development

THE OMICRON SYNDROME

New COVID-19 variants inevitable until pharmas are stopped from privatizing public vaccine research and development

THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO COME

*Scenes from the 9/9/19 Cambridge City Council hearing on parking space disposition for the disputed Sullivan Courthouse development*

How Cambridge can put public need before private greed

A five-hour city council hearing can really get you thinking.

As I sat watching the latest chapter in the East Cambridge courthouse saga unfold at city hall on Monday, I mulled over what it would take to start moving the city away from dependence on rubber-stamping massive commercial developments and toward Cambridge government advocating development in the public interest based on the needs of its working- and middle-class residents. Who remain a significant percentage of its population even after decades of gentrification and displacement.

Because the dozens of locals who testified against city government leasing the 420 public parking spaces that developer Leggat McCall Properties needs to be able to proceed with its plan to convert the publicly owned 22-story Sullivan Courthouse into yet another high rent commercial office building—a clear majority of those who spoke—said one of the biggest problems they see with the contested deal is that neither city nor state government ever considered doing anything with the structure other than trying to sell it off to the highest commercial bidder. Given that Cambridge city government is looking for more easy (if insufficient, relative to the tremendous wealth being made by major corporations doing business in the city) tax money from more commercial developments, and state government is just looking to sell the property with a minimum of fuss. Without trying to get the kind of money that the property is actually worth in the red-hot local real estate market.

It’s not bad enough that the now-defunct Middlesex County government dumped the much-hated building on East Cambridge a half-century back, but now both city and state governments are squaring off against the large numbers of Cantabrigians who have long wanted to see the courthouse property used to build more affordable housing units. Something desperately needed by the thousands of people now on public housing waiting lists.

This is because people who believe very strongly that corporations should run the show in our society—neoliberals, as they’re commonly called—occupy most of the positions in all the key departments, committees, and elected bodies that make decisions about development and taxation in cities like Cambridge nationwide.

So my question to myself as I sat watching the fray in the council chamber was: What kind of political movement would it take to ensure that public need comes before private greed in the so-called “People’s Republic”? How can ordinary people make that mocking appellation into a more democratic reality?

Based upon the decades of labor and community advocacy that I’ve done (sometimes overlapping my many years as a journalist), I decided that it will take a well-coordinated effort of committed denizens to really change the focus of Cambridge’s development strategy.

Specifically, it will take the formation of a network of people who believe in the importance of a public development focus for the city that has the ability to run neighborhood organizing, education, political pressure, electoral, and public relations campaigns simultaneously. For the years it would take to change the way development is planned and executed.

A quick look at each of these campaign areas is thus in order.

Neighborhood Organizing

There can be no successful grassroots political movement without a strong base of active supporters. Particularly when trying to spark a sea change in an area like development policy. So an early initiative of any network trying to challenge the status quo in such a major way has to be recruiting members from every neighborhood in the city. People who are willing to go door to door to talk to their neighbors, donate money to build their organization, and do all the other work necessary to win enough political power to achieve their movement’s goals. Eventually forming neighborhood committees representing every part of Cambridge.

Education

It will take a lot of education to convince residents that changing Cambridge’s development focus to producing public goods—like massive amounts of genuinely affordable housing—is a better deal for the city than the current model of chasing after commercial developers, lightly taxing what they build while keeping property taxes low (placating corporations and wealthy homeowners) then disbursing the still-significant funds collected to provide somewhat better services to residents than most other American cities can. Such education can only take place after lots of research has been done on best practices for public development and debate has taken place among advocates about the right kind of public development to add to the city’s current commercial-heavy mix. This, needless to say, will take a good deal of work on the part of advocates with the appropriate professional backgrounds.

