Healthcare workers continue to suffer assaults and other incidents of workplace violence. The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, the Massachusetts Division of 1199SEIU, the Massachusetts Emergency Nursing Association and the Massachusetts College of Emergency Physicians have come together to support meaningful, measurable and enforceable legislation addressing workplace violence in our healthcare facilities. Pass H.4767.
While pop-culture watchers were abuzz last weekend over Taylor Swift’s wedding at Madison Square Garden, one Cape Cod official had his sights dialed about 150 miles northeast, to the superstar’s oceanfront Rhode Island mansion.
The nearly 13,000-square-foot estate, assessed at just over $28 million, is a multipurpose muse. It inspired a 2020 song by Swift, a new tax on luxury vacation homes in the Ocean State, and, now, a bid to bring a version of that tax to the Cape.
Officially known as the Non-Owner Occupied Property Tax — but less wonkily nicknamed the Taylor Swift Tax — the new policy was created in Rhode Island's state budget and kicked in last week. It imposes an annual surcharge on certain properties assessed over $1 million, targeting higher-end vacation homes. Owners who live in the house themselves or rent it out for more than half the year are exempt, and the revenue will flow to a fund that supports affordable housing.
Dan Gessen, a Falmouth resident and member of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, wants to see Cape Cod offer something similar. He introduced a home-rule petition this month that — if approved locally and on Beacon Hill — would let the 15 towns on Cape Cod adopt a local surcharge on high-value homes that sit empty for most of the year.
Gessen's plan would apply a surcharge of $2.50 per $500 of assessed value above $1 million, on top of regular property taxes, and towns would be able to set that exemption threshold higher than $1 million if they choose. While upwards of $1 million in assessed value will get you a lot of house, it’s not necessarily Swiftian opulence in a county where the median home price tops $700,000.
Gessen, who envisions using the revenue to help year-round residents with their mortgages, says adopting the surcharge would incentivize property owners to rent their seldom-used houses to locals, instead of letting them sit vacant and incurring the extra tax.
On one level, you could see a policy like this pitched as an ideological successor to the state's millionaire's tax: asking the wealthy to chip in more to keep the state livable for those with more moderate bank accounts. But Gessen acknowledges the idea would face a long road to becoming law, with buy-in needed along the way at the local, regional and state level.
And, if the measure does get sign-off within Barnstable County, it would land before a state Legislature that for years now has resisted another local tax some Cape and Islands leaders see as providing some housing relief. Home-rule petitions from towns across the region designed to help finance affordable housing by adding a transfer tax on high-dollar home sales regularly die on Beacon Hill.
Taylor Swift was talking about the life of a showgirl when she sang it, but you could easily rewrite it to: "But that's not what home rules get, they leave us for dead."
A proposed Taylor Swift tax on Cape Cod follows a state senator invoking Noah Kahan in his bill to cap ticket resale prices. What celebrity-inspired policy should Massachusetts jump on next? Let me know at [email protected]
Massachusetts has a loophole in our school vaccine law, and it puts children and communities at risk for diseases like measles.
A growing coalition of labor, education, healthcare, and family advocates supports H.2554 to close that loophole and prevent outbreaks before they start. Lawmakers should act now to pass H.2554 and protect Massachusetts schools.
HAPPENING TODAY
11:00 | Rep. Kate Donaghue hosts a training session for how and when to use naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses | Great Hall, State House
2:00 | House and Senate negotiators assigned to hash out data privacy legislation differences hold their first conference committee meeting. The conferees are Reps. Michael Moran, Tricia Farley-Bouvier and David Vieira, and Sens. Cindy Creem, Barry Finegold and Patrick O'Connor | Room A-2 | More Info
2:00 | Senate Committee on the Census meets to discuss census racial categorization and redistricting | Room A-1 | Livestream
3:15 | Gov. Healey attends the wake of Massachusetts State Police Trooper Jacob Mick, along with Massachusetts State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble and Public Safety & Security Secretary Gina Kwon | Saint Rose of Lima Parish, 244 West Main Street, Northborough
6:00 | MassDOT holds a design public hearing about a project in Lee, which involves resurfacing Route 20 and completing maintenance repairs of bridge structures over Greenwater Brook and I-90 | Register
8:00 | Lt. Gov. Driscoll, Interim Transportation Secretary Eng, Highway Administrator Gulliver, Sen. Rodrigues, Rep. Fiola, Fall River Mayor Coogan and others celebrate the completion of Braga Bridge lighting installation | Senator Thomas Norton City Pier, 600 Route 79, Fall River
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FROM BEACON HILL
JOBS BILL DEVELOPING: The House is gearing up for a Wednesday vote on a revamped version of Gov. Healey’s economic development bill. Significant new policy measures tacked on by House leaders include moves to regulate e-bikes and allow multifamily housing on land owned by religious institutions. — Boston Globe
NORTON HOSPITAL: A bill now moving through the Legislature would let the state use eminent domain to seize the Norwood Hospital property. Supporters see it as a step toward opening the hospital back up, six years after it first closed due to catastrophic flooding, and restoring care to the region. Construction at the site stalled in 2024 amid the Steward Health Care bankruptcy saga. — State House News Service
Join us for our fourth annual Meet the Media event, a timely gathering that brings together journalists and professionals in communications and government affairs for a morning of connection, conversation, and community. Hear from Boston Globe Power Play co-authors Shirley Leung and Jon Chesto, MASSterList columnist Jon Keller, Axios Boston’s Mike Deehan, GBH News Rooted host Paris Alston, CommonWealth Beacon editor Laura Colarusso, NBC10 Boston politics reporter Matt Prichard, and MASSterList editor Katie Lannan.
NEWS NEXT DOOR
SHERIFF VS. ICE: Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux says the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Boston office is trying to intimidate his office into complying with a detainer request. ICE Boston posted on X criticizing the Bristol House of Correction for releasing a man who was in the country illegally, with pending firearm charges, instead of holding him on a detainer. Heroux said his office acted in line with the law. — MassLive
SHOTSPOTTER DEBATE: Police unions in Cambridge say the July 4th shooting death of a city Department of Public Works employee was “directly related” to a City Council decision earlier this year to stop using the gunshot detection system Shotspotter. The May vote came after heated debate over surveillance and safety, and one councilor says it’s too early to speculate on if the technology could have made a difference. — Cambridge Day
IN THE AIR: Boston hospitals, some fueled by a plant in the Longwood area, are among the city's biggest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, contributing to pollution that can have harmful health effects. Clinical needs make cutting emissions complex. — CommonWealth Beacon
DAM RULING: In the latest chapter of a long-running fight over history, aging infrastructure and river ecology, a Middlesex Superior Court judge says the Billerica Historic Commission must allow the removal of the circa-1828 Talbot Mills Dam on the Concord River. — The Sun
A BIRTH CENTER IS BORN: Cambridge Health Alliance reopened its freestanding birth center, the second such facility in the state and the only one in Eastern Massachusetts. The relaunch comes after a string of closures at birth centers and maternity units around the state. — GBH News
OVERTIME FRAUD: A former executive secretary of the Boston Housing Authority was sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty to fraudulently collecting more than $70,000 in overtime. She's also expected to forfeit her pension. — Boston Herald
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Constituent Services Representative, Office of Congressman Jake Auchincloss, MA-04
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