Mass needs expanded public transportation, not hazardous rental toys It’s not like I didn’t warn everyone. Last summer I wrote a column on the illegal rollouts of dockless electric scooters by Bird Rides in Cambridge and Somerville that was extremely critical of the company’s move on two grounds: safety, and the problem of […]
PUBLIC BAD. PRIVATE GOOD? BOSTON HERALD’S ATTACK ON MASSHOUSING HIGHLIGHTS DOUBLE STANDARD IN AMERICAN JOURNALISM
Over the last several days, the Boston Herald has had its knives out in no less than three articles and two editorials against MassHousing—an independent, quasi-public agency created in 1966 and charged with providing financing for affordable housing in Massachusetts. Readers can be forgiven for assuming that such lavish attention from a publication […]
FAIR HOUSING WHACKED: TUFTS STUDENTS FIGHT ADMIN PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH “CLASSIST” DORM SYSTEM
More than 200 Tufts University students, faculty, and allies from surrounding communities held a march and demonstration last week to protest a new campus housing policy, according to the Boston Herald. Over the summer, the Tufts administration announced that its annual lottery system for on-campus housing during each academic year would be heavily modified […]
SOME THOUGHTS ON TRANSPORTATION POLICY
Transportation is a subject I address frequently in my columns. But, as is often the case in journalism, it’s usually necessary to write about it piecemeal given various editorial constraints. So I might cover flooding subways one week and a gonzo proposal for sky gondolas over the Seaport the next. But rarely do I […]
GREENFIELD BLUES: HOMELESSNESS IS NOT JUST A BIG-CITY PROBLEM IN MASS
![Greenfield City Hall by ToddC4176 at en.wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0] from Wikimedia Commons](https://1fkoby17rlj41m4giv3x4cvk-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Greenfield-City-Hall-by-ToddC4176-at-en.wikipedia-CC-BY-SA-3.0-from-Wikimedia-Commons-728x410px-354x200.jpg)
We don’t get much news about Western Mass in Boston. And since the population is relatively small in the largely rural western counties of the Commonwealth, it can be easy to miss significant stories. Because the scale of noteworthy happenings is naturally smaller there. Because our diminished metro news outlets have trouble covering […]
POPULAR NOT POPULIST: GOV BAKER CONTINUES TO POLL WELL WITH PEOPLE HE’S SCREWING
There is no area of Massachusetts politics where it is more baffling to contemplate Gov. Charlie Baker’s ongoing popularity in the polls than the annual state budget debate. One can only draw two conclusions from such musing: either people don’t get the budget information they need from Bay State press, or a majority of […]
FLIPPING US THE BIRD: SCOOTER-SHARING COMPANY LITTERS CAMBERVILLE WITH DANGEROUS VEHICLES NO ONE ASKED FOR
Bird’s model looks to be entirely profit-driven and completely mean-spirited. No matter how much CEO Travis VanderZanden tries to equate the unasked-for and unwanted service to “freedom.”
STOP BAKER’S ‘MORE SCHOOL COPS AND SURVEILLANCE’ PLAN
Why the Mass budget surplus is better spent on infrastructure needs Having just been handed an estimated $1 billion budget surplus for the 2018 fiscal year, Gov. Charlie Baker was quick to make a proposal last week to divide up the unexpected spoils. According to MassLive, “Around half of that will be […]
GRAND SCHEME
Mass legislature helps, harms workers in “deal” with labor and business lobbies No sooner did the Supreme Judicial Court shoot down the “millionaires’ tax” referendum question last week than the Mass legislature rammed a so-called grand bargain bill (H 4640) through both chambers. A move aimed at shoring up tax revenue threatened by […]
CAPITALIST VETO
Popular “millionaires’ tax” referendum question blocked by a pro-business SJC The Fair Share Amendment—better known as the “millionaires’ tax”—that would have gone before voters this November as a statewide referendum question was shot down this week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). So the effort to increase taxes on people making $1 […]