Political Pressure

This is the group of activities that most people associate with grassroots political movements. Getting big teams of advocates out on the streets with placards and bullhorns. Filling the city council chamber with testifiers. Facing off with any open opposition. Dogging recalcitrant politicians. Basically all the adventurous stuff. Which is necessary and useful—done carefully. But there’s more to a political movement’s pressure campaign than public standouts. There is also the long hard grind of sending small teams of knowledgeable advocates to the meetings of the kinds of city committees, commissions, and boards that have a lot of power in the development process. Notably, the powerful Cambridge Planning Board. Such specialist teams will need to understand the inner workings of municipal government to inform the political movement’s strategy, to better target tactical street team actions, and to map out appointed positions that will need to be filled with advocates once the movement is ready to take political power—in elections.

Electoral Challenges

If the ultimate goal of the political movement I’m outlining is to change Cambridge’s development orientation from serving commercial developers to serving the needs of working- and middle-class residents, the penultimate goal must be taking over city government. As long discussed by generations of political commentators, this is very difficult to do because of the city’s “Plan E” form of government. With a city council comprised of all at-large seats elected by a byzantine ranked-choice voting system, a weak mayor that is a councilor and a first among equals elected by the other councilors, and a powerful city manager—who is appointed by the council (but rarely challenged by it)—in charge of the budget and many city staffers. Nevertheless, it is possible for a well-organized movement to win a majority of city council seats. Then the new council can use its hire/fire power over the city manager to effect significant change. Even without switching to a different form of government. Which is probably more difficult to do than winning a majority on the council. However, even a majority reform city council is still going to have a very hard time changing Cambridge’s development focus without a well-organized, disciplined, and informed movement behind it. Because city government has many moving parts and is not operating in a vacuum. Commercial developers are among the most powerful political forces in America and are more than capable of blitzing a rebel city government with more lawsuits and pressure from allied politicians at the state and federal level than it can handle. Followed by bankrolling the election of a more “friendly” pro-corporate council. A mere two years after a reform council is seated. So a movement council would not just have to win power once, but stay in power for many terms. A tall order to be sure, but a necessary one. To do that, a political movement for public development will have to win not only the ground war of electoral politics but also the air war of public opinion.

Public Relations

As I observed at Monday’s hearing, some East Cambridge residents were stampeded into action on behalf of a powerful commercial developer over the last several days by a suspiciously well-timed scare campaign with a single talking point: that a building—the Sullivan Courthouse—widely known to contain asbestos still contained asbestos. Leading one resident to testify that “we can all die” [from asbestos exposure]. Which would not be the case even if the entire population of the neighborhood worked in an asbestos mine. Such hyperbole is the result of corporate propaganda. Pushed on East Cambridge across a variety of media by the faction with far deeper pockets than its grassroots opposition, according to other testifiers. Naturally, the risk of the empty toxic building to abutters is not zero even if sealed off from the outside to the extent that it is, and must be taken seriously. But to go from that assessment to saying that Cambridge city government must allow the sale of the courthouse to Leggat McCall Properties because only they can remediate the asbestos in the building is simply sophistry. Since the sale has not yet been completed, the courthouse is still owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and managed by the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM). As many testifiers stated Monday, if the building presents an environmental threat to the neighborhood then DCAMM has to take immediate steps to remediate that threat. If it fails to do so, then Cambridge city government is well within its rights to push the state to take appropriate action in defense of public health. Including filing lawsuits, if necessary. The kind of decisive action that city officials have uniformly (and tellingly) failed to take during the years this fight has gone on. All of which is to say that public relations work is much more important to the success of a political movement than it might seem to be at first blush. If the East Cambridge residents against the courthouse sale to Leggat had a team of volunteers with appropriate professional PR skills at their disposal, the latest tempest in a teapot argument in favor of the sale would have been seen as the propaganda it was by all but those most ideologically committed to that outcome. And its political effect would have been neutralized. So the future movement for development in the public interest cannot possibly succeed without just such a team.

