MassGOP cheating shenanigans | Access journalism in Boston | Ambitious Roxbury plans detailed | Green line greed? | About Contrarian Boston |
Green Line gentrification new? Not exactly
There has been a flurry of stories about rising rents and real estate speculation in Somerville along the new Green Line extension.
Developers are “snapping up two-families and three-deckers along the new Green Line” in Union Square and elsewhere, the Globe reports, citing an antipoverty activist in Somerville.
It may very well be that real estate activity is picking up along the Green Line extension, or GLX, as trolleys on the line finally trundle into service. But developers who are just now starting to snap up older rental properties in the neighborhood in hopes of building multimillion-dollar condos are rather late to the game.
As with the case with most speculative frenzies related to new transit lines, the buying began years ago when the GLX was still on the drawing boards, as I reported here in 2016.
If you want to see what could be the future of what’s left of working- and middle-class Somerville, just look at Davis Square, which underwent a wave of redevelopment in the 1980s with the arrival of the Red Line.
When it comes to gentrification along the GLX, that train left the station years ago.
Diehl on hot seat for alleged delegate cheating scheme
Republican candidate for governor Geoff Diehl rolled out a running mate on Monday, grabbing some badly needed ink in the local press.
But the real story was taking place behind the scenes, when his rival to become the MassGOP’s standard bearer in the governor’s race blasted Diehl for allegedly orchestrating the “worst cheating scandal” in the history of the state party.
Chris Doughty, the Wrentham businessman also competing to be the MassGOP’s gubernatorial nominee, contends Diehl, a former state lawmaker and diehard Trumpie, tried to pack the upcoming MassGOP convention in Springfield with “illegitimate delegates” chosen in violation of party rules.
While Republican city and town committees traditionally meet to send their own slates of delegates, a Diehl field coordinator organized an “illegal” Western Massachusetts Patriots caucus that then chose 275 delegates in one swoop, according to a statement by Doughty’s campaign.
The state party’s credentialing committee rejected the delegates, who could have potentially taken the state convention seats of legitimate delegates chosen by those long-standing state and town party committees, Doughty contends.
“They thwarted the largest cheating scandal by a candidate in the history of the Massachusetts Republican Party,” said Doughty, who is fighting to position himself as more moderate alternative to Diehl.
OK, hyperbole aside, it does certainly look like Diehl and his campaign engaged in some highly questionable tactics.
A statement from Diehl’s campaign manager confirmed the problematic Western Massachusetts caucus, while also questioning whether Doughty’s running mate and wife were qualified under party rules to serve as delegates, among other allegations.
Here the thing, though: The kind of people Diehl has courted and surrounded himself with don’t speak well of his credibility.
Diehl solicited and won Trump’s endorsement, hired his former scandal-plagued campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to be a senior advisor, and has rogue MassGOP party chair Jim Lyons trying to ram through his nomination.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Two competing visions battle it out for promising Roxbury development site
Lab space and affordable apartments are the common themes of competing proposals a pair of deep-pocketed downtown developers have submitted for a key Nubian Square site.
New York-based Tishman Speyer and hometown development heavyweight HYM Investment Group have submitted rival bids for a city-owned 7.7-acre Lower Roxbury development lot across from the Boston Police Department headquarters.
Tishman and neighborhood partner Ruggles Progressive are proposing nearly 500 apartments for the P3 site, all of which would be income restricted, meaning reserved for individuals and families earning below certain, currently unspecified income thresholds. The proposal would also have 62 homeownership units, including 15 live-work units, with two-thirds designated as income restricted.
Tishman’s proposal also calls for more than 210,000 square feet of lab space, 67,000 square feet of retail, while 64 percent of the site would be open space, including a central plaza.
Headed by former City Hall development chief Tom O’Brien, HYM has proposed a bigger life sciences component and a smaller amount of housing.
Teaming up with Rev. Jeffrey Brown of the nonprofit My City at Peace, HYM envisions 273 condos and apartments, along with 700,000 square feet of life sciences space. The housing would be “truly affordable” for “low- and middle-income families and individuals,” with plans for retail and open space as well, the developer’s pitch states.
File under: May the best proposal win.
David Ortiz shooting story offers a revealing look at ‘access journalism’ in Boston
Two stories with two very different takes published over the weekend inadvertently cast a light on the inner workings of journalism in Boston.
Dan Kennedy in his must-read Media Nation blog zeroes in on a key detail in a pair of competing stories on the 2019 shooting of Red Sox Hall of Famer David Ortiz.
Boston magazine, in “a rich, deeply reported story about Ortiz's life in the Dominican Republic,” comes to the conclusion that it is unlikely the “powerful and politically connected drug lord César “The Abuser” Peralta” ordered the hit, Kennedy writes.
The story appears to have involved months of in-depth reporting, Kennedy notes.
Enter The Boston Globe, which published its own piece, possibly in reaction to the Boston magazine article. The centerpiece of the Globe story is an interview with Ed Davis, the former Boston police chief who Ortiz brought on board to get to the bottom of the shooting.
Davis offers up a conclusion to the Globe very different from the one in Boston magazine, arguing Peralta, the drug lord, ordered the shooting and saying it was based on evidence gathered by U.S. law enforcement officials. The Globe story is billed as the first time Davis has discussed his findings.
Hmm…
Now here’s Kennedy on that key detail:
The two accounts also raise some questions about access. The Globe's owner and publisher, John Henry, is also the principal owner of the Red Sox. Davis is a security consultant for the Globe. It does not appear that Davis shared his theory about Peralta with BoMag.
Was the Globe right and Boston magazine wrong? Who knows.
But one thing is clear: The dueling stories are a classic example of access journalism and the benefits of being the dominant media institution in town, with an owner who owns the Red Sox to boot.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.