Happening Today
A week of deadlines; One more 3rd District debate
— The state’s primary election may be just eight short days away, but there’s another deadline facing lawmakers even sooner. State House News Service reports, the state’s Comptroller Thomas Shack is urging lawmakers to closeout last fiscal year’s budgets by Aug. 31. That deadline has been routinely ignored in recent years
— Campaign finance reports covering the period of Jan. 1 through Aug. 17 are due at the Office of Campaign and Political Finance today for all candidates
— Today is also the deadline for applications to the 2018 low number plate lottery at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The Registry says 201 plates are up for grabs this year, including some with just three numbers. Winners are announced on Sept. 15.
— Both the House and Senate meet in informal sessions starting a 11 a.m.
— All 11 candidates seeking to follow retiring U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas as the state’s 3rd District Congressional representative have been invited to a League of Women Voters forum, one of the last chances for candidates to distinguish themselves from the crowded field . Chelmsford Performing Arts Center, 200 Richardson Road, Chelmsford, 7 p.m.
— Gov. Charlie Baker will attend a fundraising reception in Andover on behalf of Rep. James Lyons, and the event is slated to draw a mixed crowd. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez plans to protest outside the venue and will apparently be joined by fellow Democrat Tram Nguyen—who is challenging Lyons for his set—and Third District Congressional candidates Alexandra Chandler and Sen. Barbara L’Italien, all of whom take issue with Lyon’s stances on reproductive rights. Lanam Club, 260 North Main St., Andover, 6 p.m.
— Lt. Gov. Karyn Polite and House Speaker Robert DeLeo will lead a delegation that will ceremonially open the recently completed Belle Isle Marsh Marine Ecology Park and walking path in Winthrop and Revere. 134 Morton St., Winthrop, 1:45 p.m.
For more calendar listings, check out State House News Service’s Daily Advances (pay wall – free trial subscriptions available) and MassterList’s Beacon Hill Town Square below.
Today’s Stories
Final countdown: One more week to convince primary voters
The last full week of campaigning ahead of the ill-timed post-Labor Day primary next Tuesday is upon us and the Globe kicks things off with dueling profiles of the two Democrats vying for a chance to unseat Gov. Charlie Baker. Mark Arsenault follows the 47-year-old Jay Gonzalez on the campaign trail and finds him already targeting the Republican incumbent while leaning on his own biography and then catches up with Bob Massie, digging into how a near-death experience—and a liver transplant—gave him a new lease on life and a new passion for politics.
‘Future of the party:’ Globe backs Pressley
Debate whether endorsements still matter all you want, but Ayanna Pressley sweeping the backings of the city’s dailies seems significant. A few days after the Herald urged voters to back her insurgent campaign, the Globe used a Sunday editorial to laud Pressley’s ability to deliver the goods as a city councilor and noting her bona fides on targeting educational inequality. “Pressley represents the present of the Seventh District and the future of the Democratic Party. She will serve the district well in Congress.”
Game developer Wu finds politics ain’t beanbag
Meanwhile, at the other end of the Congressional primary race spectrum …. Stephanie Ebbert of the Globe profiles the quixotic challenge being waged by Brianna Wu against Stephen Lynch in the state’s 8th Congressional District. Lynch has essentially chosen to ignore his challenger and Wu herself admits she underestimated how hard it would be to hack Bay State politics the same way she did video game development and Gamergate. In the end, the story reads like an advertisement for your friendly neighborhood political operative, with Wu declaring both her intention to run again in 2020 and to start her next campaign by hiring political “veterans.”
Remembering John McCain, war hero, patriot, Obamacare savior
The local tributes continue to flood in as funeral preparations are being finalized for U.S. Sen. John McCain, who succumbed to brain cancer over the weekend, nine years to the day after the same disease claimed the life of Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy.
At WBUR, Bay State Democrats from John Kerry to Seth Moulton share their remembrances of the former GOP presidential candidate, who became an unlikely Democratic hero late in his career for his persistent resistance to President Trump and his thumbs-down vote that saved parts of the Affordable Care Act.
Meanwhile at WGBH, Maggie Penman collects reaction from from across the political spectrum.
In the Globe, the late Sen. Kennedy’s wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, recalls the unlikely across-the-aisle friendship the two forged after a heated showdown on the floor of the Senate.
Friday night revelations: State Police report clears brass, pins blame on departing trooper
The Mass. State Police used the cover of a summer weekend—as in, after 9 p.m. on the Friday before the last full weekend in August—to announce that the dispatcher turned K-9 officer hired despite having been named in drug trafficking indictments years earlier would leave and that leadership of the agency had been cleared by an Internal Affairs investigation. But it’s not clear the entire web of the scandal—which of course connects to other recent black eyes for the agency—has been untangled.