Until Cambridge residents can build the necessary political movement, all actions against the dominance of commercial development in city politics will be defensive. Which is better than nothing. But not the game-changer that the city’s remaining working- and middle-class families need.

Regardless, the Cambridge City Council went into recess on the matter of leasing the 420 public parking spaces to Leggat at the end of the hearing. Kicking the can of the vote that will help decide the disposition of the disputed public property down the road another week or three. Even as residents committed to keeping that property public are threatening lawsuits over alleged violations in the city’s process to lease the spaces and other irregularities. The courthouse fight, then, is far from over.

9/11/19 Note: The Cambridge City Council continued the recessed hearing to Wednesday 9/18/19 at 3pm after the print edition of this column went to press.

Apparent Horizon—recipient of 2018 and 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Political Column Awards—is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s executive director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2019 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

DON’T BUY WHAT CAMBRIDGE MAYOR MCGOVERN IS SELLING

East Cambridge courthouse photo by Jason Pramas — *Photo by Jason Pramas*

An East Cambridge courthouse update

It’s sad when a local public official claims powerlessness before real estate developers, the market, and state government. But that’s exactly what Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern is doing in the latest round of the already half-century long East Cambridge Courthouse saga. Which I wrote about in some detail in my May 22 column, “Cambridge Councilors Can Stop Undemocratic Courthouse Deal.” To understand why I think that McGovern is abrogating his responsibility to defend the public interest in the battle over the future of the property in question, a (necessarily dense) brief review is in order.

Background

The 22-story East Cambridge Courthouse was built by Middlesex County government starting in the late 1960s and finished—despite strong protests from the neighborhood—in 1974. It was far taller than the surrounding area, ugly, indifferently constructed, and filled with asbestos. The county government went bankrupt and state government inherited the structure in 1997. The state moved the courthouse staff to Woburn in 2008, and the unfortunate denizens of the prison on top of the building to other area prisons by 2014.

Meanwhile, the state offered the building to the city of Cambridge. But the city manager of the time rejected that deal while the City Council stood down—despite community support for the city taking over the building, remediating the asbestos, levelling it, and developing much-needed public housing and other public improvements on the site—leaving the state to put out two poorly run calls for bids from commercial developers to buy the property. In December 2012, the state announced that Leggat McCall Properties (LMP) had the winning bid. And that developer signed a $33 million purchase and sale agreement with the state for the property in January 2013.

Thus began a years-long fight between shifting coalitions of neighborhood activists, politicians, and LMP that supported either a city takeover of the site or allowing the developer to convert the courthouse to a commercial office tower. Over time, even as court challenges by pro-public-use activists failed, LMP was pushed to provide some improvements to its original vision—including taking two floors off the top of the tower, adding 24 low-to-moderate-income apartments, and providing some community space. To date it has paid about $5 million dollars in various costs associated with acquiring the courthouse property, but has not completed its purchase.

Last fall, Cambridge (and Somerville) State Representative Mike Connolly—agreeing with the neighborhood activists that supported a public vision for the site—started a process that resulted in the 2019 release of a “Community-Driven Framework.” Which involved the city stopping the state’s sale of the courthouse to LMP by refusing to offer to lease the 420 parking spaces in a nearby city-owned lot required to complete the deal under the terms of the (hotly contested) Cambridge Planning Board Special Permit, buying the building, remediating the asbestos, tearing it down, and then seeking a combination of city, state, and federal money to build public housing, parks and other improvements of use to the community.

The renewed debate over the future of the courthouse site has resulted in three factions: people who support letting LMP complete the purchase of the property and develop the site on a commercial basis, people who prefer the public vision for the site but are sick of fighting about it, and people who stand behind the public vision represented by the Community-Driven Framework. A framework that—contrary to its critics’ attacks—will accept a role for commercial development on the site, as long as community needs for public housing and other amenities are met.

