Contrarian Boston/Jan. 3, 2022

Cheney’s warnings | Million-dollar Club | The most useless job | Mini-Rollins | What’s Contrarian Boston | Seeking writers/contributors |

Truly exclusive: The surge in towns with seven-figure home prices

Just call it the million-dollar club.

As we roll into the new year, the median price of a home has hit $1 million and up in 25 communities across Massachusetts.

That’s a 39 percent jump over last year and a five-fold increase from a decade ago, when there were just five.

Back Bay, Beacon Hill and the South End lead the way with a $3.4 million median home sale price, followed by: Nantucket ($2.2 million), Brookline ($2 million), Weston ($1.8 million), Chilmark ($1.7 million), Cambridge ($1.68 million), and Wellesley ($1.65) million.

Still, the bigger surprise was the number of well-off but not necessarily exclusive communities that have crossed the $1 million mark in the last few years, like Westwood, Carlisle, Sudbury, and Manchester.

And more are waiting in the wings, with the median price in Somerville, Jamaica Plain, Orleans, Truro, and Chatham all closing in on the million-dollar mark.

We will have a slightly more accurate read when The Warren Group’s numbers for December come out later this month, but the basic picture is unlikely to shift much.

Affordability crisis anyone?

What Mass Republicans can learn from Cheney

If they want to oust Jim Lyons, a Trump Mini-Me who refuses to give up control of the MassGOP, they are going to have to do better than this.

The state’s two top Republican lawmakers offered up a big bowl of rhetorical mush when recently asked by State House News Service to comment on Lyons, whose slavish embrace of Trump has led the state GOP to the edge of extinction.

Citing the need for a more inclusive party, state Sen. Bruce Tarr said he hopes “Chair Lyons will work on that very, very hard” on that.  Rep. Brad Jones said he is “hard-pressed” to see “how we’re meeting whatever metrics of success,” while conceding “other people may have a different vision,” Jones said.

Different vision is one way to put it.

In case you missed it, Lyons refused to take action against a state committee member who sent a homophobic email and celebrated Gov. Baker’s decision not to run again, crediting Trump’s endorsement of a potential rival.

They may hate the guy, but it sounds like Tarr and Jones have either accepted the unacceptable, or simply don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to boot Lyons before he completely burns down the house.

The Republican lawmakers could take a lesson or two from U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, who didn’t not mince words yesterday in an interview with ABC News on the real Trump.

Trump is "clearly unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again,” said Cheney, the top Republican on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

"He crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before," Cheney said, calling out Trump’s “dereliction of duty.”

Sure, we all know Cheney’s tough talk isn’t going to intimidate Trump.

But at least we know where she stands.

Polito gets attention, but for wrong reasons

Speaking of million-dollar homes, CommonWealth Magazine ran a list the ten stories that drew the most eyeballs in 2021.

And at No. 2 was none other than CW’s piece on Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito’s purchase with her husband of a nearly $1.8 million home near the ocean in Dartmouth.

The five-bedroom, five-bath, grey-shingled home was touted in its listing for its access to a private beach and its “casual elegance,” the public policy mag notes.

Polito, who recently announced that she would be stepping down alongside Baker at the end of her term, bought the 4,800-square-foot mini-manse in Dartmouth as a getaway spot.

Polito and her husband must have a thing for water views

She and her husband Stephen Rodolakis continue to live in their $1.5 million home in Shrewsbury by Lake Quinsigamond, according to CW.

Mass. governor: Does anyone want this job?

Restaurants, grocery stores and nursing homes are apparently not the only sectors having trouble attracting job candidates.

When it comes to the Massachusetts governor’s race, the already small circle of candidates and potential contenders just keeps shrinking.

With 2021 drawing to a close, former Democratic state Sen. Ben Downing announced he would be dropping out, having apparently run out of cash, with just $33,000 left in his war chest, CommonWealth Magazine reports.

That’s after raising $460,000 this year. Let’s just say the burn rate was not sustainable.

Downing’s announcement comes just a few weeks after Charlie Baker shocked the local political world with his decision not to seek a third term.

It’s still the state’s most useless job

There’s no lack of applicants, though, for the largely ceremonial job of Lt. governor.

Ten Democrats have either thrown their hats in the ring or are considering a run for the $165,000 a year job, which comes with, to put it rather generously, a rather loose set of responsibilities.

Weighing the possibilities are Dan Koh, Marty Walsh’s right-hand man at the U.S. Department of Labor, state Sen. Eric Lesser, who served in the Obama White House, and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, the Globe reports.

For ambitious politicians on the make, it would seem like an odd post to pursue.

However, while the job has few official duties, it has proven to be a stepping stone to bigger things, including, more than once in recent years, the governor’s office.

That said, it’s still a useless job.

Rollins redux in Plymouth County?

A criminal justice reform advocate is eyeing a run for Plymouth County district attorney, the Patriot Ledger reports.

Rahsaan Hall, a Brockton resident and director of the ACLU of Massachusetts' Racial Justice Program, told the paper that he sees a "unique opportunity to reimagine public safety."

Hall’s interest comes in the wake of Rachel Rollins shakeup of the Suffolk County DA’s office

Rollins, recently sworn in as U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, added social workers to the Suffolk DA’s office and took federal immigration officials to court over their practice of making civil arrests at courthouses, The Bay State Banner reports.

Stay tuned.

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.

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 Wednesday.