Trooper Leigha Genduso, who in 2007 testified under immunity that she helped her former boyfriend package pot for sale and launder drug trafficking proceeds said she would contest her dishonorable discharge and her lawyer did not hold back in describing the IA investigation as “a coverup from day one,” Andrea Estes and Shelley Murphy report in the Globe. The internal report suggests the agency was unable to uncover Genduso’s criminal past because she lied in her application.
The timing of this news release–on a subject that has the potential to tarnish Gov. Baker’s management credentials–likely won’t be lost on his electoral rivals and was definitely noticed by Herald columnist Howie Carr, who predicts that with one more pre-Labor Day Friday on the calendar, one more big news drop could be in the offing.
Fox interlude boosted L’Italien’s coffers
Here’s a fun one from the 3rd District race: The Lowell Sun reports that Barbara L’Italien’s unexpected and unplanned star-turn on Fox News—when she was mistaken for a Congressional candidate from Arizona—led to a short boost in individual contributions to her campaign. Campaign finance reports show the day of that appearance and the following day were her busiest for fundraising, with nearly 350 donors ponying up over a 48-hour period.
Testy debate as Secretary of State race heads to wire
Bill Galvin has been practically unassailable since he first became the state top elections official in 1994. Now fellow Democrat and Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim is giving Galvin a run for his money, with the two exchanging punches (verbal, that is) during a Friday afternoon debate broadcast. Galvin, 67, took his upstart challenger to task for failing to vote in the 2004 presidential primary and the 2006 gubernatorial primary, with the 34-year-old Zakim countering he hasn’t missed a vote since “since moving to Boston and since registering to vote here.” Zakim has blasted Galvin for his past voting record on social issues like abortion and gay rights, issues, Galvin counters, are irrelevant to the secretary of state’s job.
Primaries come into focus with eight days to go
Across the state, focus is turning to next week’s primaries and the races that will unfold in the weeks afterwards. Geoff Spillane of the Cape Cod Times writes about the primary race that pits two Plymouth Democrats against one another for the right to take on Republican incumbent Sen. Viriato deMacedo in November. And Jim Hand of the Sun Chronicle looks at the importance of the Attleboro area for Republicans hoping to get elected to statewide offices.
Democrats sideline superdelegates in first convention ballot
In the latest sign the 2016 election will never, ever go away, the national Democratic Party has moved to strip so-called superdelegates of some of their sway in presidential nominations. David Siders and Natasha Korecki report in Politico that the change approved over the weekend—which sidelines the 15 percent of delegates sent to the national convention under the superdelegate system until after the first vote is taken on the party’s presidential nominee—represents a win for the party’s progressive wing, especially outspoken superdelegate critic Bernie Sanders.
Audit urges more oversight for state program to protect farmland
Auditor Suzanne Bump is urging the Department of Agricultural Resources to step up its monitoring of farmland under state agricultural restrictions to ensure protections the state paid for are being maintained, Scott Merzbach reports in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Bump’s audit, which grew out of visits to dozens of farms statewide, also calls on the agency to do a better job of making it easier for farmers to understand when such restrictions can be modified or relaxed.
Worcester weighs tax shift on apartment buildings
The Worcester City Council will investigate whether to tax multifamily residences as commercial property, a move that could boost the city’s tax base by a third while affecting the owners of more than 1,200 rental properties. Nick Kotsopolous of the Telegram reports if approved but the full council the change would also require the blessing of the legislature.
Toney Cape resorts run afoul of CLF on sewage
Apparently, there’s more to worry about in the waters off the Cape than just the great white sharks that have been scaring the daylights out of the tourists.The Conservation Law Foundation has filed a pair of federal lawsuits against the Wychmere Club and the Wequassett Inn24, arguing the resorts are required to obtain federal permits in order to discharge their sewage into leaching fields, Michael Norton reports at the State House News Service (paywall).
CLF contends the resorts are discharging tens of thousands of gallons of sewage a day into leaching fields. From there, nitrogen and other pollutants are making their way into the soil and groundwater and from there into Wychmere Harbor and Pleasant Bay, leading to algae blooms, according to the Cape Cod Chronicle.
Amherst town manager pulls down the big bucks
Forget being governor. Apparently town government is where the money is these days. Amherst Town Manager Paul Brockelman just got a nice, $8,000-plus raise, bringing his salary up to $170,887, reports Jim Russell at MassLive. He started off at $155,000 in 2016.
That puts Brockelman ahead of Gov. Charlie Baker’s $151,800 paycheck. In fact, if Brockelman was running a state, he’d be one of the most highly paid governors in the country Still, Brockelman certainly appears to be earning every dime of his pay, with the town’s Select Board citing his “excellent and diligent administration.”
And if you start to get a little jealous, just remember Amherst isn’t some sleepy Pioneer Valley town, but rather home to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Just keeping up with all the town-gown issues has got to be full-time job in and of itself.