The latter two camps appear to represent the majority of the neighborhood between them; so the smaller pro-LMP camp is striving mightily to win over the fence-sitters who are sick of the whole fight, and stop the City Council from blocking the lease of the contested 420 parking spaces to LMP. Which is what will happen if four out of nine city councilors vote against the lease. Three councilors are now on record against it: Dennis Carlone, Vice Mayor Jan Devereux, and Quinton Zondervan.

So, the future of the courthouse site hinges on a single councilor. In a vote that has now been delayed until September… after pro-public-use neighborhood activists in the East Cambridge Planning Team community group sent a detailed letter to the city about problems with its recent public process in support of leasing the parking spaces to LMP. Specifically, according to the Cambridge Day, “calling the parking study done by city staff to help guide Planning Board members and city councillors ‘fatally flawed,’” “pointing to spaces identified as available to the public when they are not and spaces they say are counted twice,” indicating “that data identified as being gathered on weekdays were actually gathered on Saturdays,” saying that “there is already a waiting list for use of the parking garage that would see 420 parking spaces subtracted and given to drivers at the redeveloped courthouse,” and perhaps most damningly stating “that the city’s disposition law calls for analysis of alternatives to leasing the parking spaces and retail, but the report lacks them. … [T]he law also calls for explanation of ‘any actual or projected annual revenues or costs’ for the property.” No such analysis or explanation of revenues and costs has been presented to the council or the Cambridge public to date.

The Mayor

Marc McGovern is an archetypal neoliberal municipal politician. That he has taken donations from real estate developers and contractors and their relatives goes without saying—since the real estate industry dominates local politics nationwide—but he clearly believes that the way to run a city in 21st-century America is to attract as much big development as possible, get whatever funds collected from the generally small and inoffensive taxes and fees that developers will accept, and then use that money to keep the city attractive enough to hold onto to the developments that are here and entice more developers to build here. While, secondarily, providing public services to residents that are somewhat better than the services cities without big developments have.

Now he has another prominent local politician, Connolly, on his left calling that model of capitalist governance into question. He doesn’t want to lose the LMP deal and doesn’t want to be forced to help figure out ways to fund the Community-Driven Framework for the courthouse site, so he’s taken to attacking Connolly directly.

First in a Cambridge Chronicle op-ed two weeks ago, and Friday in a Facebook post. The fact of the attack is not particularly surprising. But its shape is. Because in both the op-ed and the Facebook post, McGovern is saying that the mayor of one of the richest cities in America per capita—and the elected city council—can do nothing to stop the LMP deal. Due to the supposedly o’erweening power of the city manager, and the edicts of the Commonwealth’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM)—the agency that controls the courthouse site.

However, City Manager Louis DePasquale is an appointed staffer who serves at the sufferance of the elected city council. So it’s odd to state, as McGovern did in the Chronicle op-ed, that “The city manager has indicated that he will NOT ask for an allocation to bid on this property should it become available.” As if the council’s opinion is moot once the city manager weighs in. Resulting in the spectacle of a sitting mayor—who due to the city’s unusual “Plan E” style of governance is a city councilor elected to be a first among equals by his peers—trying to win a political debate by pretending a staff member the council can fire is able to overrule it on key policy matters.

Then in the Facebook post, McGovern waves around a July 23 letter from DCAMM Commissioner Carol Gladstone to the city manager—stating that it puts “to bed the idea that the State is going to give the court house to the City.” The relevant section of the letter he cites is, “A question has arisen regarding whether the Commonwealth would transfer the property to the City of Cambridge for nominal consideration. The Commonwealth has no plans to do so, due to the pending purchase and sale agreement with Leggat McCall. As required by Chapter 34 of the Acts of 2008, the enabling legislation for this transaction, the Commonwealth expects to obtain full and fair market value for the property.”

But the DCAMM letter puts nothing to bed. It merely restates what is already known in bureaucratese: that DCAMM has no plans to change what it is currently doing. Because the city of Cambridge has not yet exercised its power to stop the LMP deal. Should it do so, the state agency would be forced to go to the table with the city and work out a new plan. Which is the main point of the Community-Driven Framework.

