FWIW: DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE SUPPORTING ANY CANDIDATE!
SLOW ZONE SHORTSLEEVE BRAGS ABOUT HIS MBTA ACTIONS THAT
FAILED TO ADDRESS MAINTENANCE, PERFORMANCE AND CREATED
THE FEDERAL SAFETY ISSUES!
SLOW ZONE SHORTSLEEVE CREATED THE MBTA FAILURES THAT
GOV. MAURA HEALEY WAS FORCED TO ADDRESS AND THAT
PHILLIP ENG IS CORRECTING! IT'S NOT FAST OR INEXPENSIVE!
SLOW ZONE SHORTSLEEVE WAS IN CHARGE WHEN A NO BID
CONTRACT FOR A BATHROOM AND LUNCHROOM WAS AWARDED.
THE WHITE TOOTHED GOVERNOR DEFENDED THAT ILLEGAL ACT!
New from CommonWealth Beacon |
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ENERGY: The landmark transmission line intended to bring hydropower from Canada into Massachusetts did not deliver any energy for two weeks, underscoring the tricky balance state leaders must make as they attempt to move away from natural gas. Jordan Wolman catches up on the state of play. |
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SURTAX: Policymakers have leaned on revenue from the voter-approved surtax on wealthy households to fuel an expansion of child care access, but they’ll need to find a permanent home for it on the state’s financial books going forward. Colin A. Young reports for State House News Service. |
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OPINION: Dorothy McGlincy, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions, urges policymakers not to discard local wetlands, stormwater, and septic system rules in a bid to speed up much-needed housing development. |
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For years, the Baker administration sought to tackle the MBTA’s perennial budget shortfalls by forcing the agency to rein in its spending. In the late 2010s, the T cut hundreds of millions of dollars in spending and hundreds of positions from its workforce. But that ultimately led federal investigators to warn in 2022 that the agency’s staffing shortages contributed to serious safety problems on the system. |
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It’s been a very different spending story lately. |
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T officials will request final approval this week on a budget that would ramp up spending considerably once again, extending a years-long hiring and investment spree intended to put the darkest days of slow zones and runaway trains in the past. As has become the new normal, the MBTA would lean heavily on state dollars to make the growth — more than $1 billion over a five-year span — possible. |
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The $3.4 billion budget, an increase of nearly $300 million over the current year, makes some observers squeamish. Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, called it “bloated.” But to the group that represents cities and towns who help fund the T, transit leaders are simply catching up with what it actually costs to run the system that the region needs. |
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“Today’s investments are a direct response to years of deferred maintenance and staffing shortages—conditions that worsened under an austerity-driven approach extending from 2016 to 2022,” the MBTA Advisory Board wrote in its endorsement of the budget proposal. |
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“Such investments have paid off,” the group declared, recapping the elimination of subway slow zones, more frequent trips in the urban core, and an ongoing project to upgrade signal systems. |
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After accounting for some mid-year spending controls, the year-over-year budget growth would be a bit more than 6 percent, well above the rate of inflation. Mary Ann O’Hara, the T’s budget chief, pitched the plan as “a deliberate moderation of spending” after several years of double-digit growth driven by the landmark 2022 federal safety investigation into the T. |
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More from CommonWealth Beacon |
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STATE GOVERNMENT: Republican Brian Shortsleeve said that, should he win his gubernatorial campaign, he would veto House and Senate budget appropriations until the Legislature fully complies with Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s probe, reports Alison Kuznitz for State House News Service. |
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NEW CODCAST: “If the World Cup is like a flesh wound on your municipal budgets, the Olympics would have been like losing a limb,” Chris Dempsey tells Jordan Wolman on this week’s Codcast. In 2024, Dempsey co-chaired “No Boston Olympics,” which successfully pushed the city to abandon its Olympics bid. |
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OPINION: Two years after he co-authored a report from the state’s Racial Imbalance Advisory Council, Raul Fernandez says it’s time for the state to take action on pervasive school segregation – and a new lawsuit may finally force that to happen. |
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AUDIT: Gov. Maura Healey says she supports the voter-backed audit of the Legislature, but she avoided weighing in on the specifics of a House-approved bill that would significantly change the auditor’s powers. (Boston Herald – paywall) |
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OVERDOSES: State health care experts say a focus on harm reduction tactics such as making overdose-reversal drugs more available has helped Massachusetts curb overdose-related deaths far more than the national average. (GBH News) |
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HOUSE, PART ONE: The House will take up Gov. Maura Healey’s proposal for a mid-year spending injection, but the rewrite strips out several policy riders the governor included such as social media regulations and allowing Sunday hunting. (State House News Service – paywall) |
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HOUSE, PART TWO: Also on Wednesday, the House intends to approve legislation intended to limit book bans that have picked up momentum in Republican-led states. This April op-ed piece by two publishers urged the Legislature to act on the issue. (The Boston Globe – paywall) |
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WIND: Meghan Lapp, a longtime New England critic of offshore wind who has voiced concerns about its impact on commercial fishing and whales, now works for the Trump administration in the office that regulates the nascent industry. (The New Bedford Light) |
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