Another inexplicable MBTA mess | Mass. sports betting bill too little, too late | New local front in abortion rights battle | Healey listed as supporter of downtown rail tunnel | About Contrarian Boston
The big disconnect: Governor’s race comatose as crises mount
We are not just talking about the Supreme Court’s radical decision on abortion, as important as that is.
Massachusetts also faces a dire and growing affordability crisis, from loony housing prices that middle class families can no longer afford to the rising cost of health care, food, gas, electricity, and just about everything else.
And then there’s our looming transportation meltdown, with the wheels finally coming off the MBTA after decades of corner cutting on maintenance.
With Attorney General Maura Healey poised for an easy win this fall in the governor’s race, she is effectively escaping any tough questioning or scrutiny on these issues.
Her only remaining opponent in the Democratic primary, state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz, dropped out last week.
The local press, or what’s left of it, appears content to lazily rake outgoing Gov. Charlie Baker over the coals.
Yet to some extent, what’s the point of that? Baker will be gone in a matter of months, and barring some unforeseen political earthquake, it will be Healey in the corner office calling the shots.
What exactly does Healey plan to do to boost desperately needed housing production and get the T out of daily breakdown mode?
These are big problems that threaten the ability of countless people to simply continue living in Massachusetts, let alone thrive here.
Finger pointing: Government Center garage developer, T, square off over latest transit system meltdown
This isn’t a particularly good look for either side.
Engineers hired by the T inspected the subway tunnels underneath the Government Center garage last spring.
The inspections followed the sudden collapse of a section of the garage during demolition work, killing a 51-year-old heavy equipment operator and sending rubble tumbling to the ground above the tunnels.
Fast forward three months. On Thursday evening, the MBTA halted Green and Orange line service in the tunnels beneath the Government Center garage, creating a nightmare in downtown Boston for long-suffering commuters and T riders.
T officials said they made the decision after being informed by HYM Investment Group, which is redeveloping the Government Center garage site, that one of the structure’s support columns, which extend down through the T tunnels, is “severely deteriorated.”
All of which raises an obvious question: How in the world could this have happened after the earlier and presumably thorough round of T tunnel inspections last spring? Why didn’t the T’s inspectors spot the weakened support column last March?
Well, it’s not our job. That effectively sums up the response CB received from a spokesperson at the T.
While the garage’s support columns passing through the MBTA’s tunnels, “they do not support the tunnel structure in any way and were not related to the March incident or part of the T’s investigation and inspection.”
Rather, that was HYM’s job, with the developer having inspected the columns when it first began redeveloping the Government Center garage site a years ago, the T contends.
Moreover, HYM’s engineers accompanied the T’s engineering team during the March inspections “and had the opportunity at that time to also inspect these columns,” the spokesperson wrote.
We’ve reached out to HYM, but haven’t heard back.
File under: Major missed opportunity.
The bloom is definitely off the rose for DraftKings.
The legalization of sports betting in Massachusetts could prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the hometown fantasy sports and now sports betting giant as well.
State lawmakers are negotiating behind closed doors in hopes of hammering out a sports betting bill.
But after years of dawdling and debate on the issue, it seems unlikely that DraftKings will get much of a boost if Beacon Hill finally pulls the trigger, which remains a big if.
Since lawmakers and regulators first began weighing the issue of sports betting back in 2017, Boston-based DraftKings has entered a more challenging phase in its growth trajectory, to put things diplomatically.
The focus on the business media has shifted from glowing stories on the company’s rapid growth, to when it will turn a profit and the woes besetting its stock price.
DraftKings stock closed at $14.15 a share Friday, down from $59.29 last Aug. 1.
Meanwhile, legalization of sports betting in Massachusetts is not likely much of prize at this point for DraftKings. Thirty states and D.C. have already legalized sports betting since the Bay State began debating the issue five years ago, while DraftKings is now battling to gain entry into states with much bigger markets, like Ohio.
Plus, it’s not clear whether betting on college sports will make the cut as negotiations drag on at the State House, with the state Senate opposed.
Next front in protecting abortion rights: Gender divestment campaigns
And apparently State Sen. Lydia Edwards is ready to the lead the charge.
The East Boston Democrat, in a post on LinkedIn, is calling for a “gender divestment” movement that would pressure companies into cancelling conventions and events in states that ban abortion.
That would also involve pushing local and state governments to move their investment dollars out of states that pass laws to make the medical procedure illegal.
“We need to learn from Divestment movements from South Africa to today’s fossil fuel movement,” Edwards writes. “We need to remember the Boycotts of the Civil Rights movement.”
Can legislation at the city and state level be far behind?
New hope for North South Rail Link?
Maybe, if Attorney General Maura Healey, the front-runner in the race for governor, turns out to be a strong backer.
Healey’s name is among the dozens of prominent local elected leaders and officials who have signed on as supporters of a likely multibillion-dollar proposal to finally connect North and South stations by boring a tunnel underneath downtown Boston.
Gov. Charlie Baker was not exactly a big fan of the North South Rail Link, with his administration issuing cost projections that supporters have decried as skewed.
Healey at the very least will bring a fresh set of eyes to the project.
Stay tuned.
Quick Hits:
Maine shows that good old -fashioned lawmaking matters: "There's a way to outmaneuver the Supreme Court, and Maine has found it." New York Times
Even the local fishing industry is feeling the crunch: “Massachusetts fishermen feeling the pinch of lower lobster prices, rising fuel costs” Boston Herald
Yes, it feels like the yahoos are taking over the country: “Opinion The Supreme Court declares war on modern America” Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post
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