Happening Today:
8:00 | DCR Stewardship Council holds a virtual policy meeting, which includes public comments on its two-year strategic oversight plan. Priorities from the plan call for improving council governance and transparency, focusing on climate change and biodiversity, and supporting stakeholder engagement
10:00 | Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and Massachusetts Clean Energy Center officials announce $18 million in workforce grants, some involving the offshore wind industry. Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Tepper and Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Jones attend | Pipefitters Local 537, 40 Enterprise St., Dorchester
11:00 | City of Boston officials host a press conference to "announce new guidelines and standards to ensure equality in access to City services for residents whose gender and sexual identities have been historically marginalized by government agencies." | Boston City Hall, Third Floor Mezzanine
5:00 | Candidates in the special election to fill the vacancy left by former Sen. Anne Gobi, have until 5 p.m. to submit their nomination papers to local clerks. Certification of papers by the local registrars or election commissioners must be wrapped up by Friday, ahead of a Sept. 5 due date for candidates to get paperwork to the state elections division.
Apparently Bay State transportation has already improved so darn much since Gina Fiandaca has been in the Healey cabinet that she decided to take some – out of town.
Forgive the newsroom snark there, but it’s a good a theory as any we’ve heard in the 21 hours since Fiandaca dropped some news no one saw coming – that she’s ending her time as state transportation secretary after just seven months, with an enormous agenda still to be accomplished in one of the most politically sensitive and vital areas of the state’s new competitive thrust.
Under the dictum of Occam’s Razor – the most likely answer is the one that’s simplest – Fiandaca found herself in conflict with new T GM Phillip Eng or members of Healey’s closest staff, or there were internal decisions thwarting her desired direction. She may have wanted the MassPort CEO job, and its much higher salary, coming open soon. It could be some more odious reason. We’ll see what reporters learn in coming days.
For now we just have the secretary’s leaked statement to employees – “I have come to a decision to leave my position” – and straightforward recaps of her short tenure in the Globe, Herald, News Service, etc. Joe Battenfeld led the grumbling on behalf the State House press corps about the insistence on secrecy from the administration as to what impelled the departure.
We can’t blithely assume there’s no benign, legitimate, personal situation behind her sudden quick departure – and if so, that’s her business. That needs to be said.
But this announcement, or the reaction to it actually, continues a conversation held around the periphery of the Healey administration for say the last 2-3 months, along the lines of, “When are they going to DO something?” Healey has filed a budget and a version of Gov. Baker’s tax relief package – and no other major policy legislation.
Progress on the biggest issues facing the state, and its governor, can be specifically measured. How much safer and faster is the MBTA? How are carbon emission levels compared to 1,3,5 years ago, and how many clean-energy jobs reside in Massachusetts? And definitely the most pressing for the newest generation in the workforce: how many housing units were created in the past 1,3,5 years, at what price level?
It would be unrealistic and unfair to expect the needle to have moved on any of those yet. But it’s more than fair to wonder why comprehensive strategies and the specific legislation to peruse have been so absent. It’s out of character for new governors, though this one does take her time with everything, it seems.
Healey has noisily hired a housing secretary and a new T general manager and a transportation safety overseer and a climate chief. But hiring people is not the same as proposing strategies to solve problems; defining policy goals; measuring whether you’re achieving them; getting results. Gina Fiandaca is Exhibit A.
Wu’s ordinance on tents, services, shelter goes to City Council
Speaking of specifics: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu yesterday filed her ordinance to back up her statements in recent weeks that the city would move to tamp down the chaos, drugs and mayhem at Mass. Ave. and Melina Cass Boulevard.
More slowdowns, shutdowns, shuttles for T riders
The MBTA did its utmost to continue the status quo in the wake of Fiandaca’s big news yesterday: announcing a now-familiar litany of inconveniences riders will have to suffer in the hope of better, safer service ahead.
Also in the news: The collapse of civilized societal order
The Globe runs down the various ways in which gangs of young people ran amok over the weekend, which plays nicely with the now-commonplace mass shootings and book bans nationwide to lend an air of apocalyptic dystopia to the coming of fall.
Curfews may not be the answer to teen crime, but cities are trying
Picking up on the troubling trend – mayhem for recreation by teens – Governing Magazine looks at teen curfews being adopted by cities across the country, and why they may not be working.
You can’t stop the Beat
In the wake of the disheartening shootings at the Boston Caribbean Festival, with more of the same in Worcester, WGBH aired sound from Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune and other leaders, who said residents must insist on pushing through the concern and gloom with an law enforcement response, but also hope and joy.
Five resignations later, Amherst school board can’t do business
The Amherst School Committee is down to two members, not enough to take any votes, after three members resigned in succession along with the district’s top two professional leaders. As Dave Eisenstadter of MassLive reports, the sweeping changes in the district come ahead of the release of a long-awaited report into the treatment of transgender students and how the district handled complaints.
See you in November: Late dropout cancels Taunton prelim
One of two would-be challengers to Taunton Mayor Shaunna O’Connell pulled his name off the ballot at the last minute, meaning the incumbent and her former chief of staff, Ed Correiea advance to a head-to-head faceoff in November. The Gazette’s Daniel Schemer reports that with no other races drawing more than two candidates, the city canceled its planned preliminary vote.
UMass Dartmouth art students may trade downtown for the mall
Two weeks after UMass Dartmouth art students learned they would be losing their studio space in a former retail building in downtown New Bedford, some are learning their next stop may be a shuttered Bed Bath & Beyond storefront in North Dartmouth. Arthur Hirsch of the New Bedford Light has the details on what the college is–and isn’t–saying.
RA strike could complicate Tufts move-in day
Resident assistants at Tufts University plan to go on strike this morning, just in time for students to arrive for move-in day. The United Labor of Tufts Resident Assistants is seeking its first contract with the university and Tufts.
Case finally closed: DA says husband killed ‘Lady of the Dunes’
Cape and Island DA Robert Galibois says he has officially closed the criminal investigation into the death of a woman who became known as the “lady of the dunes” after her body was discovered on a Provincetown beach in 1974. Galibois said Monday that Ruth Marie Terry was killed by her husband, who died in 2002.
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