In the service of this line of argument, McGovern has latched onto the current talking points of LMP and its supporters: a) that the building is too much of a health and safety hazard to be allowed to stand long enough to reject the parking spaces, kill the LMP deal, and negotiate a new deal with the state; and b) that the “significant community benefits package” offered by LMP is just awesome, so why would the city want anything more.

To the first point, the health and safety gambit is refuted in a blog comment on an agenda item for this week’s special summer city council meeting by Vice Mayor Jan Devereux: “#7 Report on Condition of the Sullivan Courthouse: As the City Manager’s report states, the building is under close watch 24/7 by two security guards (at the state’s expense) and all the systems and utilities have been shut off. There is no elevated risk of fire in this steel-construction concrete building; asbestos does one thing well, it makes buildings more fire resistant. The Sullivan Courthouse is ugly and too tall and should be demolished, but it is not the imminent public safety threat that some supporters of the developer’s plan have led nervous neighbors to believe.”

To the second point, the cornerstone of the LMP community benefits package is “$23.5 million toward affordable housing.” Sounds great, right? It’s not. It’s peanuts. That figure includes the paltry 24 apartments that neighborhood activists negotiated. In a city where 6,000 people flooded the affordable housing waitlist in 2016 alone, according to the Chronicle. The Community-Driven Framework approach, by way of comparison, could result in many more desperately needed public housing units being built. But that doesn’t seem to matter to McGovern and other LMP allies—who have never demonstrated that $23.5 million is even close to enough affordable housing money to make up for the displacement of more working- and middle-class East Cambridge residents by a fresh wave of highly paid corporate employees in the commercial office space to be built in the courthouse should LMP’s plan go forward. In addition to the displacement being caused by several other major commercial developments underway in and around the neighborhood. Let alone help the city grapple with its accelerating housing crisis. So, LMP would have to pony up a lot more of the huge profits it will doubtless make if the current deal stands before anyone—the mayor of Cambridge least of all—can have the temerity to claim that the developer would be doing right by the so-called “People’s Republic.”

To conclude, I’ll be writing more about the courthouse struggle as the council vote on the parking spaces approaches, but in the meantime I recommend that Cambridge residents—especially those supporters of the public vision for the site represented by the Community-Driven Framework who are tired of fighting—should take anything that Mayor Marc McGovern says about the matter with a 22-story-sized grain of salt.

CAMBRIDGE COUNCILORS CAN STOP UNDEMOCRATIC COURTHOUSE DEAL

Four votes against the proposed leasing of city parking spaces should do the trick

2019: WE HAVE 11 YEARS TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE

In last week’s column looking back at “2018: The Year in Global Warming,” I reviewed the dire threat posed to humanity and our environment by climate change, and concluded […]

FAIR HOUSING WHACKED: TUFTS STUDENTS FIGHT ADMIN PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH “CLASSIST” DORM SYSTEM

December 5, 2018 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS More than 200 Tufts University students, faculty, and allies from surrounding communities held a march and demonstration last week to protest […]

SOME THOUGHTS ON TRANSPORTATION POLICY

*Image courtesy of pxhere.com. Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain.*

August 16, 2018

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

Transportation is a subject I address frequently in my columns. But, as is often the case in journalism, it’s usually necessary to write about it piecemeal given various editorial constraints. So I might cover flooding subways one week and a gonzo proposal for sky gondolas over the Seaport the next. But rarely do I have the luxury of looking at such a major policy area in its entirety. Which is nonideal because a good journalist is always interested to spark discussion and debate—and it’s difficult to have a proper conversation with readers if they aren’t aware of my general views on the topic at hand.