Mass grappling with rise in greenhouse emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts rose for a fourth year in a row, reports Bruce Mohl, editor of CommonWealth magazine.While the numbers lag – the latest report is from 2015 – emissions have been rising steadily since 2012. The increases raise concern as the state faces a 2020 goal of reducing greenhouse emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels.The Baker Administration is banking on hydro-power from Quebec and new off-shore wind power, which sounds like a plan but there’s a hitch: All that hydro-power and off-shore wind won’t be coming online until at least 2021.
Methuen woman faces pot-gifting charges
Zoe Matthews of the Eagle-Tribune has the story of a Methuen business owner who may be the first person to be charged for gifting marijuana to her customers. The rare prosecution raises a host of questions about the gray area the state has been operating in since recreational marijuana became legal but before state-backed stores are able to open.
Another mass shooting just as students complete march on Smith & Wesson
Dozens of students marched from Worcester to Springfield over the weekend to protest gun violence and demand that Smith & Wesson do more to stop gun violence, Saraya Wintersmith reports at WGBH. The protestors want the gun maker to donate $5 million to research gun control and violence and to stop making assault-style weapons already banned in Massachusetts. The irony of the march concluding not long before a shooter opened fire during a live esports event in Florida is likely not lost on anyone.
International Conference on Clinical Pediatrics and Medicine (CSE) A
ConferenceSeries LLC Ltd is privileged to announce its “International Conference on Pediatric Hospital Medicine” with the innovative theme “Dynamic and Collegial approach of Pediatric Hospitalists” which will be held during August 29-30, 2018 inBoston, USA.
4th Annual Congress on Infectious Diseases (CSE) A
Conference Series LLC LTD Conferences invites all the participants from all over the world to attend “4th Annual Congress on Infectious Diseases” during August 29-30, 2018 Boston, USA which includes prompt keynote presentations, special sessions, workshops, symposiums, oral talks, poster presentations and exhibitions.
John Angus & Harvard RTC hosting: Meet & Greet for Candidate Rick Green
John Angus and the Harvard Republican Town Committee invite you to Meet Congressional Candidate Rick Green at the Hildreth House (15 Elm Street Harvard, MA) from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM on Wednesday, August 29th. This is your opportunity to speak with Rick about any issues or concerns you might have about Massachusetts’ 3rd Congressional district. We hope to see you there!
14th World Summit on Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia Care Research and Awareness
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to Boston, Massachusetts, USA on behalf of Organizing Committee for the 14th World summit on Alzheimer’s disease, Dementia Care Research and Awareness scheduled on August 31–September 01 2018.
Corporate Citizenship Awards 2018
We look forward to seeing you on September 6th for the Boston Business Journal’s 13th annual event to recognize Massachusetts’ most philanthropic companies!
A Night of Music to Benefit Katie McBrine for State Senate
Come out for a Night of Music to benefit the campaign to elect Katie McBrine to the State Senate. Kingsley Flood and Eddie Japan will perform at the River Club in Scituate on September 7, 2018, beginning at 7:30PM. Tickets available now!
Committee to Elect Katie McBrine
2018 State of the Region Address – North Shore Chamber
Join us September 12th at our Annual State of the Region Breakfast. The State of the Region Breakfast connects chamber members and business professionals with information about important regional issues, while providing direct access to elected officials.
North Shore Chamber of Commerce, Inc.
Harvard Alum Stuart Eizenstat will discuss “President Carter: The White House Years”
The definitive history of the Carter Administration from the man who participated in its surprising number of accomplishments―drawing on his extensive and never-before-seen notes.Stuart Eizenstat was at Jimmy Carter’s side from his political rise in Georgia through four years in the White House, where he served as Chief Domestic Policy Adviser.
The Coop Event Series…Authors, Coop Kids & More!
Development Unicorns: Neighborhood Game Changers
The most transformative multi-phase developments in recent Boston history started with a vision, taking decades to design, entitle, plan and execute. Join NAIOP to hear from the original visionaries behind three of these game-changing projects (Assembly Row, The Fenway and Seaport Square) to hear how they started and what has changed along the way.
Today’s Headlines
Metro
Esplanade cafe shut for flies, dirt and employees who don’t know how to handle food – Universal Hub
Head of Mass. credit union lobbying group to step down – Boston Business Journal
Massachusetts
Developers reinventing South Shore waterfront – Patriot Ledger
Northborough, Bellingham bans on medical marijuana facilities upheld by AG – MetroWest Daily News
Truro again tackles zoning bylaw on craft cannabis – Cape Cod Times
Pittsfield settles claim with 91-year-old who claims she was roughed up by police – Berkshire Eagle
Nation
Aides expect Trump to go rogue on Manafort pardon – Politico
Three dead, including gunman, in shooting at Florida gaming tournament – New York Times
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