| Thurston Howell III and other yacht club members thank you, lawmakers |
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| From Brian Dowling at the Herald: “Yacht clubs on public land along the Charles and Mystic rivers and Boston Harbor could see their state rent payments slashed by nearly 40 percent thanks to a few lines buried in the state budget that would, in all, save the boat clubs $115,000 a year.” |
| They’ll be working through the weekend on Beacon Hill |
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| House Speaker Robert DeLeo says lawmakers will be meeting every day, starting tomorrow and through the weekend, to finish up legislative business by the scheduled end of the session on July 31, or next Tuesday. Busy lawmakers will apparently get an assist from Gov. Charlie Baker, who has promised to get his budget recommendations to legislators as soon as possible, so they can focus on other issues, reports SHNS’s Matt Murphy.
Btw: Among the many other items still on the legislative agenda at the State House, non-compete agreements and use of campaign funds for child-care have resurfaced as issues on Beacon Hill, SHNS is also reporting (pay walls). |
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| History: Gross becomes Boston’s first black police commissioner |
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| Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross has been tapped as the city’s new police commissioner, the first person of color ever to hold the position, reports Ally Jarmanning and Lisa Creamer at WBUR. Gross’s quick appointment by Mayor Marty Walsh came after current commissioner Bill Evans officially announced yesterday that he’s indeed retiring to take over Boston College’s security force.
The Globe’s Travis Andersen and Jerome Campbell have the highlights of Gross’s rise to the top at BPD. The appointment is drawing high praise from across Boston, especially from leaders in the African-American community, the Herald reports. MassLive’s Jacueline Tempera reports how one person in particular is very happy: Gross’s mom. Joyce Ferriabough Bolling at the Herald says the appointment of Gross is cause for celebration, but there’s still work to be done. The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld explains why it was important for Walsh to act fast on the appointment. |
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| Just wait till Mayor Walsh hears about this: Uber and Lyft getting into bike and scooter ride-sharing act |
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| As Mayor Marty Walsh mans the barricades against a potential Bird scooter invasion of Boston, Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth magazine reports on how Uber and Lyft are “expanding their vision of ride-sharing to include not just cars but bicycles, electric bicycles, and electric scooters.” |
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| So what’s preventing Bob Kraft from building a new soccer stadium in Boston? |
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| Contrary to reports coming out of Miami (of all places), Bob Kraft is not about to build a new stadium near TD Garden for his New England Revolution soccer team – and he’s going to have trouble finding a stadium site anywhere else in downtown Boston, reports the Globe’s Tim Logan. The reason: “Blame it on Boston’s costly and complex real estate market, its thorny neighborhood politics, and the economics of stadiums in a city where taxpayer-funded subsidies are a tough sell.” |
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| Emerson poll: Capuano holds only a single-digit lead over Pressley |
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| Speaking of Congressional races, Ayanna Pressley indeed still has work to do, but a new Emerson College poll does show her within striking distance of knocking off her Democratic primary rival, U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano. According to the Emerson poll released yesterday, Capuano holds a 38 to 29 percent lead over Pressley in their Congressional battle, with 33 percent of voters still undecided. But these figures also caught our attention: Capuano leads 51 to 24 percent among likely voters. The Hill has more on the poll results. |
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| Mayor Walsh dings Warren and Sanders over their 2020 messages |
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| Boston Mayor Marty Walsh sat down with Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico’s Off Message podcast and offered his thoughts on the message Democrats need to lead with to win back working-class voters who backed Donald Trump in 2016 – and he questions some of the messaging coming from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, noting that “the banking industry really doesn’t impact” the types of voters who embraced Trump’s economic populism. He also dinged Bernie Sanders for failing to say how he would pay for the social safety-net ideas that he’s proposed. Of course, Walsh shares his non-surprise personal choice for 2020: Joe Biden. |
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| Deval, not Liz, might be the best bet for Dems in 2020 |
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| Speaking of the 2020 presidential race, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren may have hit the front cover of New York Magazine and proclaimed as the defacto leader of the Democratic party. But the Herald’s Jaclyn Cashman thinks former Gov. Deval Patrick is a better bet for Dems in 2020: “He was not the GOAT governor, nor does he have a perfect track record on policies and legislation, but he sure can campaign and possibly win. … Patrick could take on President Trump because he is one of the best campaigners, who can deliver a speech filled with hope and inspiration unlike any other politician in the past several decades.” We happen to agree with her. |
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| MCAD now getting involved in … immigrant visas? |
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| Pro-immigrant advocates are now turning to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination to help some immigrants obtain special crime-victim visas, called U visas, and the commission has obliged on at least two occasions by granting such requests, reports the Globe’s Kathleen Conti. For all we know, the requests are perfectly valid. But it also sure looks like there’s some agency-shopping going on here by immigrant advocates. |
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| Senate resists Healey’s ‘fishing’ request for info on Hefner |
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| From the Associated Press at NBC Boston: “Massachusetts Senate President Harriette Chandler is pledging not to reveal the identities of individuals who gave information during the Senate’s investigation into former Democratic Senate President Stan Rosenberg and his estranged husband Bryon Hefner. … Chandler’s comments come as an attorney for the Senate has accused Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey of “fishing” for the identities.”
Ah, but the Senate did fork over a “trove of records” to a federal grand jury earlier this year, confirming the feds were, and perhaps still are, probing the case, reports Matt Stout at the Globe. |
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| Baker slams Trump on abortion-funding move |
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| From SHNS’s Matt Murphy at the Sentinel & Enterprise: “Gov. Charlie Baker urged the Trump administration on Monday to back off its plan to cut federal funding to family planning clinics that provide abortion services, arguing that the new regulation would “enact unnecessary barriers to a woman’s right to choose.”
Meanwhile, Shira Schoenberg at MassLive reports that Baker, a pro-choice Republican, plans to sign a bill that repeals archaic anti-abortion and contraceptive laws still on the books in Massachusetts.
This all may be good general-election politics for the moderate Baker, but you have to wonder how it’s going to play out in the GOP primary, where conservative votes matter, as the Globe’s Joshua Miller reported the other day. |
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