The Boston City Council, facing heat for trying to place one of its former colleagues in the city clerk’s post, plans to take up a proposed ordinance today that could limit […]
Municipal Government
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Michael Moore occupies Wall Street
Filmmaker and lefty firebrand Michael Moore decided that Occupy Wall Street could benefit from serious storyboarding. To help rescue the movement from what critics across the political spectrum have dismissed […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
Somerville: End the liquor license cap
Thanks to the recently-passed casino gambling bill, the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission will soon be launching a two-year comprehensive review of Massachusetts’s liquor laws. Somerville officials have one suggestion for […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Politics, The Download
From American Dream to “American Scream”
“Occupy” protesters with tents pitched in city parks and loud marches in scores of US cities have been beating a drum figuratively — and sometimes literally — about the economic […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics, The Back Story
Municipal health care reform taking hold
The municipal health care reform law is slowly starting to have an impact. Several early-adopter communities have used the law – or the leverage the law provides – to shave […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Bicycling ahead
Boston is all atwitter with the arrival of Hubway, the new bike sharing program launched last week. The arrival of Hubway certainly is an important milestone in what has been […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Economy, Politics, The Download
For lawmakers on Beacon Hill, patronage is the scandal that won’t go away
<div id=”fb-root”></div><script src=”First it was Probation, a legislative jobs bank that blew up in spectacular fashion in its sponsors’ faces. Now, just two months after the Legislature tried distancing itself […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Mooring mess
Robert Guimond is like a lot of retirees who stay in Massachusetts. The biggest attraction for him is the ocean, which is why the former salesman for General Motors and […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Masters of disaster
Depending on Uncle Sam’s largess and the kindness of strangers are just two of the life-altering changes facing communities hit by a major natural disaster. The Christian Science Monitor profiles […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics
Report: Senate health plan guts savings
An amendment in the Senate version of municipal health care reform would result in the measure coming up short of the $100 million savings target because of its requirement that […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Arlington overrides
Could other Massachusetts towns facing a Proposition 2 1/2 override drum up a “yes” vote like Arlington did yesterday? Doubtful, but it’s worth considering the reasons that barely carried the […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Lantigua’s brazen fundraisin’
Last year, Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua spent more money on printer toner ($1,545) than he spent on political catering ($1,525). In fact, according to reports on file with the state […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Education, Politics, The Download
The Download: The best school policy money can buy?
Bill Gates has made improving US schools one of the cornerstones of the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and he’s put his considerable stash of money where […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics
Senate health plan gives unions little
Public sector unions were counting on the Senate to slow down the push on Beacon Hill for health care givebacks, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Senate […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: The Eagle-Tribune and Lantigua
In 1988, the Eagle-Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize for its relentless coverage of Willie Horton and the Massachusetts prison furlough program. The paper published nearly 200 stories detailing how Horton, […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: Governor’s Council on thin ice
When the needle moves on Beacon Hill, it tends to move quickly. Last Tuesday, one member of the Governor’s Council was warning his colleagues that if they didn’t stop attracting […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
The Download: KIPP success a matter of degrees
In the world of high-achieving urban charter schools, seeing graduates ultimately go on and finish college has always been the Holy Grail, the goal that school leaders say truly represents […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics
44 reps disclose health care conflicts
More than a quarter of the 160 members of the Massachusetts House disclosed last week that their votes on municipal health care legislation, hotly debated by unions, mayors and selectmen, […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: How does New Hampshire do it?
For years, New Hampshire has been like an oasis in the desert to antitax forces.  The “Live Free or Die” state has no income or sales taxes, and yet it […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics, The Download
The Download: Lantigua lets down Lawrence
The coda has yet to be written on the political career of Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua. Â Â But attracting the attention of federal law enforcement officials never bodes well, as Sal […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: Glum Sal
Jury selection begins today in the corruption trial of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi, and the former king of Beacon Hill is already looking and talking like a beaten man. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, The Download
The Download: No idle threat
With the price of oil topping $112 a barrel, the highest price in nearly three years, it won’t be long before we see $4 a gallon here in Massachusetts, perhaps […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Download
The Download: What the frack?
Sherry Vargson lights a match, sticks it near the water coming out of her kitchen faucet, and watches as a flame shoots upward. As this multimedia story from Time magazine […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Politics
Schools set aside funds for special ed increases
Brookline Public Schools are scrambling to close a nearly $1.5 million budget gap for the fiscal year beginning in July, yet the School Committee is nevertheless setting aside $400,000 in […]