The view from $10m up - What the ultra-luxury invasion of Downtown Crossing means for Boston - CommonWealth Magazine
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VOC-TECH TENSION / THE MAYOR WHO’S NOT AFRAID OF POT
POLITICS, I DEAS & CIVIC LI FE I N M ASSACH USETTS
The view
from $10m up
What the ultra-luxury
invasion of Downtown
Crossing means for Boston
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volume 22, number 2 | spring 2017
32
DEPARTMENTS
7 | CORRESPONDENCE
9 | E DITOR’S NOTE
11 | I NQUIRIES
15 | O
NE ON ONE Judy Grinnell of North
Adams is giving up the reins of the
Hoosic River Revival after a decade at
the helm. BY LINDA ENERSON
18 | S TATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT
The farther you live from Boston the
less likely you are to hold statewide
office. BY JACK SULLIVAN
21 | W ASHINGTON NOTEBOOK
US Rep. Stephen Lynch is a lunch-
bucket Democrat. Is he out of touch
with his own party these days?
ARTICLES
BY SHAWN ZELLER
24 | T HE VIEW FROM $10 MILLION UP What the ultra-luxury DISCUSSION
invasion of Downtown Crossing means for Boston.
56 | C ONVERSATION
BY BRUCE MOHL
The evolution of Stephanie Pollack:
Why a life-long Democrat became
32 | VOC-TECH TENSION The state’s vocational-technical one of Gov. Charlie Baker’s biggest
schools are an education success story, but are they backers. BY BRUCE MOHL
shutting out students who might benefit most? 65 | P ERSPECTIVES
BY MICHAEL JONAS Red states dodge a Medicaid bullet—
for now. BY EDWARD M. MURPHY
Bending the Medicaid cost curve.
40 | T HE MAYOR WHO ISN’T AFRAID OF POT While other BY JOHN E. MCDONOUGH AND
cities look to block marijuana businesses, Alex Morse sees WILLIAM SELIGMAN Esports: It’s more
potential for urban farming in Holyoke’s mills. BY TED SIEFER than a game. BY AARON VAN LEESTEN
48 | THE DEATH OF A CANCER LAB How did a thriving research
center go belly up and lose years of cutting-edge work?
BY JACK SULLIVAN
VISIT WWW.COMMONWEALTHMAGAZINE.ORG
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK OSTOW SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 5
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6 CommonWealth S PRING 2017
correspondence
MILLIONAIRE’S TAX IS FAIR evidence that millionaires will flee the
In his recent piece in CommonWealth state if the Fair Share Amendment is
regarding the proposed Fair Share adopted. Research shows that high-
Amendment, or “millionaire’s tax,” income people move to be near family
Edward M. Murphy clearly under- and jobs, or to places with cheaper
stands why the amendment is neces- housing markets or warmer weather,
sary (“Dump the millionaire tax,” not to save a few percentage points
Winter ’17). He is right that the $1.9 on their taxes. Multiple studies have
billion that would be generated by found that when states such as New helping working families and build-
the tax “could make a real difference” Jersey, Oregon, and Maryland raised ing a stronger economy, we must all
in funding transportation and public the rate on their top tax brackets, there embrace the Fair Share Amendment.
education across the state. He’s also was no major change in the number Mary Ann Stewart
correct that Massachusetts’ overall of high income filers who moved to Parent representative
tax structure is regressive, and that other states. Massachusetts Board of Elementary
voters support higher taxes on peo- Murphy also claims that the Fair and Secondary Education
ple whose annual income exceeds $1 Share Amendment “fails to mitigate
million. the state’s regressive tax system.” Today,
Unfortunately, Murphy’s piece the bottom 99 percent of taxpayers CONTRACTOR STORY
contained several often-repeated in Massachusetts pay 9.4 percent of MISSING KEY NUMBERS
misunderstandings of the Fair Share their income in state and local taxes, The article entitled “Home Wreckers”
Amendment. As one of the original while the top 1 percent of taxpayers (Winter ’17) focused on the Massa-
signers of the initiative petition, I pay only 6.5 percent. With the Fair chusetts Home Improvement Con-
hope to set the record straight. Share Amendment, the amount paid tractor Program and Guaranty Fund
First, Murphy argues that the Fair by the top 1 percent would increase to administered by the Office of Con-
Share funds cannot be dedicated to 8 percent, still less than the rest of us. sumer Affairs and Business Regu-
transportation and public education Murphy is therefore correct that our lation as required by law since 1992.
due to a provision in the Massachu- tax system would still be somewhat Usually numbers tell the story,
setts Constitution which precludes regressive. That hardly seems like a but in this instance very encouraging
the adoption of any amendment that reason to oppose a major improve- numbers weren’t in the story. Since
“makes a specific appropriation of ment to the equity of our tax system the Baker-Polito Administration came
money.” that would fund critical investments into office in 2015, concerted and
In fact, Article 104 of the Consti- in our transportation infrastructure continuing efforts are yielding consid-
tution already dedicates revenue from and public education. erable improvements to a revamped
the gas tax and other sources to the Lastly, Murphy ignores the reason program under my direction.
transportation needs of the Common- we’re talking about the Fair Share Compliance with the requirement
wealth. The Legislature determines Amendment at all. This is a citizens’ for new contractor registration is
what specific projects that revenue initiative, not a legislative proposal. central to fixing what has, in the
gets spent on, within the authorized Raise Up Massachusetts—a grass- past, negatively impacted Guaranty
range of purposes. Article 104 was roots coalition of community orga- Fund balances and claim payments
passed by initiative petition. It has nizations, religious groups, and labor to aggrieved homeowners. However,
been repeatedly upheld by the courts unions—collected more than 157,000 since the end of 2014, new regis-
as binding on the Legislature. signatures from Massachusetts voters trations have increased 34 percent.
