Saying the Legislature’s “good bill isn’t good enough,” Gov. Deval Patrick on Friday vetoed legislation that would have pumped $500 million into the state’s transportation system and helped avoid steep […]
Transportation bill vetoed by Patrick
Posted inPolitics, The Download
State GOP looks to 2014
The state’s Democrats kicked off their gubernatorial hunt last week with a convention in Lowell. The Republican answer came more quietly, in the form of a meeting and conference call […]
Posted inPolitics
July 18th Boston mayoral forum transcript
This is a transcript of a July 18 Boston mayoral forum with Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, John Barros, and City Councilors Rob Consalvo and Mike Ross. The forum […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
Gonna see my picture on the cover Gonna buy five copies for my mother “The Cover of the Rolling Stone,” – Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show It’s been […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
Mondays with Marty
The winning path in Boston’s 12-way scramble for mayor travels first through a candidate’s core base of supporters, but has to branch out from there to less familiar terrain. Which […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment
Report: Carbon tax could spur economy
Massachusetts could create more than 10,000 new jobs, generate billions more in Gross Domestic Product and lower emissions to 80 percent of the quantity consumed in 1990 by imposing a […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Audit: DCR is terrible landlord
A new state audit reveals that the understaffed Department of Conservation and Recreation is a terrible landlord, often failing to collect rental fees and late payments and neglecting to charge […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download, Uncategorized
All over before the casino vote in Springfield
History did not repeat itself. With visions of dollars to city coffers dancing in their heads, Springfield voters weren’t about to chuck away MGM International’s $800 million casino opportunity.The MGM […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
All aboard for the Cape
WHEN MICHAEL DUKAKIS was governor, passenger trains ran to Cape Cod. So it should come as no surprise that one of the Bay State’s biggest mass transit boosters took the […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
State facility tests wind turbine blades
PERCHED ON THE edge of Boston Harbor in Charlestown is a long white box about the length of a football field. Inside is a testing facility where the Patrick administration […]
Posted inPolitics
SJC to clerks: Do your job
THE STATE’S HIGHEST court has set a new standard for clerk-magistrates: Do your job. In an unanimous opinion in May, the state Supreme Judicial Court set a precedent by terminating […]
Posted inTransportation
Your cash ain’t nothing but trash
THE STATE’S DEPARTMENT of Transportation is planning to convert the Tobin Bridge to all-electronic toll collection next year, but that effort may run afoul of some laws on the books. […]
Posted inEnvironment
Plugging into Canada
RHODE ISLAND GOV. LINCOLN CHAFEE steps up to the podium at a conference of power grid geeks in Boston and says what everyone is thinking. The region is becoming overly […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
Booting up
MICHAEL FELD IS moving his small tech company from Northampton to Holyoke. That’s not a big deal on its own for Holyoke, but it will be a very big deal […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Title insurance
JACK LALOND AND his wife Kathy have refinanced or taken out equity loans on their Plymouth home six times since they purchased it. They used the loan funds and the […]
Posted inPolitics
The new campaign
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN JOYCE LINEHAN HAS the most famous living room in Massachusetts politics. It used to be that Linehan’s Dorchester house drew its fame as a crash pad […]
Posted inPolitics
The chained CPI
THIS FALL, PRESIDENT Obama and Congress will have another chance to strike a grand bargain on the deficit. If it happens, a new gauge of inflation that would both reduce […]
Posted inEconomy
The Massachusetts H-1B connection
MORE THAN 1,200 Massachusetts companies hired 5,481 skilled foreign workers last year through a controversial visa program that is simultaneously being praised for helping to plug holes in the state’s […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Fitting the Boston mayoral race into an historical context
BOSTON AT THE close of the Menino era finds itself with a surfeit of candidates and a dearth of critical issues. That may be a good thing—many candidates will enliven […]
Posted inPolitics
We’re not missing this one
THE LAST TIME Boston had a race for mayor without an incumbent was 1993, three years before CommonWealth came into existence. We missed that race, but we aren’t going to […]
Posted inEnvironment
Summer 2013 correspondence and updates
Dirty-energy billionaire There are so many loathsome things about dirty-energy billionaire Bill Koch’s ramblings about Cape Wind in CommonWealth (“Look who’s talking,” Spring ’13) that it was hard to know […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Managing innovation
You’re the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s Innovation District manager. What does that mean? The Innovation District lives in between planning and economic development. It’s really meant to be an urban lab […]
Posted inEconomy
Poverty sprawl
INNER CITY SLUMS along with isolated rural outposts, have long defined our concept of poverty in America. Whether it is endless blocks of urban deprivation or a dilapidated house with […]
Posted inEducation
Moving backwards
I AGREE WITH Commissioner Chester that some around K-12 education are enthusiastic about Common Core. Washington, DC-based trade groups like the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Governor’s […]