Death of a titan | Hands off our sales | Big statistical warning sign | Wu flexes political muscles | Guess who’s a title contender now? | About Contrarian Boston |
Wu dives into key suburban race
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is taking her newfound progressive star power to the suburbs in a bid to tilt one of the few competitive state legislative races this election cycle.
Wu is hosting a fundraiser Sunday for state Sen. Rebecca Rausch, an uber liberal Needham Democrat who faces a tough reelection battle this fall in a district that in the past has gone Republican.
For a $1,000 contribution, you can be a “champion,” while $500 earns you “ally” status and $250 qualifies you as a “supporter.” Don’t have that kind of cash? No worries, you can still be a “friend” - it will just cost you $100.
Rausch will likely need all the help she can get. Her opponent, state Rep. Shawn Dooley, a Norfolk Republican, has amassed a much larger campaign war chest, as we noted here.
In addition, Wayland, Wellesley and Natick, deep blue strongholds where the Biden vote topped 75 percent in 2020, were pulled from Rausch’s district last year, part of a complex series of nips and tucks that have overall made her more vulnerable to a challenge.
Rausch is clearly hoping to a paint Dooley as an extremist, with the pitch for the fundraiser casting Dooley as “one of the farthest right legislators in the state.”
However, that’s likely to be news to Dooley, who has been battling with other moderates to remove Jim Lyons, a hard-core Trumpie, as chair of the MassGOP.
From mutual funds to newspapers to Seaport real estate, Ned Johnson was a true Boston titan
Edward ‘Ned’ Johnson III, the long-time head of Fidelity Investments, has passed away – and it’s hard to put into perspective just how big of an impact he had on Boston. Let’s just say it was enormous.
Of course, there was Fidelity, the famous mutual fund company started by Johnson’s father and vastly expanded by the then-younger Johnson, an expansion that’s generated tens of thousands of high-paying jobs over the decades here in Boston.
But there was also Fidelity’s (i.e. Johnson’s) early pioneering development of the World Trade Center in what was then referred to as the South Boston Waterfront, and today simply called the Seaport.
There was also Fidelity’s (i.e. Johnson’s) takeover of scores and scores of local weekly and daily newspapers that were bundled together into Community Newspapers, a company long since sold and resold, and now slowly being whittled to nothing by Gannet.
There’s also Fidelity’s (i.e. Johnson’s) creation of Boston Coach, the limousine service that in so many ways foreshadowed the rise of Zip Cars, Uber and other personal-transit companies.
And then there’s the Johnson family’s contribution to the local arts scene, particularly Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum, today a true gem of the art world.
The word ‘titan’ is thrown about too often these days. But when it comes to Ned Johnson the word is more than appropriate. WBUR’s Beth Healy has a good piece on Johnson’s huge business and personal contributions over the years.
Real estate groups seeing red on attempts to tax sales
Forget about rent control. With bills that would cap apartment rents stuck in legislative limbo, real estate groups are focusing their lobbying efforts on what they see as the biggest threat right now: transfer fees.
A proposal by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu would slap a tax of as much as 2 percent on sales over $2 million in a bid to raise money for affordable housing. Rep. Kevin Honan, a Democrat who represents Allston-Brighton, is shepherding that bill through the Legislature.
A Senate bill, which has 20 Democratic sponsors, or half the chamber, goes much further, allowing transfers fees on sales of all sizes. In addition, local officials would be able to hit up home flippers and real estate investors with a “speculative sales” penalty that could go as high as 6 percent of the sale.
“We are getting almost daily emails from MAR, GBAR and Homeowners' Associations,” wrote one veteran agent in an email. “The biggest issue for real estate agents right now is the transfer tax bills.”
Get those duck boats ready to roll again
By Stat Man, aka David Van Voorhis, a high school senior and stats fanatic.
Thirty percent: That’s the odds of the Celtics winning the NBA Finals, the best in the NBA according to the FiveThirtyEight 2021-22 NBA projection model. With the Celtics on a hot streak and with their pickup of Derrick White, their outlook according to this model has increased significantly as of late. The Suns and Bucks are next in line, with odds of 20% and 15%, respectively. FiveThirtyEight's projection model takes into account team record and recent margin of victory, as well as their roster strength based on a metric they call RAPTOR.
Another big warning sign for Boston
That would be the latest census numbers for Suffolk County, which is basically Boston and a few ring communities like Winthrop, Revere, and Chelsea.
Boston and its environs lost nearly thirty thousand people over just 15 months during the pandemic, the Globe reports.
With bidding wars pushing the price of suburban and even rural homes across Massachusetts to insane heights, it clear where at least some, if not a good portion, of those urban refugees wound up.
What’s behind this exodus? Maybe it was Covid concerns, but we’d bet the switch to remote work, and the freedom it has granted to white collar professionals to live anywhere with reliable internet service, was a big factor.
Add that news to downtown Boston’s still half-deserted offices, shops and restaurants, and you have a troubling picture.
Quick Hits:
And more closures are probably on the way. From the BBJ: “Mass. tops list of states with the most college closures.”
Why in the world would she? “Healey Won’t Commit To Chang-Diaz Debate Challenge” State House News
Maybe not such a good idea after all: “Baker’s $4,000 employer hiring bonus called ‘deeply misguided’” CommonWealth Magazine
If everybody loves it, why doesn’t it pass: “Poll finds at least 60% support among state senators for legalizing sports betting” State House News via Boston Herald
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.