Murphy then cites a single anec- to place the Fair Share Amendment That’s had a very positive impact on
dote about a hedge fund manager who on the 2018 ballot. the Guaranty Fund, which can reim-
moved from New Jersey to Florida as If Massachusetts is serious about burse homeowners up to $10,000
SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 7
correspondence
for unpaid court judgments against apply for relief from the Guaranty also be shoddy in their work and
contractors. The fund’s coffers rose Fund only after they demonstrate dishonest with their customers. The
51 percent in 2016 from 2014 levels. that they’ve made reasonable efforts office always recommends that the
That, in turn, has led to full claim to collect on their court judgment best way homeowners can safeguard
payments being made within 30 against a contractor. The Office of themselves is to get estimates from
days to qualifying homeowners with Consumer Affairs uses debt collec- multiple contractors, ask for refer-
court judgments against contrac- tion services and the Office of the ences, and use the office’s online
tors. Contrast this with the fact that Comptroller’s Interceptor Program look-up to ensure they are registered
in 2013, some qualifying Guaranty to try and compel contractors to and see whether they have complaint,
Fund claim payments were often reimburse the Guaranty Fund. disciplinary, arbitration, or Guaranty
delayed by up to two years and others Enforcement referrals to the attor- Fund histories.
were staggered due to concerns over ney general’s office have been made John Chapman
the Guaranty Fund’s solvency. My and will continue to be made going Undersecretary,
office is now working with municipal forward. This office can and does Office of Consumer Affairs &
building inspectors to deny build- regularly revoke contractors’ regis- Business Regulation
ing permits to contractors owing trations, but that doesn’t mean they
outstanding fines. In 2016, the result will cease soliciting and accepting
was a recoupment of $72,000 in fine home improvement jobs. CORRECTION
payments to the fund, a 100 percent Finally, the sub-headline speaks Due to a reporting error, a story
increase over the previous year. In to homeowners being given a false (“Steward’s asset-light philosophy)
fact the fund closed out 2016 with a sense of protection from the pro- in the Winter 2017 issue incorrectly
very healthy balance of $957,000. gram. Registered or not, contrac- stated that Steward Health Care over-
What “Home Wreckers” also tors can be proud craftsmen with sees 4,000 patients. The company
failed to convey is that homeowners great track records, but they can actually oversees 400,000 patients.
Building the bridge between
Knowledge and action
M o s a Kows K i i n st i t u t e
Mid-sized Sustainability for PuBlic enterPrise
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8 CommonWealth S PRING 2017editor’s note
What about those holes?
to show you how stupid I am, I thought Suffolk
Construction had forgotten to finish the job when it was
building Millennium Tower at Downtown Crossing. Every
day last year I watched, fascinated, as the building soared how much they paid and the size of their mortgages
higher and higher into the air. And then it seemed to be (most people paid cash), but little about who they are.
finished. Lights were coming on in the condos and people The owners by and large weren’t household names,
seemed to be moving in. Yet there were still holes in the at least to me. Also, a good number of them made their
sides of the building on the upper floors. purchases using limited liability companies or real estate
My curiosity finally got the better of me, so I called trusts that concealed their identities. Still, there were clues.
Suffolk to ask what was up with those holes in the side of One of the penthouse units was purchased for $10.9
the building. A spokesman for the construction company million by a limited liability company identified as
told me I would have to contact the developer about that. MTPH4B LLC. In state corporation records, the manager
Thinking I must be on to something, I called Millennium of the LLC was listed as Marc R. Lisker of 645 Fifth Avenue
Partners and finally was connected to someone who in New York City. That is the address of MSD Capital,
patiently explained to me that those aren’t holes, they’re which was formed by Michael Dell, the founder and CEO
indoor terraces. of Dell Technologies, to manage his capital. Bingo: Michael
Feeling pretty embarrassed at that point, I hung up and Dell bought the condo.
went to cover an MBTA meeting. But I kept thinking about In other instances, my analysis was based on educated
Millennium Tower and those indoor terraces. What’s it guesses more than anything else. A man named Flemming
like, I wondered, living 59 stories in the air and being able Ornskov purchased a unit on the 43d floor for $4.15 mil-
to step out onto an indoor terrace and take in the air. So lion. His deed revealed little about him and he didn’t show
that’s how the 1 percent lives, I thought to myself. up in state corporation records or campaign finance docu-
It didn’t take long before I wanted to know more. Who ments. A Google search indicated a Flemming Ornskov
lived in the tower? What was it like to live there? And was the CEO of Shire Plc, a Lexington-based pharmaceuti-
what impact would this building and others like it have cal company. My guess was that he was the buyer.
on Boston? With those questions, the cover story in this A Delaware limited liability company named Millennium
issue began to take shape. Dream LLC purchased two units for a total of $5.5 million.
