Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

    • This actually impacts real people in the state of Massachusetts. PP’s point below about the “affects every similar parcel” argument was, indeed, addressed and rejected in the judicial decision. At a minimum, it is worth discussion.

  2. One is the amounts of money involved – the story last week just reported that the two were staffers (and even that didn’t look great).

    <

    p>
    Also – Patrick’s rationale for filing the bill, that other developments would be impacted, was addressed in the court’s ruling which stated that there was no precedent, and that this case was specific to this development.  That wasn’t reported last week, and that doesn’t look good either.

    <

    p>
    If Romney had filed a bill like this that benefitted just Ellen Herzfelter, you’d have been going bonkers.

    • As I said in another thread, and a full post, there’s no there there.

      <

      p>

      “Both Secretary Dan O’Connell and Greg Bialecki have recused themselves from the NorthPoint project. They have no professional or personal involvement with or investment in the project whatsoever,” said Kofi Jones, spokeswoman for the Office of Housing and Economic Development.

      <

      p>
      Do you have any reason to doubt this? If so, the reporter should say so.

      <

      p>
      And all the talk of campaign donations from DLA Piper, “who worked on the project” is hooey. It’s a big-ass firm — just look how many locations they have around the world,, with a sizeable Boston office. Firms with a lot of lawyers work on a lot of projects, and it’s not fair to drag all the DLA Piper folks who didn’t work on the Cambridge project into it. They gave money because they supported Patrick, for whatever reason.

      <

      p>
      They’ve done it to Obama, Edwards, and Hillary; and they’re doing it to Patrick. Insinuation and innuendo rule.

  4. not for the ridiculous accusations of conflict of interest, but for the substance of the issue. I support moves to streamline business regulations to make things more efficient, but not on the backs on local communities and their environment. i don’t know enough about this to be sure, though it seems fishy, but this is the real damage of the Globe’s witchhunt: all these nonsense stories are drowning out the real policy issues that should be discussed in the media right now, so instead of talking about the Municipal Partnership Act or Cape Wind, we get drapes and the Caddy instead.

    • Who knew?
      http://www.mass.gov/…

      <

      p>
      Also, the House and Senate have both passed the Municipal Govt. Bill which the Governor filed, so I bet he signs it.

      <

      p>
      The MMA web site say one provision is to allow towns to ditch paying newspapers for legal ads and to do on-line or web notices instead.  THAT should kill a few remaining weeklies.

      <

      p>
      http://www.mma.org/i…  (look for where it says ‘municipal procurement’).

      <

      p>
      I’m not saying this is necessarily bad stuff (well, I’m NOT crazy about a new agency with the concomitant bureaucratic structure) but it is UTTERLY unreported (I did blog about it, but I ain’t the Boston Glob).

Archives