Such was the case a three weeks ago when I published a piece that took a dim view of Bird Rides dumping its dangerous electric rental scooters all over Cambridge and Somerville without first discussing the move with officials in either city… following a nationwide pattern of flouting relevant laws that is clearly its business model. About a day later, a few wags took to Twitter to slam me for having the temerity to suggest that motorized skateboards with handlebars might not be the ideal vehicles to allow on area streets in numbers. On both political and safety grounds.

I didn’t mind the hazing, of course. But it was vexing to watch Bird fans that clearly hadn’t even bothered to read the article in question—let alone my broad and deep back catalog—attack me as some kind of car-loving anti-environmental reactionary in the service of flogging their hipster transportation fetish du jour. Be they paid marketers or merely geeks with an idée fixe.

With that in mind, I thought it would be useful to run through my general views on transportation policy in this epistle. To clarify why I don’t think that any electric conveyance thrown at us by sociopathic West Coast frat boy CEOs is automatically the best way to save the planet while safely getting people around town with their groceries and pets. I will, however, leave long-distance intercity travel by land, sea, and air aside for now for the sake of space.

Carbon

It’s not possible to hold forth on transportation without first addressing the absolute necessity that humanity stop burning carbon to meet our civilization’s power needs. If we fail to shift from getting power from oil, gas, and coal to clean renewable energy sources like wind, water, and solar, then we are well and truly doomed. Not in centuries, but mere decades from now. Among the largest sources for global warming inducing carbon emissions are cars, trucks, and motorcycles. And with carbon multinationals like ExxonMobil dominating American politics, it’s going to be extremely difficult to institute the major changes that will be required to replace those vehicles—and the “car culture” that has built up around them—with zero carbon alternatives that will be acceptable to a broad array of communities. Yet without such a transition, anything else we might do will merely be tacking colorful bunting onto our species’ collective coffin. That said, any decent transportation network will have to be based on electricity. Unless some of our cleverer scientists and engineers come up with sufficiently powerful and portable renewable power sources (tiny cold fusion reactors, harnessing evil spinning gnomes, etc.) that don’t require plugging vehicles into charging stations for periods of time every day or three.

Planning

We’re not going to be able to move millions of people to new green transportation alternatives without redesigning the places where they live and work. One appealing way of doing that over time is to build dense clusters of housing and offices around major multimodal transportation hubs that are connected to each other by mass transit. Which will, among other salutary effects, help solve the “last mile” problem of getting commuters from such hubs to their homes and workplaces in weather conditions that are only going to get more unpredictable and dangerous as climate change accelerates.

But while it’s become fashionable and profitable for developers to build such high-density enclaves for rich people, it is generally not being undertaken for everyone else. Until it is, it’s going to be extremely difficult to successfully introduce the transportation alternatives we need. Probably the toughest issue will be converting existing urban neighborhoods and suburban tracts based on square miles of individual atomized domiciles over to sort of more compact and connected urblets without upending people’s carefully constructed lifeways by government fiat. Though, ironically, the global warming-driven imperative of our moving entire cities like Boston away from flooding lowlands onto higher ground—and eventually northward to cooler climes—will provide us an opportunity to start development from scratch in many locales. Since given the choice between staying in aging housing stock with ever worsening service and transportation options, and moving to new clusters of high-rise and low-rise buildings hooked up to a robust grid, people will likely move of their own accord.

Alternatives

And what are the cheaper, ubiquitous, and more efficient transportation modalities that will get us to a carbon-free future? I think trains, trolleys, monorails, and similar mass transit options will still play a vital role in moving large numbers of people from neighborhood to neighborhood and city to city. In fact, I believe we need to massively expand rail lines to reach far out into the exurbs. And figure out ways to use such lines for cargo containers as well. Buses—with dedicated lanes—will remain vital in many areas. Especially where it’s too expensive or impractical to build out rail lines. Boats can also be very useful for the same purpose in most weather conditions in areas adjacent to oceans, lakes, and rivers.