The biggest challenge was learning more about the One unit was on the 27th floor and the other on the 28th
people who purchased units in the building. Their deeds, floor. Delaware LLCs typically reveal nothing about the
on file at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, revealed owner, but on the deeds the address of the purchaser was
given as Tim Steinert, c/o 26th floor, Tower One, Times
Square, 1 Matheson St., Hong Kong. I Googled that address
and discovered it belonged to the Alibaba Group, a giant
Chinese web commerce company. Steinert is the company’s
general counsel. It’s unclear whether he was buying the units
for himself or for the company.
As you can see, there’s an interesting story behind every
purchase. The trick is getting at it.
bruce mohl
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MILLENNIUM PARTNERS
SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 9The Commercial Real Estate Development Association
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and commercial real estate professionals.
If you’re in commercial real estate, you belong in NAIOP.
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10 CommonWealth S PRING 2017inquiries
Nickeled and Big Pharma hides costs with
dimed
The town of Dartmouth is certainly
bait and switch
a stickler for the rules, unwilling to
> jack su llivan
forego a nickel copying fee for a docu-
ment disclosing a legal settlement
the ads for high-end prescription drugs seem ubiquitous. Invokana, Xarelto,
involving hundreds of thousands of
Abilify, and Humira are just a few names familiar to anyone with a television.
dollars.
The drugs are some of the stars of the more than $5 billion in direct-to-
CommonWealth sent a public
consumer advertising the pharmaceutical industry does each year to convince
records request to Town Administrator
patients to ask their doctors to prescribe the medicines. In most of the ads,
David Cressman for a copy
viewers see a tagline offering a reduced price to qualified buyers, a hook that
of a settlement agree-
gives consumers a financial incentive to try the drug.
ment between Dart-
The qualified buyers targeted by the ads are not low-income patients who
mouth and its for-
couldn’t otherwise afford the drugs. Instead, the ads are mostly aimed at con-
mer police chief,
sumers with commercial insurance. The drug companies offer them a coupon
Timothy Lee.
or a card that drastically reduces or waives their co-pay. The approach means
Lee, who had been
consumers with a choice of a brand-name or a generic drug have an incentive
collecting $161,000 a
to choose the brand-name. In instances where there is no generic alternative,
year in pay, had filed a $4
the waiver of the co-pay provides an incentive for the patient to try the drug.
million suit against the town in federal
under
With the cost of drugs one of the biggest factors driving up
court, alleging civil rights, defamation,
health care costs, insurance companies are increasing co-pays
and other violations. The town and its
the and deductibles for prescriptions in an effort to make con-
radar
ex-cop eventually settled for $650,000.
sumers more price-conscious and steer them toward cheaper
Cressman’s office responded by
options. The drug company ads are an under-the-radar effort
mailing an invoice for 5 cents to cover
to steer consumers with private insurance in the other direction.
the cost of copying the one-page
For example, someone needing a blood thinner could obtain a prescrip-
agreement.
tion for the generic drug warfarin and face a co-pay of just a few dollars for
Town officials declined to waive the
a 30- or 90-day supply. By contrast, someone taking Xarelto or Eliquis, two
fee, even though it was going to cost
brand-name blood thinners that are used in the treatment of blood clots,
the municipality more than 5 cents in
will likely pay the highest tier of co-pays, as high as $50 in many plans. For
postage and handling to collect the
a maintenance drug like Xarelto, co-pays could total $600 over the course
copying fee.
of a year.
Public records regulations also allow
For someone who can use either drug, the choice would be fairly simple.
town officials to waive the fee when
But Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of Xarelto, gives potential custom-
the disclosure of a record is in the public
ers with commercial insurance a card they can present to their local pharmacy
interest or the request for records is not
entitling them to a free, 30-day trial and a waiver on all co-pays. The customer
primarily of a commercial nature.
sees their cost go down, while the insurer is stuck with the tab for the higher-
The nickel was paid (by credit card)
cost drug. Under one Massachusetts HMO, the insurer pays about $340 per
and the settlement agreement was
30-day prescription for Xarelto.
sent out by both email and via the
For some drugs, especially with no low-cost alternative, the price to insur-
US Postal Service, complete with a
ers is even higher. Humira, a very costly treatment for arthritis and psoriasis,
46.5-cent postage meter stamp on the
is another brand-name drug where the co-pay assistance is popular, a result of
envelope.
aggressive advertising that topped $200 million last year as the drug’s patent
> co l ma n m . h e r ma n expired. Under one Massachusetts HMO plan, the insurer pays $4,353 for a
SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 11inquiries
28-day prescription, while the consumer is responsible for of prescription drug prices,” she says. “Coupons are a way to
a co-pay of $125. With the co-pay assistance, however, the increase sales for higher cost drugs, not a way that is actually
patient would pay as little as $5 a month, while the insur- getting at the cost of prescriptions.”
