Mass Audubon knows how to grab your attention. In a recent fundraising letter, the state’s largest conservation group says the state is losing more than 8,000 acres of open space every year, as bulldozers turn meadows into parking lots, forests are cleared, and ponds filled in. “Maybe there are places left in the world that […]
The Back Story
Posted inEconomy, The Back Story
Movie mystery
Each year the Massachusetts Department of Revenue is required to release a report analyzing the financial impact of the state’s film tax credit. The first report, covering 2006 and 2007, was released in March 2008. The second report on 2008 wasn’t released until July 3, 2009 — the day before the Fourth of July holiday […]
Posted inThe Back Story, Uncategorized
Convention center tries hand at banking
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority jumped into the banking business this week, offering an unusual $18 million loan to a private company seeking to build a new Boston Tea Party Museum attached to the Congress Street bridge over Fort Point Channel. Historic Tours of America, a privately-held Florida company that operates Old Town Trolley Tours […]
Posted inEnvironment, The Back Story
Wind bill aids Kingston project
The push and pull over wind turbine siting legislation in the Massachusetts Senate revolves around issues of policy and politics, but it’s also about money. A little-noticed section of the bill expands a ratepayer subsidy for producing renewable energy and selling it to local utilities. It also extends that lucrative subsidy to a private wind […]
Posted inEnvironment, The Back Story
Gordon defends Cape Wind
It’s taken 10 years, but Jim Gordon, the president of Cape Wind, says the 130-turbine offshore wind project is about to clear its final regulatory hurdle. A supremely confident Gordon tells me the contract his company signed with National Grid to buy half of the project’s power output will be approved by state regulators in […]
Posted inThe Back Story, Uncategorized
Fore your eyes only
A nonprofit arm of the city of Boston is continuing to lose money operating two municipal golf courses. In the past, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and other city officials have insisted that the George Wright and William J. Devine golf courses are well-managed, well-maintained, and turning a profit, or at least breaking even. But tax […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Back Story
The ins and outs of the Cape Wind debate
The story line from Monday’s gubernatorial debate was Gov. Deval Patrick defending Cape Wind in the face of strong opposition from his three rivals, including, surprisingly, the candidate of the Green-Rainbow Party. There were also lots of back stories from the debate. Here’s some of them: Politics – If Republican Charlie Baker wants to win […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
Coakley, auto insurers headed for a nasty fight
Trouble is brewing in the state’s auto insurance industry. Two years ago insurance company officials convinced the Patrick administration to let each firm set its own rates rather than having state regulators come up with one set of rates for all the insurers. Dubbed “managed competition,” the new approach has kept rates in check and […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
Key information missing
The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team is the gold standard in Massachusetts journalism, but the unit’s recent reports about the state’s probation department have omitted some key information. The reports, which portrayed the department as a private employment agency for the politically well-connected, prompted top court officials to immediately suspend Probation Commissioner John O’Brien and appoint […]