Window Into The State House

By
South Boston Today Staff
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State standoff over Airbnb regulations leaves locals in regulatory limbo
Because Gov. Charlie Baker and lawmakers haven’t yet come to agreement over how to regulate and tax Airbnb and other short-term rental services, some cities, such as Cambridge and Boston, have been left hanging in terms of their own current or proposed ordinances – and what they can and can’t enforce.

 

Elizabeth Warren’s ‘shadow war room’ preparations for 2020
 
Speaking of Elizabeth Warren, the Washington Post’s Matt Viser, formerly of the Boston Globe, reports that Warren has quietly built a “shadow war room” in order to help Democrats get elected in November – and for the “further positioning of herself for an all-but-certain 2020 presidential bid.”

As for her expected run in two years, there’s some bad polling news for Warren: Former Vice President Joe Biden is way ahead in the most recent survey of voters about potential Democratic candidates, reports CNN. Warren is running only fourth among Democrats in the CNN preference poll. We find that hard to believe, but that’s what the story says.

In other Warren-related campaign news (of the 2018 variety), Shannon Young at MassLive reports how Warren is turning White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s “impolite arrogant woman” insult to her political advantage. The Herald’s Alexi Cohan reports how Warren the other day in Roxbury was revving up the Democratic base for the midterms.

 

Congestion pricing for Uber and other ride-sharing firms in Boston?
 
Speaking of newfangled digital-era services, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, the former chief information officer for the city of Boston and now a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, has an intriguing idea at CommonWealth magazine: Congestion pricing for Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing firms whose cars are clogging city roadways.

In fact, we’d go a step further: Maybe it’s time to consider congestion pricing in Boston in general, rather than imposing congestion pricing regionally only on the Mass Pike and Tobin, an idea that’s unfair to Pike/Tobin drivers already paying tolls and an idea that doesn’t address the worst traffic congestion on non-toll roadways like I-93 and Route 128.
 
 
Poll: Even nurses are split on Question 1
 
This doesn’t bode well for backers of Question 1, or, at the least, it doesn’t exactly strengthen their argument in favor of mandatory nurse staffing levels at hospitals. From Martha Bebinger at WBUR: “A WBUR poll of 500 registered nurses shows 48 percent plan to vote for the ballot question that would establish nurse-to-patient ratios in state law, and 45 percent say they’ll vote against the measure. Seven percent are undecided. ‘Nurses are split on the question,’ says pollster Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, which conducted the survey for WBUR.”

SHNS’s Michael Norton (pay wall) has more on the poll, while the Globe’s Priyanka Dayal McCluskey had a pre-poll story on the same topic a few days ago. Btw: U.S. Sen. Ed Markey has come out in favor of Question 1, reports WBUR.

 

T to replace North Station drawbridges, hopefully eliminating commuter-rail bottlenecks
 
This is interesting: At the cost of $100 million, the MBTA is planning to replace the two drawbridges (which look like they’re one) that usher trains in and out of North Station. If all goes well, the new wider bridges will have more tracks that will improve traffic flow and increase the number of platforms available for passenger service, reports the Globe’s Adam Vaccaro.

In related matters, Transit Matters, in an opinion piece at CommonWealth magazine, is blasting a DOT north-south rail link study that the advocacy groups says ignores the infrastructure and service benefits of a tunnel connecting North and South stations.
‘Romney is trying to distance himself from himself’
 
The Never Trump movement of 2016? What Never Trump movement? Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now running for U.S. Senate in Utah, is at it again, playing dumb about how he was once one of Donald Trump’s top Republican critics in 2016. Amber Phillips at the Washington Post says Romney is now effectively “trying to distance himself from himself” and providing a hint about what role he’ll play in the Senate come January, i.e. he won’t be the principled pillar of GOP opposition to the president.
 
 
Lawmakers join those pressuring SSA to rethink Woods Hole terminal
 
The Steamship Authority is facing growing pressure to head back to the drawing board with its plans for a new $60 million passenger terminal in Woods Hole, with two Cape lawmakers joining residents in pushing back against a design that has been called inappropriate for the village-like feel of where it will be built, Ethan Genter reports at the Cape Cod Times.

 

 

Neighbors in Seekonk say movie-theater-to-fish-farm push doesn’t smell right
 
More on the local food industry: As communities across the country come up with novel ways to repurpose traditional commercial real estate—see also empty malls and Sears’ bankruptcy filing—neighbors in Seekonk are gearing up to fight a plan to use part of a former movie megaplex as a fish and shrimp farm, Joseph Siegel reports in the Sun Chronicle.
 
 
‘Ice pigging’: Scituate’s latest attempt to solve its ‘brown water’ problem
 
Don’t know what ‘ice pigging’ is? Neither did we until we read Mary Whitfill’s piece at Wicked Local on the latest proposed solution to Scituate’s disgusting (see accompanying photo) “brown water” problem. It involves “pushing a solution of ice, water and a freezing-point depressant into pipes to remove accumulated material.”

 

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