ance company would still pay its portion. The drug company discounts are not available to people
In Massachusetts, there is a law that prohibits discounts, on government health plans such as Medicare, Medicaid, or
coupons, rebates, or co-pay assistance for prescription those provided through the Veterans Administration. The
drugs, the only state to ban such price government health plans pay much less for
reductions. But in a quirk of law, there is an drugs, and Medicare, which is the world’s big-
exemption that was passed that makes the gest purchaser of prescription medications, is
statute moot that is set to expire in 2019. prohibited by law from entering negotiations
State Rep. Ted Speliotis has filed a bill at the with drug manufacturers.
request of a constituent that would make the Dr. Donald Berwick, who was admin-
exemption permanent, though it still leaves istrator of the Centers for Medicare and
the ban on the books. Medicaid Services under former President
State Rep. Christine Barber of Somerville, Barack Obama, says the secrecy with which
a former health care policy advisor who health insurers bargain and contract with
as a legislative aide helped write the state’s pharmaceutical companies makes com-
2006 universal health care law, says the parison shopping difficult. Health insurers
discounts by manufacturers are just a will not publicly reveal how much they pay
placebo to mask the problems of inflated for drugs, calling it proprietary information,
drug prices. “Discounts and coupons are not though they are bound by law to tell
a way of actually addressing the rising costs customers.
m i cr o p h i l a nt h r o py
Running away from homelessness > e dward m. mu rphy
Microphilanthropy is an occasional feature that calls attention to small acts of generosity that people do for the benefit
of others and highlights little-known needs that could benefit from generosity, even on a small scale.
government policy makers, mornings a week at different sites The Back on My Feet program,
community activists, and social work- between 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. to which operates successfully in 12 other
ers have designed many different run for 45 minutes. The groups are cities, is carefully designed to build
programs with the goal of avoiding organized by Back on My Feet’s small confidence and a sense of community.
or remedying homelessness. The pro- staff and joined by volunteer members Staffers emphasize that “no one runs
grams are aimed at varying segments of Boston’s robust running community alone” as a way of drawing in the
of the homeless population and have who participate to share their love for homeless participants and encourag-
differing expectations, requirements, the sport and to engage people who ing them to become consistent run-
and success rates. Perhaps the most need help. The staff maintains a rela- ners. Joining their morning running
unique and physically demanding tionship with shelters throughout the group regularly over a period of 30
intervention is the service offered in city to find homeless people who are days will earn homeless participants
Boston by a non-profit organization interested in the challenge and ben- the support of Back on My Feet for
called Back on My Feet. They mean it efits of exercise three days a week. what the organization calls “Next
literally. The homeless individuals who join the Steps.” Approximately 80 percent of
Back on My Feet invites home- running groups are 70 percent male, the initial participants fall into this cat-
less individuals to join one of several range in age from 18 to 65-plus, and egory. They are congratulated for their
groups of runners who gather three approximately one-third are veterans. consistency and given high quality
12 CommonWealth S PRING 2017inquiries
“A lot of it is opaque,” says Berwick, a pediatrician and Maine, Rhode Island, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, and Georgia.
one-time Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate. “We’ve got Most of the dirt was shipped out on two trains, each with 28
to make drug policy more transparent.” cars, that pulled into the property on a daily basis. About 100
trucks also did pickups every day.
Chris Gordon, president of Wynn Design and Develop-
Wynn is shipping
ment, says the cleanup so far has gone pretty much as
expected. The company drilled about 2,000 bore holes on
contaminated soil to
the site and then examined the dirt samples to see what
was below ground. The top layer, about 6- to 8-feet deep,
landfills across nation
was relatively clean crushed stone, much of it brought in
from the drilling of the nine-mile Deer Island sewage out-
flow tunnel under Boston Harbor during the 1990s. Below
> bruce moh l that was a layer of dirt full of contaminants left over from
the Monsanto chemical plant that once occupied the site.
Both layers were removed.
the cleanup of the Wynn Resorts casino site in Everett There was one surprise. Gordon says excavators found
is a case of addition through subtraction. parts of a boiler room and pipes that were wrapped in
Before the Wynn tower could start going up, all of the asbestos. There were also wood timbers and bricks, pre-
contaminated soil on the property had to be removed. sumably remnants of buildings on the site that had been
An estimated 500,000 tons of dirt containing PCBs, arse- bulldozed and buried.
nic, lead, ash, petroleum products, and asbestos were carted Wynn budgeted $30 million for the site cleanup, but
off to special landfills in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, the tab may rise higher than that, in part because of the
running outfits as a way of solidifying within six months. Approximately 100 city. “We rely on the generosity and
their identification with the group. It is people are now participating in the commitment of our volunteers and
also made clear that more is expected program in Boston. donors, who are true partners in this
of and available to them. Back on My Feet does not see run- work,” says Theresa Lynn, executive
After the initial 30 days, the key ning as the solution to homelessness director of the Boston chapter. “We
part of Next Steps is the development but offers running as a catalyst for need additional funders and program
of a plan for self-sufficiency. The steps people who need change in their lives. partners to expand our work.”
