STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICEA top Patrick administration official says he could support a fracking ban in Massachusetts to ensure that a potential natural gas reserve in the Springfield area is […]
Administration OK with Mass. fracking ban
Posted inState House News Service, The Download, Uncategorized
On a mission from God in East Boston
Another front line has opened up in the battle over an East Boston casino: Multifaith coalitions. Friends of East Boston, a group of neighborhood ministers, announced their campaign against the […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Scott Brown is taken aback by politics
The sitting senator sent out a fundraising appeal, citing the specter of a potential challenge from a partisan television personality and commentator. The TV type immediately fired back, dismissing the […]
Posted inPolitics
Coming from nowhere, Collins beats Powers
Ninth in a series When he took office as mayor, John Hynes was faced with the prospect of a dying city. He ably performed the many tasks that were required […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
At the voting booth, Rivers runs dry
It’s the stuff of which Boston Herald front-pages are made. Gene Rivers, the voluble Dorchester minister who backed Charlotte Golar Richie’s mayoral bid and ripped other minority candidates for not […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
To be or not to BRA: Is that the question?
During the mayoral primary, the future of the Boston Redevelopment Authority emerged as a hot topic, and rightly so, as the BRA touches on our lives in so many ways. […]
Posted inThe Download, Transportation
Is Patrick in denial?
He didn’t get the new taxes he wanted, but Gov. Deval Patrick is nevertheless pushing ahead with the transportation projects they were supposed to help finance. The Patrick administration on […]
Posted inPolitics
A look at the BRA and city building
Eighth in a series The Hynes Administration put the brakes on Boston’s mid-century slide, and put into place new ways of doing business in the city. Two initiatives arising from […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Gabriel Gomez’s Etch A Sketch moment?
Former Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez insists his conversion from staunchly defending an absolute Second Amendment right to bear arms to now supporting an assault weapons ban and limiting magazine sizes […]
Posted inPolitics
The New Boston was a mix of good and bad
Seventh in a series Writing of Boston in 1952, the author John Horne Burns began his last novel, A Cry of Children, with this observation: “It takes time and tiredness […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Patrick indirect on ruling out presidential run
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICEGov. Deval Patrick was insistent Wednesday that he would stay involved in public discussions after leaving office, and less direct on whether he would “rule out” a […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
New Boston gets to vote for old Boston in November
What’s old is new again in Boston. John Connolly and Marty Walsh, two middle-aged white men of Irish descent, will go into the general election to succeed to Mayor Tom […]
Posted inPolitics
The first mayor of the new Boston
Sixth in a series It was the mid-point of the century, and Boston was at a crossroads. For too many years city leaders stood by as Boston gradually lost its […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
Renewable energy procurement announced
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICEThe largest renewable energy procurement in state history, which involved the six Massachusetts electrical utilities teaming up to increase their buying power, will provide electricity at a […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Taking stock of Tommy
Bostonians head to the polls today. For the first time in two decades, they’re picking up mayoral ballots that don’t have Tom Menino’s name on them. As the city works […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
A civil war for votes
Two big takeaways from the final days of the Boston mayor’s race are that a lot of voters have yet to make up their mind, and the race has remained […]
Posted inPolitics
The mayor of the poor
Fifth in a series What’s important about the election of 1913/1914, what distinguishes it as a milestone in the city’s political history, is not electoral drama but electoral outcome, because […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Holy See change
This ain’t Pope Benedict’s Catholic Church any more. Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, signaled he intends to take the church in a very different direction on such issues as abortion, gay […]
Posted inPolitics
Wolf gets ethics stay but gov run in doubt
The state Ethics Commission voted to formulate some changes in the conflict of interest law that would allow state Sen. Dan Wolf and other lawmakers with private business interests to […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, The Download
A flood of opposition to insurance and map changes
Anyone who lives near the ocean in New England knows it comes with a cost, but one of the prices that homeowners pay for the privilege is high insurance premiums […]
Posted inPolitics
Boston’s immigrants and the race for mayor
The election of John Fitzgerald in 1910 had significant impacts on the city and its politics. Fitzgerald’s term in office was focused on growth and building. The suburb of Hyde […]
Posted inEducation, State House News Service
Record MCAS scores but news not all good
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICEFourteen Massachusetts schools designated “underperforming” in 2010 have met three-year turnaround goals and will shed their Level 4 status, but four turnaround schools could fall into state […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Lantigua victorious
Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua’s victory in the city’s preliminary contest shocked exactly no one in the Merrimack Valley. While Boston has had an issue-focused mayoral primary campaign and other races […]