist.com or on Twitter @geodonnelly.
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