vary depending on the needs of the Consistent running can improve confi- Experience shows that it is impor-
individual and can include GED classes dence, health, self-esteem, and a focus tant to have several volunteer run-
or other educational support, job train- on goals. It is not for everyone, but it ners for each program participant to
ing programs, employment referrals, or is an effective way to offer homeless create the sense of community that
transportation assistance. Back on My individuals a place in a community of enables change. If you can make a tax-
feet has relationships with large cor- people who have varied backgrounds deductible contribution or volunteer
porations such as CVS and Accenture, but who share a common interest. to join a running group, please contact
who help provide the training and The work of Back on My Feet is Lynn, at theresa.lynn@backonmyfeet.
emulate a work setting. All the while made possible by fund-raising events, org or reach out to their office at The
the participants continue running with donations from individuals, help from Comcast Building, 426 East 1st Street,
their morning group. The goal for Back its corporate partners, and the volun- Boston, MA 02127 (Tel: 617-697-6505).
on My Feet is to have two-thirds of teer time of dedicated runners willing More information is available on the
the participants housed and employed to join the morning groups around the web at http://boston.backonmyfeet.org/
SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 13inquiries
Dirt at the Wynn casino site is
segregated, tested for contaminants,
and then shipped to landfills or,
if clean, used as filler elsewhere
on the site.
unexpected discovery of asbestos. Still, Gordon says, the expected to start in September and end in February 2018.
transformation of the property is amazing to watch. “It Wynn will also remove five barges abandoned in the river,
took about three months to clean up a site that had been some of which only emerge at low tide. Gordon says the
polluted for just about forever,” he says. barges will be sold for scrap.
Monsanto acquired the site in 1929 and continued to Wynn is hoping to deliver a lot of patrons to its casino
operate there until 1992. A Boston Globe story from 2014 site via boat, so the dredging and the restoration of coastal
quoted local residents who remembered smoke-belching vegetation is a way to make that option attractive to
plants prone to fires, explosions, and acid leaks. Many resi- customers. Gordon says the water in the Mystic currently
dents complained of a strong and persistent sulfur smell. isn’t dangerous to humans, but it is hazardous to most
mystic
In the 1800s, Hawes Atwood, a founder of Boston’s plant life. He hedges on whether people
Union Oyster House, owned the property and used to will be water-skiing on the Mystic once
harvest shellfish there from the Mystic River. But those pretty the dredging work is done.
days are long gone. Environmental activists in the 1980s
accused Monsanto of dumping toxic waste into the river
bleak “Let me put it this way,” says Gordon.
“By cleaning up our site and cleaning
and state officials accused the company of severely under- up that inlet, it’s going to be dramatically better. What
estimating the size of a spill there. that means for the overall river, I don’t know. But we have
Gordon deployed a robot-like machine along the bottom a pretty rough site that’s going to get dramatically better.”
of the Mystic River to take pictures and obtain soil samples. Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the state Department
The pictures and samples didn’t offer much good news. of Environmental Protection, says few people thought
“The report came back and said it was a biological swimming would ever be possible in the Charles River,
desert,” Gordon says. “We didn’t find any living organ- but now some environmental advocates are pushing
isms in the top layer of the sediment. It was pretty bleak.” for a designated swimming area. Coletta says the Wynn
Wynn is now preparing to dredge the river channel to cleanup may have a similar catalytic effect on the Mystic
remove contaminated sediments there. The dredging is River. “You have to start somewhere,” he says.
14 CommonWealth S PRING 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY BRUCE MOHLone on one
River rehab
Judy Grinnell, 77, of North Adams, spearheaded the Hoosic River Revival for nearly
a decade. Now she’s preparing to turn the project over to a new leader.
by linda enerson | photograph by frank curran
What’s the Hoosic River Revival all about? feasible, but I would love to find out if North
The Hoosic River trickles through downtown Adams could have a dynamic riverfront. So a
North Adams within old, concrete, inaccessible number of us started meeting regularly.
flood control chutes that protect the city but
don’t provide any other advantages. Our goal is What brought people out? There are a lot
to create a 21st century system that restores of people who want North Adams to
the river to a more natural state and cre- come back to life. When people
ates a vibrant waterfront more started learning about cities like
conducive to recreation and Greenville, South Carolina,
commercial development. where they had a renaissance
once their river became an
Why is a vibrant riverfront asset, they said, maybe that
so important? MassMoCA is lady’s not crazy after all. And
one of the country’s largest maybe if we do take down the
contemporary art muse- walls in some places, she’s
ums. It has served as a cata- not going to drown the city.
lyst for this struggling mill
town, drawing thousands Was that a fear? Oh yes, it
of visitors. But museum continues to be a fear, even
visitors do not stay. A lovely though we say all the time
riverfront with shops, boat- this will be a flood-con-
ing, biking, and hiking would trolled river. There are peo-
complement what is becoming ple my age who remember
a cultural-recreational corridor. the floods, and feel very secure
with these walls, even though
How did you get involved? In the ’90s, four, 20-foot concrete panels have
I worked as a sales manager for Storey fallen and six are leaning. This is
Publishing in North Adams and traveled to not a destruction. It’s a modern-
conferences around the country. I went to ization of the flood control project
San Antonio and marveled at the people, constructed 65 years ago.