And cars? Well, that’s a big complicated discussion, but here’s my brief take. Carbon-burning cars need to be relegated to museums and antiquarian societies for collectors and hobbyists. But there’s no getting around fact that despite all their myriad problems, most people currently like being able to jump into a car and go where they want to go. So what can replace that? At first, shifting over to electric cars will be a big help. Then there will be a debate over robot cars. And that’s a tricky one because that technology won’t work well at first, and will displace many driving jobs if not introduced deliberately without corporate malice aforethought. Don’t be surprised, therefore, if you see me attacking “public-private” initiatives to shove such cars down people’s throats.

Nevertheless, society will gain much if we can make the new technology work. Because fleets of robot cars can likely replace the individually owned car entirely. Allowing people to get between areas well away from major transportation hubs at will—simply by using the future equivalent of a rideshare app to order a robot car for the trip. Robot trucks will be able to deal with moving cargo point to point. And simple electric golf carts—either robotic or not—will suffice for trips around neighborhoods.

We can then gradually reduce or eliminate motor vehicle traffic from many roads over time—allowing bicycles (on ubiquitous dedicated bike lanes) to really come into their own. As for electric scooters? In most locales it will probably be best if they remain an idiosyncratic vehicle choice for young individuals who like to stand out from the crowd, and not accepted as a serious transportation alternative. Because they’re not. Meanwhile, flying cars, jetpacks, and the like will have to be a topic for a future article.

Labor

Building out transportation alternatives needs to be seen as an opportunity for new job creation, not just an excuse for job destruction for the purpose of corporate profit extraction. Such jobs should be “good jobs” with living wages, shorter work weeks (something we’ll need worldwide to compensate for the rise of the robots), and generous benefits. People losing jobs in the existing transportation sector should be retrained at government expense and get priority placement in jobs in the new transportation sector. All of said jobs should be unionized.

Public

As many of these transportation alternatives as possible should be public. Leaving our transit future to private companies like Uber, Lyft, Lime, Bird Rides, etc. is a prescription for disaster. Because all such corporations look out for their bottom lines first, and the public good second (if at all). And every entrant to that new sector has sought to end-run public planning processes and government regulators in a never-ending quest to make a fast buck—to the point of Uber purposely designing their payment algorithm so that their drivers would keep driving while making as little money as possible, according to Vanity Fair.

So if we’re going to ensure that commuters have a voice in a reasonably democratic and rational transportation planning process going forward, then we have to expand public transportation to control the commanding heights of its sector. And regardless, the role of privately owned vehicles must be minimized if we’re going to reduce carbon emissions enough to save ourselves from the worst depredations of human-induced global warming.

That’s my basic thinking on at least regional transportation. Happy to participate in civic dialogues on the subject any time.

Thanks to Suren Moodliar, co-author of the forthcoming A People’s Guide to Greater Boston [University of California Press], for ongoing ever-illuminating conversations on transportation, housing, and many other policy areas.

Apparent Horizon—winner of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2018 Best Political Column award—is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2018 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

TOWNIE: A WORM’S EYE VIEW OF THE MASS POWER STRUCTURE

Students at rally at Boston City Hall by NewtonCourt (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

From the guy that brings you Apparent Horizon

October 18, 2017

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

The rich and powerful interests that control Massachusetts politics and the state economy have their fingers in every conceivable pie. So numerous are their projects that it’s difficult for most news outlets to keep track of them, let alone cover them all. Yet it’s critical for our democracy that they be covered. Which is why I’m launching Townie—a regular news column that will provide short takes on all the elite wheeling and dealing that most people never hear about.

