Boston Contrarian/Dec. 10, 2021
In today’s edition: Goodbye BPDA | Noncitizen voting headed to Boston? | John Henry’s latest gamble | Latinix not so hip after all | Anger over Mass. and Cass homeless hotel |About Contrarian Boston | Seeking contributors
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Clock ticking for Boston’s powerful development authority
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu still intends to pull the plug on the Boston Planning and Development Agency, Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung assures us. She’s just been busy with other things.
Really, Contrarian Boston can’t imagine with what.
We’ve heard Wu compare dismantling the public authority, founded in 1958 in the age of urban renewal, to replacing a bridge, something Leung also alludes to in her piece.
You get the new bridge all ready to go – in this case the planning department Wu wants to create – and, when the time is right, you pull out the old bridge, the BPDA, and slip the new one in.
It certainly works in civil engineering. But the jury is out on whether replacing a deeply-entrenched city bureaucracy can be done without getting the hands dirty, so to speak.
Homeless hotel reignites Mass. and Cass battle
As if Boston’s new mayor didn’t already have enough on her plate.
A city proposal to turn the empty Roundhouse hotel at Mass. and Cass into temporary housing for the homeless isn’t exactly going over so well with the neighbors.
City councilors and South End neighborhood activists are blasting a city plan to convert the old Best Western hotel, which is at the center of the ragged Mass. and Cass tent encampment, into a combination of homeless housing and “medical “triage” area,” the Herald reports.
The icing on the cake, though, has to be the “stabilization care center.” That will feature “dedicated chairs/beds for managing withdrawal and intoxication” available to addicts for 12 hours to an entire day.
Or, as the Herald’s Sean Philip Cotter writes: “People couldn’t do drugs there, but they could head in and ride out a high under medical supervision.”
Wondering why John Henry hasn’t lost his shirt yet
Ok, just kidding – to a point. Henry’s freshly-inked $900 million deal for the Pittsburgh Penguins – an NHL franchise whose ticket sales and TV revenue barely covers player salaries - fits a pattern of betting big on businesses that have potential, but could also use a serious boost.
Henry shelled out $660 million for the Red Sox at a time when the economics of baseball were precarious and the team was seemingly stuck in a crumbling antique of a ballpark.
A quirky quant who made a fortune in commodities trading, Henry went on to buy The Boston Globe in 2013 - four years after The New York Times Co. threatened to shut the paper down. He followed that one up with a $477 million deal for Liverpool F.C. in 2010, ending years of near bankruptcy for the British football club.
Today, both the Sox and Liverpool are booming, on field and off, and the Globe, far from closing, just gave a raise to its employees and has been expanding coverage, in some areas at least.
Is Henry a genius, or just really lucky, or both? Don’t know, but bet against the guy at your peril.
Ready or not, here comes noncitizen voting
Is Boston ready for noncitizen voting? Or more to the point, is Wu?
That’s the question in the wake of New York’s big move to open up local elections to immigrants who don’t have citizenship.
Boston’s new chief executive supported a similar proposal a few years ago as city councilor.
Now, as mayor, Wu probably has the power to get such a proposal through. Will she?
Stay tuned.
Memo to pandering pols: Latinix is out
Maybe it’s time for Democrats to take a breather with all the social justice lingo.
A case in point is “Latinix,” a more gender-neutral version of Latino made its way from the hothouses of academia into the verbiage of progressive activists and politicians.
Apparently, the diverse array of voters of Latin American descent Latinix is supposed to cater to, and describe, don’t use it. Worse yet, 40 percent don’t like it and just under third say they dislike it so much they wouldn’t vote for a politician who uses it, CommonWealth Magazine notes, citing a poll by a Democratic firm that specializes in outreach to Latinos.
Given Trump’s inroads with Latino voters in 2020, file that under major red flag.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is all 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;
· The business of lobbying and public relations;
· Transportation, especially as it relates to housing, development and economic growth;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.
Contrarian Boston seeks contributors
Have a news tip? Is there an issue you would like to see explored? Interested in writing up a news item or short opinion piece? As Contrarian Boston gets on its feet, I would like to add more news and a wider range of commentary as well.
Intrigued? Drop me a line at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
Thanks for reading and see you Monday.