the general activities on the river. I went
to Providence. Once again, I saw all What’s your modernization en-
these people walking and businesses tail? It’s called the naturalization
thriving along the river. I didn’t know of the river. Instead of concrete
every inch of the Hoosic as I do now, chutes, you have steps going down
but I knew it was not attractive and to the river. Ninety-nine percent of
it was certainly not an asset for the the time, the river is flowing very low.
city. So (in 2008) I invited people to But when there’s a storm, the river can
a meeting. I told them I do not know rise all the way up those steps. People
how to do this, I don’t even know if it’s can get out of the way and the city is
SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 15MPGa
one on one
L
saved, but you still have a community asset. How much will it cost? $20 million. We’ve raised $300,000 r
Will the new design improve the water quality? Yes. Right
locally. The state allocated $8.75 million in a bond bill,
half a million of which was spent on the phase one design. u
now, the water gets too warm in the chutes. Fish need The rest of the $20 million we’re hoping the state and the
rocks and greenery and live things to eat, but nothing federal government will provide.
lives in these chutes. We will create a low-flow channel at
the bottom of the chutes, so the fish can survive. Will you naturalize the entire stretch of river through the
city? No, that’s not feasible. But we will be naturalizing as
Will the water be clean? Cleanish. You can’t eat the fish. much as possible.
We have contamination from the city’s old water pipes.
Cleaning that up will be part of our project. What is the total project cost? About $150 million.
The Army Corps of Engineers did the original flood con- Why are you stepping back now? We have gone from
trol project in the 1950s. What do they think of your dream to design. To go from design to development, the
design? They told me that if they were doing a flood organization needs a leader with different experience,
control project now it would look very much like what skills, and knowledge. The board has asked me to stay
we are doing. on as a member, and I think that’s important for institu-
tional memory and for continuity.
You are about to implement phase one. What does that
entail? We will be naturalizing a half-mile section of the What are you going to do? I’ll be spending more time with
river close to downtown, restoring its natural meander- my eight grandchildren. My husband is almost retired. C
ing course and creating a bike/cross-country ski path, an We’ve both been very active volunteers, but it’s a really
M
urban orchard, and access to the river for boating and good time for us as a couple to do only the things we want
fishing. to do. Y
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16 CommonWealth S PRING 2017MPGad2016final.pdf 1 9/13/16 11:03 AM
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rely on The MassINC Polling Group for accurate,
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MassINCPolling.com @MassINCPolling (617) 224-1628 Info@MassINCPolling.comstatistically significant
The road less traveled
Distance from Boston is an obstacle to statewide office
by jack sullivan
greater boston is the breeding ground for the state’s thinking he must have commuted a good deal,” Greene
top politicians. Going back to 1900, three out of every four wrote in an email after going through family records.
constitutional officers came from within 25 miles of Boston. Between Crane’s last day in office in 1903 and nearly 100
Go out 50 miles, and the percentage rises to 85 percent. years later in 2001, when then-Lt. Gov. Jane Swift took over
Most analysts say the state’s political axis tilts toward as acting governor for Paul Cellucci, there were no other
Greater Boston because that’s where the voters are, but law- governors from the Berkshires. In fact, of the 34 governors
makers believe the longer commutes from western Massa- to serve since 1900, only two others—Calvin Coolidge from
chusetts and Cape Cod may be responsible for the lack of Northampton and Foster Furcolo from Longmeadow—
geographical diversity at the upper echelon of state govern- lived more than 50 miles from Beacon Hill.
ment. Overriding a gubernatorial veto, the Legislature in Feb- Swift, who hung a portrait of Crane in her office when she
ruary approved a pay-raise package that included a $65,000 was governor because of their Berkshires connection, says
housing allowance for the governor, ostensibly to make it the problem in electing people west of Worcester isn’t dis-
easier for candidates from outside Boston to run for office. tance as much as population and political support. “There’s
When W. Murray Crane became governor in 1900, there lots of barriers to running from a distance from Boston,
weren’t a lot of roads to Beacon Hill that he could use from chiefly a lack of a political base and lack of financial resourc-
his western Massachusetts home in Dalton. In fact, there es,” she says. “Those issues are much bigger than travel.”
weren’t cars. “Boston has always been sort of the political nexus of govern
During his years in the State House—the indepen- Massachusetts,” says Shannon Jenkins, chair of the politi- lt gov
dently wealthy Crane, whose family owned the paper cal science department at the University of Massachusetts secreta
company that prints US currency, was lieutenant gover- Dartmouth. She says it’s easier for a politician to make a
treasur
nor from 1896 to 1899 before serving for four years as statewide name if he or she lives in the major media mar-
governor—he would stay at various hotels and clubs in ket in the state. “People from all over the state feel it’s an attorne
Boston and travel back to Dalton to be with his family as unfair advantage,” she says. auditor
often as he could by train, according to his great-grand- Political consultant Doug Rubin, president of
daughter Josie Greene of Newton. Northwind Strategies, says most of the elected officials
“I see telegrams from years when he would have been are from Boston because that’s where the voters are. “The
governor about being picked up at the train station in area within 25 miles of Boston is where most of the votes
either Pittsfield or Coltsville from an ‘express train,’ so I’m are—particularly in Boston and Middlesex County—for
20 COMMUTE TO BOSTON FOR CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS — SINCE 1900
15
number of officeholders
lieutenant governor
10
MILE MILE
attorney general
5 15
sec. of state
treasurer
governor
5
auditor
0
18 CommonWealth S PRING 2017statistically significant
FUN WITH NUMBERS
Democratic primaries,” Rubin wrote in an email.