Business Organizations Sue to Down “Millionaire’s Tax” Referendum

In an era when taxes continue to be slashed for wealthy people and corporations as government social programs are starved for funds, one would think that the Fair Share Amendment (a.k.a. “millionaire’s tax”) proposed by the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition of religious, labor, and community organizations would be a no-brainer. The idea is slated to be put in front of Massachusetts voters as a binding referendum question in November 2018. If passed, it would amend the state constitution to add a 4 percent tax on top of the Bay State’s infamously inadequate 5.1 percent flat income tax for all households earning $1 million or more. The money collected will be mandated to fund public schools, transportation, and road maintenance. All sectors that really need the money. And best of all, only 19,500 families would have to pay in 2019 if the tax goes into effect—0.5 percent of all filers.

Well apparently any tax is a bad tax in the eyes of the Commonwealth’s “business community.” No matter how many people it would help, and how painless it would be for the tiny number of 0.5 percenters. So, according to an Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) press release, the leaders of five pro-corporate organizations are trying to torpedo the referendum before it can be voted on by filing a lawsuit against it at the Supreme Judicial Court. The plaintiffs are: Christopher Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, Inc. (MHTC); Christopher Carlozzi, Massachusetts state director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB); Richard Lord, president and chief executive officer of AIM; Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF); and, Daniel O’Connell, president and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP).

They claim that the referendum language is “riddled with constitutional flaws,” with the MTHC’s Anderson remarking that “Amending the Constitution to achieve taxing and spending by popular vote is just a terrible idea, and could undo much of the good work that Massachusetts has done in terms of creating a successful economic climate.” But no matter what kinds of arguments they try to make, it seems like what they’re most afraid of is democracy. Let’s see how far they get with the SJC.

About That Opioid Epidemic…

More proof that the rising number of deaths from opioid abuse has more to do with corporate greed than any personal failings of individuals suckered into addiction by pliant doctors colluding with pharma sales reps. And also that those few drug companies that pay any penalty at all for their role in destroying communities across the state, get little more than a slap on the wrist. According to a press release by the office of Mass Attorney General Maura Healey, “An opioid manufacturer will pay $500,000 to resolve allegations that it engaged in a widespread scheme to unlawfully market its fentanyl spray and paid kickbacks to providers to persuade them to prescribe the product… Insys Therapeutics, Inc. misleadingly marketed Subsys, a narcotic fentanyl product that is sprayed under a patient’s tongue.” The money will be used to “help fund the AG’s prevention, education and treatment efforts.”

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 30-50 times more powerful than heroin. The company claimed its spray version of the drug was useful for treating “minor” pain in non-cancer patients—despite the fact that the FDC had only approved the drug for use in more severe pain in cancer patients. It then pushed its sales staff to give kickbacks to doctors in the form of “fees paid to speak to other health care providers about the product.”

Boondoggle in Progress?

When a public college gets involved in land deals, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. Especially when that college is UMass—a troubled multi-campus institution whose leadership would rather engage in property speculation than fight the legislature for more money for public higher education.

In 2010, the school’s independent development wing, the UMass Building Authority (UMBA), bought the former Bayside Expo Center property after its owners went into foreclosure. According to the Dorchester Reporter, in August, the UMBA issued “a Request for Information (RFI) as it seeks out ideas for the ‘highest and best use’ of the former Bayside Expo Center site on Columbia Point in Dorchester with an eye toward transforming the 20-acre site into a ‘modern-day Harvard Square.’”

Last week, the newspaper reported that 16 developers have responded to the university’s request, including: Accordia Partners; American Campus Communities; Beacon Capital Partners; Bracken Development; Capstone Development Partners LLC & Samuels & Associates; Corcoran Jennison & BTUHWF Building Corp; Core Investment Inc.; Hunt Development Group, LLC & Drew Company Inc.; The HYM Investment Group, LLC; LendLease; Lincoln Property Company; Lupoli Companies; Rhino Capital & Ad Meliora; SKANSKA; University Student Living; and Waterstone Properties Group Inc. The Reporter says the UMass Building Authority “hopes to leverage public-private partnerships toward the massive mixed-use project.” Which usually means big public giveaways to corporations. One way or the other. Stay tuned.

Townie is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2017 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.