After watching a montage of movie clips and hearing video pep talks from actor Casey Affleck and talk-show host Leeza Gibbons, Plymouth town meeting members voted overwhelmingly last night to […]
Plymouth goes Hollywood
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Dianne Wilkerson’s long slide down
This morning’s arrest of state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson on extortion and wire fraud charges looks like the final chapter in a pitiful tale whose installments have come with almost predictable […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Mitt McCain?
Massachusetts voters may get a sense of deja vu from John McCain’s latest argument against putting Barack Obama in the White House. As reported by Ben Smith on Politico, yesterday […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Wilkerson backers take the low road
Monday, October 27, 2008 Dianne Wilkerson is counting on a big turnout of black voters for Barack Obama to boost the desperate write-in campaign she’s waging after losing last month’s […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Public Records Law “a joke,” Gov. Patrick missing a chance for reform
CommonWealth magazine’s fall cover story on problems with the Massachusetts Public Records Law is evoking little surprise on the website of the New England First Amendment Center. The CommonWealth story […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Community Preservation Act reined in
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the Community Preservation Act is not a state-supported slush fund that municipalities can tap to spruce up their existing parks and ballfields. […]
Posted inThe Download, Transportation
Could fewer cars on the road jeopardize public transportation?
The US Department of Transportation warned on Friday that a 10-month decline in traffic on American roads could jeopardize not only new highways and bridges, but also improvements to mass […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
City Council bans bait-and-switch muffins
What if the legislative process were always this speedy? All muffins baked in a certain unnamed city must now have at least 18 percent "non-dough content," ensuring that each customer’s […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service, The Download
How bad will the fuel crisis get?
It could be a "frozen Katrina." The upcoming winter has all the hallmarks of a major crisis, according to social service providers who attended a Boston Foundation forum Monday on […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Mass. ranks 20th in transparency, 42d on public records
Massachusetts ranks 20th among the 50 states on an index of laws relating to transparency, accountability, and limits in government, but its record was particularly bad on its public records […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Weld and Fried: New darlings of Massachusetts liberals
Yesterday’s separate endorsements of Barack Obama by former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld and Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried add to the growing roster of prominent Republicans who have jumped […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Finneran: I was playing a word game
By Colman M. Herman What do former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and former President Bill Clinton have in common? They both parsed their words under oath in a way […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Time to unite the Attleboros?
Sun Chronicle editor Mike Kirby suggested a merger earlier this week:In this era of regionalized government, isn’t a combined Attleboro-North Attleboro the way to go? Wouldn’t taxpayers save through economies […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Student loan debt rises faster than salaries for graduates
The average debt of students graduating from American colleges with loans was $20,098 in 2007, up 6 percent from the previous year’s class, according to a new report from the […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Taking stock: Starbucks or civic pride?
By Alison Lobron A recent MassINC research report on the attitudes of young adults indicated they love their employers but don’t have a lot of confidence in state government. This […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Worcester Polytech weighs heavier than Harvard
Following up on my earlier post on the financial burdens of college graduates, I should point out that the Project on Student Debt also has detailed data for individual colleges, […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
A survey of possible voting glitches, coast to coast
"What if we had an election and everyone came?” is the question posed by the Pew Center on the States/Electionline.org’s gargantuan Election 2008 Preview updating election administration issues — voting […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Finneran could resume legal work
Former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran should be able to resume practicing law in January, according to a decision issued Monday by a three-member panel of the Massachusetts Board of […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
“Public records should be public”
But they’re often not. Or they’re prohibitively expensive, as CommonWealth magazine contributor Colman Herman explains in the Boston Globe today:The Public Records Law encourages officials to waive fees for fulfilling […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Massachusetts ranks 39th in government employees per capita
The Census Bureau today released its every-5-year tabulation of state and local government workers, and the Bay State is on the low end of the workforce scale. (The Census Bureau's […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
The Fix We’re In: Edward Glaeser on “the silver lining of bleak fiscal times”
With the stock market nosediving, credit lines freezing, retirement savings disappearing overnight, and the state budget on the chopping block, we are facing an economic peril as great as any […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
The Fix We’re In: Tamara Draut on “the deregulatory impulse”
With the stock market nosediving, credit lines freezing, retirement savings disappearing overnight, and the state budget on the chopping block, we are facing an economic peril as great as any […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Imagine who you can vote for…
A new Bay State website called Imagine Election lets you type in your address to see who will be appearing on your ballot on November 4, and then find out […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Voting made easy
INTRO TEXT The young man in a tattered baseball cap walked up to Sharon Adair’s table at the Ward 5 polling place near City Hall in Concord, New Hampshire. Daniel […]