Swift, who came from North Adams and was the first
pregnant governor in the country, said living out west
4 ifferent men named Hurley
D
who held the Treasurer’s office
from 1931-1947
20
was a lifestyle choice that would not have changed with a
housing allowance. umber of men who have held
N
“We found we preferred to raise our children back on two constitutional offices
1
the farm where my husband’s family grew up,” says Swift,
who had siblings in the Boston area she would stay with umber of women who have
N
on those nights she did not travel home. held two constitutional offices
22
The pay raise bill included a housing allowance only
for the governor, even though the state’s other constitu- ears that William Galvin
Y
tional officers face the same issue. Since 1900, 35 percent has been secretary of state
0
of all constitutional officers have come from Boston or
Cambridge and nearly two-thirds have come from within umber of women who
N
a 10-mile radius of Boston. The average distance to the have been secretary of state
3.3
State House from the city or town where each of the
governor
elected officials lived is 22.5 miles. verage years for lieutenant
A
lt gov Less than 12 percent lived beyond 60 miles and no con- governor in office
9.75
stitutional
secretary of stateofficer has called Cape Cod home since the 19th
century. Attorneys general have come from towns with the verage years for state
A
treasurer
closest proximity to Boston, with an average distance of auditor in office
attorney
18.4general
5
miles. Auditors have traveled the most distance, a little
auditor
more than a marathon away at 26.5 miles. The secretary of onstitutional officers who
C
state’s office has been dominated by Greater Boston politi- have lost reelection but
cians. Since 1900, those elected to the post from within five regained it the next term
miles of Boston have held the office for all but 23 years, with
two Boston pols, Michael Connolly and William Galvin,
having a vise grip on the position since 1979.
governor
lieutenant governor
sec. of state
treasurer
attorney general
auditor
MILE MILE MILE
50 100 150
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20 CommonWealth S PRING 2017washington notebook
The lunch-bucket Democrat’s dilemma
Is Steve Lynch out of step with his own party?
by shawn zeller
no one would question the wisdom of a gambler leagues’ focus on racial and gender identity poli-
who put money on US Rep. Stephen Lynch securing tics, their attention to “elitist” issues such as climate
another easy win next year. Still, the odds are chang- change, and their neglect of the type of people who
ing a bit, in part because the demographics of his sparked Lynch’s own political rise, the ironworkers
district are changing and the Democratic Party in and union men he once worked alongside.
Massachusetts is moving away from him to the left. “I was an ironworker for 20 years,” he says. “It’s
Since his election in 2001, Lynch has never faced hard to get that out of your system and I don’t
a serious challenge. His district includes South want to. I try to spend as much time as I can with
Boston, the neighborhood where he grew up, as blue collar” people.
well as downtown Boston and the generally white, The irony is that Lynch shares the impatience of
middle-class cities and towns to the south. the Democratic Party’s liberal base, but also seems
But the district is becoming more diverse. vulnerable to its rage. Lynch was one of the first
Quincy has a burgeoning Asian-American popula- Democratic representatives to question the party’s
tion. Brockton is a majority-minority community. House leader, Nancy Pelosi of California, when he
And the downtown Boston areas of his district are told WGBH’s Jim Braude in April 2015 that Pelosi
adding moneyed professionals, as is his own South should give up her leadership post. He predicted,
Boston neighborhood. correctly, that she would not lead Democrats back
Political novice Brianna Wu says she intends to into the majority in the 2016 election.
run against Lynch in the Democratic primary, tell- His views gained more adherents last year, after
ing voters that the congressman is an old Boston the Democrats’ election debacle, when 63 House
guy in a new Boston. The video game developer Democrats, including Lynch, voted for Pelosi’s rival,
says it’s time for new blood that better represents the Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, in the election for party
region’s evolution. And she says she is more com- leader in the current Congress. Still, Pelosi won over-
mitted to meeting the demands of the Democratic whelmingly and her advocates framed the rebellion
base that wants lawmakers to stonewall President as the outcry of a group of mostly white men against
Trump and the Republican majority in Congress at an increasingly diverse Democratic party.
every turn, just as Republicans did to then-President It’s unlikely that Lynch will see his star rise in
Barack Obama. That would ensure that Washington Congress as long as Pelosi is party leader and the
remains enmeshed in a permanent re-election cam- Democratic caucus is dominated by progressive
paign but, progressives believe, gives Democrats a members. He’s a backbencher and will probably
better chance of taking back the House next year. remain one.
