UPDATED 11/23/15 5:23PM: Gov. Baker has signed Velis’ bill into law. WESTFIELD—The dreary, rainy fall night enveloping a former auto dealership along Route 20 belied the party inside. Bright arc lights flooded the service bays, now filled with the Shortstop Bar & Grille’s batting cages.
One major trouble in Holyoke these days is the water and sewer departments’ effect upon the budget. In comparison to Springfield, where the unitary Water & Sewer Commission essentially operates off-budget, the costs and revenues of Holyoke’s systems for delivering potable water and removing water directly
EAST LONGMEADOW—The whir and hum of machines sorting, folding and packing markers, die and tokens hovered over every station. Different board games boxed for shipment, were packed together in bricks of Sorry, Monopoly, Connect Four and more, to be sent off to retailers or intermediary distributors
On balance the budget passed by the legislature and under review by Governor Charlie Baker is not bad. Like many a budget, it includes goodies for members, some substantive, others less so. One non-politician political winner is the poor, who saw the Earned Income Tax
This post is the fifth in a series of posts on the new 189th Massachusetts General Court sworn January 7. SPRINGFIELD—Although not Carlos Gonzalez’s first bid for elected office, 2014 was the first time his name appeared on a ballot. In an earlier life as
This is the fourth in a series of posts on the new 189th Massachusetts General Court sworn on January 7. SPRINGFIELD—Three and a half years after Jose Tosado suffered a devastating loss in 2011’s mayoral election here, the reserved, former councilor’s decision to reenter the political
This week the Massachusetts Senate made a long overdue move in a fiscally responsible way that reflects the needs of our commonwealth and its neediest citizens. By a 29-11 vote—sufficient to override a veto if the House concurs—the Senate voted to permanently freeze the income
UPDATED 5/7/15 4:03PM: To reflect a correction. A previous version of this story indicated that local aid formulas from the state were affected by property values. While this is true, the implications upon Proposition 2 ½ and property taxes, and not local aid, is the
After a winter of discontent that paralyzed the commonwealth, mostly its Eastern regions, there emerged from the cocoon a most bizarre creature. Governor Charlie Baker, who scraped into office with 48.4% of the vote by a gimp 1.9% margin, now finds himself with a stratospheric
This is the third in a series of posts on the new 189th Massachusetts General Court sworn in January 7. WESTFIELD—When John Velis first became the 4th Hampden’s representative, it was too late to file items for the budget himself, let alone legislation that could escape