Still no word from Gov. Patrick on what he will do with the budget and sales-tax hike.
At his press conference at 5:30 today, Patrick was lavish in his praise for Senate President Murray, Speaker DeLeo and other legislators for passing three reform bills he says represent “a giant step forward in restoring faith in state [...]
Archive for June, 2009
There was a flash of the classic Fred Berry wit in the last line of the press release his office sent out late Wednesday announcing that Senate and House conferees had reached agreement on an ethics reform bill:
“I look forward to working with my colleagues in the legislature to pass this sweeping ethics reform so [...]
People have finally discovered the Essex Regional Retirement Board, and they’re not happy.
Former Salem mayor Neil Harrington, now the town manager in Salisbury, puts his finger on it in today’s Newburyport Daily News:
“What happened here is the last vestiges of Essex County government … exists in a vacuum (and) most people have paid little [...]
News from Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry’s office is that the conference committee may finish work on an ethics reform bill later today or sometime tomorrow.
With pension reform now law, and transportation reform very much on the front burner this week, it’s looking like the Legislature may act on its reform agenda before approving new [...]
Early reviews are good for the new transportation reform bill, which may really encompass the best of the House, Senate and governor’s proposal.
E-mail from Rep. Lori Ehrlich, D-Marblehead, who’s made this a priority (and who was at work on Bunker Hill Day): “I think we may no longer be ‘Lost in the Exhaust.’”
Action is expected [...]
The Pioneer Institute is out with a list of ten common-sense suggestions for changes in state policy that it claims would save taxpayers $1.689 billion a year.
At No. 10 is repealing the Pacheco Law, named after state Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, and designed to protect public employee jobs regardless of the cost to taxpayers.
Or as [...]
If closed conference committee meetings are a tradition as Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry claims, it’s one that doesn’t go back very far.
State Rep. Ted Speliotis, D-Danvers, recalls legislators, the press and public being routinely allowed to attend such meetings during his first stint in the Legislature which began in 1979.
Things had changed by 1997 [...]
Peabody Mayor Michael Bonfanti chose a small conference room at the Lahey Clinic to announce this morning that he will indeed be a candidate for re-election in the fall.
It was a low-key affair attended by about 20 staffers and supporters. He said the unusual location of the event was meant to highlight the city’s growing [...]
In case anyone is thinking of giving out an award for the person who blew the whistle on the bar-hopping former head of the Peabody Housing Authority, state Rep. Joyce Spiliotis says it wasn’t her.
She called this week to say that all rumors to the contrary — and there are plenty out there with all [...]
That 78-78 vote in favor of eliminating the so-called “hack holidays” (Evacuation Day, aka St. Patrick’s Day; Bunker Hill Day) for state and Suffolk Country workers was proof positive that legislative Democrats are worried about the fallout from the DiMasi scandal and the state’s fiscal meltdown.
But while Gov. Patrick has sought to take advantage of [...]
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About
Nelson Benton is editorial page editor of The Salem News. Over the past four decades he has covered all the cities and towns of the North Shore, as well as the Statehouse. His political column appears every Friday on the Opinion page. Categories
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