Lynch isn’t one to go there. In February, in fact, This fall will mark 16 years in the House for
he stood up for Trump, telling WBZ NewsRadio Lynch. Even if Democrats were to win a majority,
that the media has been unfair to the president. he’s still far from a committee chairmanship. Lynch
Lynch has moved to the left over the years, but he is the eighth most senior Democrat on the Financial
still reflects the conservative Roman Catholic ethos Services Committee, the fifth on Oversight and
of his upbringing. He rejects his Democratic col- Government Reform. It was on the latter panel that
ILLUSTRATION BY ALISON SEIFFER SPR ING 2017 CommonWealth 21washington notebook
he’s made the most noise in recent years, criticizing Obama
administration officials for being insufficiently attentive to
terrorist threats. It didn’t win him many friends on the left.
And Wu can make a case that Lynch is out of step with
the party’s progressive activists.
He was one of 47 Democrats (with Bill Keating, Massachu-
setts’s 9th District representative) in 2015 to vote to tighten
vetting standards for refugees from Iraq and Syria, despite
Obama’s pleas to Democrats to vote no. He more recently
opposed Trump’s efforts to curtail refugee admissions and
explains that Trump’s order was a blanket ban, while he
voted in favor of tighter vetting.
“There’s a huge difference in asking someone to wait a
couple more weeks to come into the United States, versus
saying you can’t come,” he says.
Lynch is one of three House Democrats still in Congress
who voted against Obama’s 2010 health care law. Lynch
says he didn’t like the absence of a government-run insur-
ance option, as well as the law’s tax on high-cost, high-
quality insurance plans offered by some unions.
Lynch describes himself as personally “pro-life,” even
as he says he supports the Roe v. Wade decision.
He derides his party’s focus on climate change, argu-
ing that it has detracted from Democrats’ appeal to Rust
Belt voters.
For that, Wu, 39, intends to pillory him. “I think that
climate change is the biggest challenge facing mankind
and I think that the disaster we are running headfirst into
is going to affect my generation and not Stephen Lynch’s
and it’s deeply personal to me,” she says.
Lynch was beaten soundly in the 2013 special election
to fill the Senate seat left by John Kerry when Kerry became
secretary of state, losing to his House colleague Ed Markey
by 15 percentage points in the Democratic primary.
Markey, in that race, stressed his progressive credentials
and hammered Lynch for his breaks with liberal ortho-
doxy. Lynch was always a longshot in a statewide race, but
Wu is hoping to use Markey’s playbook in her challenge.
Lynch turned 62 in March. His once slick black hair
is still neatly parted on the left, but is gray now. His
ruddy complexion is marked by creases on his forehead
and crow’s feet that extend deeply from his eyes out-
ward. Exiting votes on the House floor, his shoulders
are slumped. He looks like someone who worked as an
ironworker for two decades.
In deciding whom to challenge, Wu said she looked at
who in the delegation was least likely to give Trump and
the GOP a tough fight. “I looked at who is going to fight for
us the least and that’s very clearly Stephen Lynch,” she says.
A former Arlington resident, Wu was harassed after she
publicly advocated for women in the video game industry
in 2014 and, though she remains in Massachusetts, doesn’t
want her current address made public. She says she plans
22 CommonWealth S PRING 2017washington notebook
to move to the 8th District when her lease is up in July. felt like they were trying to divide our party, so I declined
Lynch rejects the idea that Democrats should oppose the invitation,” he told the Globe in a statement. “I am usu-
Republicans just for the sake of opposing them in the hope ally someone who looks for middle ground, but Mr. Trump’s
that the strategy will swing the next election their way. He’d opening position, especially as reflected in his budget, has
rather take half a loaf on the issues that could help his con- been so extreme that there is no middle ground.”
stituents than hold out for the whole thing down the road. Lynch says he’s been busy with the new Congress and
Specifically, Lynch says he’s amenable to a deal that doesn’t sound particularly worried about Wu. He expects
would allow US companies with overseas assets to bring that shoe leather and door-to-door campaigning, always
those back to the United States at a reduced tax rate. his strong suit, will carry the day.
Multinational companies based in the United States now Back home in Southie, the city has torn down the Old
stockpile money they earn abroad rather than bring it Colony public housing project, where Lynch and his five
home and incur this country’s highest-in-the-world cor- sisters grew up with their parents in what Lynch remem-
porate tax rate of 35 percent. bers as “one of the poorest predominantly white census
Lynch expects a tax break, setting the rate at 10 or 15 tracts in America.” In its place are spiffy town homes that
percent for funds brought home, could generate the $1 were named last November for Lynch’s mother, Anne.
trillion Trump wants to use to upgrade American infra- The town homes sit across Columbia Road from Joe
structure. “That’s a big deal and I think that’s doable,” Moakley Park, named for the longtime US representative
he says. “If [Trump] ever veered towards the center and who personified the Irish Boston Democrat and whose
started to make some progress, or reach out to Democrats death in 2001 opened up the seat for Lynch.
on the issue of tax reform or infrastructure, I would be Despite all of Boston’s changes, Lynch, a Claddagh ring
willing to work with the administration on that.” on his finger, still has roots that run deep in the city—and
Late in March, however, Lynch revealed that as a moder- a political bearing that has been in tune with his urban-
ate Democrat he had been invited to a meeting with Trump’s suburban district. He is betting any winds of change won’t
director of legislative affairs and had declined to attend. “I be blowing too strongly through it.
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