Healthy ego? BPS gives itself straight A’s | Developer faces big bill for T tunnel closures | Good news from Statman | Negative name recognition | Voters that are beyond clueless | Progressive patriotism | Quick hits | About Contrarian Boston?
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Housewarming gift for Healey? Beacon Hill sits on billions in federal cash as session nears end
That’s the scuttlebutt as the legislative session winds down and over $2 billion in federal pandemic relief money sits unspent, including hundreds of millions eyed for affordable housing.
The Democratic-controlled Legislature is hanging onto the money to give Attorney General Maura Healey some cash to work with should the party’s progressive standard bearer win the governor’s race this fall, or so the theory goes.
Eric Shupin, public policy director at Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, has heard the talk. But Shupin contends the more likely case is that state legislative leaders, who haven’t exactly been in the habit of kissing the brass ring of governors of either party, are simply operating on their own rhythm and don’t see the urgency of acting now.
But here’s the problem: It can take years to get new apartments and condos built here in Massachusetts, and it’s even more complicated when you are talking subsidized housing that may require tax credits or other government money.
By doing nothing, the Legislature is effectively kicking the can down the road for another year, all at a time when housing unaffordability has reached crisis levels, with home prices and rents hitting record highs.
“There is a huge cost of delay,” Shupin said. “It can be a very long process and it is a very urgent need on our end.”
Time for a reboot? BPS website touts city schools as national success story
We are pretty sure Mary Skipper, the new Boston schools’ czar, is going to have more important things to deal with.
Still, the incoming Boston schools’ chief might want to have someone take a look at the rather fanciful way BPS describes itself in the “data and reports” section of the school system’s website.
For starters, the writeup, entitled “Facts and Figures,” gets the number of students in the district wrong, listing 54,000, when that number has dropped to 49,000.
Let’s just say a 9 percent drop is more than a rounding error.
Then there’s this whopper: “Over the past twenty years, the Boston Public Schools (BPS) has been transformed from a failing school district to one of the most renowned urban public school systems in the country.”
It’s not clear this statement would have been true even during the tenure of the late Thomas Payzant, who made significant progress, during an 11-year tenure that ended in 2006, in closing the “student achievement gap,” as WBUR put in a story last year.
But with Mayor Michelle Wu battling to keep state education officials from taking over the city’s school system, it’s definitely not true now.
Here’s hoping the inflated self-description is not indicative of how BPS administrators truly see the system.
Because if it is, then Skipper faces some choppy waters ahead.
For Dems, 46 percent never looked so good
By David Van Voorhis/aka Stat Man
Such are the odds FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats of winning the Senate in the 2022 midterms, in its newly released forecast.
The latest polling numbers, which are higher than betting markets have previously pegged them, reflect a shift in some Americans' allegiances after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, as well as an especially weak batch of Republican candidates.
Pennsylvania is a good snapshot of this dynamic: Dr. Oz, a reality TV doctor with no political experience, has neither the brash political incorrectness nor the populism that made fellow reality TV star Donald Trump the new face of the party. Meanwhile, his opponent, John Fetterman, is an outsider who won the nomination despite gaining relatively few endorsements from Democratic party officials. Fetterman’s brand of left-wing populism is a key reason why he outperformed Conor Lamb, his much-endorsed moderate primary opponent, in most hypothetical head-to-head polling.
FiveThirtyEight now gives Fetterman a 52% chance of winning the seat, odds that would surely be lower if any other two candidates were the nominees.
Back on track? Firm redeveloping Government Center garage to resume demolition
HYM Investment Group is poised to resume tearing down the sprawling, 1960s-era downtown parking garage, a little over three months after a section collapsed during demolition work, killing a 51-year-old heavy equipment operator.
The developer of the $1.5 billion Bulfinch Crossing project on Monday will restart work on dismantling the garage, with the section under which Congress Street runs slated for removal.
The March accident triggered a multi-day closure of the downtown subway tunnels underneath the garage, while also triggering an investigation by federal safety regulators.
Compounding matters, HYM effectively triggered a second T tunnel shutdown last month when it discovered, somewhat belatedly, serious water damage to one of the garage’s support columns.
One big question hanging out there right now is what the financial fallout will be for HYM and its Bulfinch Crossing megaproject.
Led by former City Hall development chief Tom O’Brien, HYM has been taking down sections of the multi-acre, concrete behemoth over a period of years, building new towers as sites are freed up.
But here’s the thing: You can’t unexpectedly stop work on a major, downtown development project for three months without paying some price. Time is money in real estate, and a serious delay like this could push back the opening of the next phase and hurt the project’s overall profitability.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the MBTA confirmed the agency is tallying costs for both the June and March shutdowns of the Orange and Green line tunnels.
When that’s done, the T then plans to present the bill to HYM.
We definitely have not heard the last of this story.
In Mass GOP primary, the wrong kind of name recognition
Geoff Diehl, the Trump loving former state lawmaker and the MassGOP’s nominee for governor, is beating his primary opponent in name recognition.
In fact, it’s not even close. Eighty-three percent of Massachusetts voters have heard of Diehl, compared to just 40 percent who recognize the name of his more moderate primary opponent, Wrentham businessman Chris Doughty, according to a recent poll by UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion.
But here’s the thing: Twenty-nine percent of voters who have heard of Diehl have a negative opinion of him, compared to 25 percent who have a favorable view and 28 percent who have no opinion.
Hmm, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to gloat over Trump’s endorsement, or to hire the ex-president’s long-time political henchman, Corey Lewandowski, as a senior campaign advisor.
Doughty fares a bit better, with his favorable and unfavorable numbers tied at 17 percent each. Plus, as Doughty embarks on a $500,000 summer TV ad campaign, he has more room to grow.
Who are these people?
Speaking of that UMass Lowell poll, stats measuring the name recognition in the state of major and minor political figures were unintentionally, but quite definitely, amusing.
Roughly 1 percent, or about 10 people out of the 1,000 registered voters polled, had never heard of former President Barack Obama, while the same number professed total ignorance when it came to Gov. Charlie Baker and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
But it gets even sillier. There are actually 10 people in Massachusetts who have no clue as to who Tom Brady is, while 20 have never heard of the MBTA. Four percent, or 40 people, don’t recognize Bill Belichick’s name.
By contrast, everyone has heard of Dunkin’ Donuts, which earned universal recognition in the poll.
History wars rage as nation celebrates the 4th
When it comes to remembering our nation’s past, we are increasingly caught between two comic book versions of American history.
On one side, there is the Trumpist, 1950s schoolbook version, encapsulated in the 1776 Project.
On the other side, there is the view, popular on the academic left, that sees the United States as so irredeemably racist and flawed that it’s an open question as to whether the nation is worth saving.
Let’s just say it’s a curious line of thinking.
Here’s an interesting op-ed piece in The New York Times by a Duke constitutional law professor spelling out why progressives need to rediscover their inner, patriotic selves.
Quick hits:
Frightening but true: “Romney says the return of Trump would ‘feed the sickness, probably rendering it incurable’” Boston Globe
Former Boston mayor hits the national stage as point man for president: “As labor secretary, Walsh hits the road for the Biden administration Globe
Governor’s $600 million tax relief bill all there, but for the reduction in capital gains: “Baker tax relief bill clears committee mostly intact” CommonWealth Magazine
We’ll take it! Experts talk of a "jobful” recession: “If the U.S. Is in a Recession, It’s a Very Strange One” The Wall Street Journal
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple of months 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.