Eye On Patrick by Andy Steinberg
Casinos
September 17: Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick took 13 more days beyond his self-imposed September 4 deadline to analyze whether or not to create state resort casinos. He decided to call for competitive bidding (with special consideration for at least one native owned casino like the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe of Cape Cod or the Aquinnah Wampanoag Indians) for three (Boston area, southeast MA, western Mass-Worcester) 10-year state licenses for resort casinos, saying this auction could immediately generate at least $600 million of tax revenues. The 3 casinos could together create 30,000 construction jobs and over 20,000 permanent jobs, and raise at least $450 million annually from their minimum 27% tax rate. Income taxes from employees would mean another $50 to $80 million a year. Both these amounts are mostly aimed towards two neglected 16 year old projects:
" $200 million for reducing property taxes by an average $215 per each of over 1 million eligible homeowners and
" $200 million to close more of the budget gap for improvements to 600 bridges and roads.
The remaining $50 million is earmarked towards public safety, police and fire calls, domestic violence, child welfare, local impact, Community Mitigation Trust Fund, state lottery, new Public Health Trust Fund to treat people addicted to gambling, drugs, or alcohol, and a new state gambling oversight agency.
Patrick acknowledged concerns of trouble and promised transparent and rigorous casino regulation, saying, "Casino gambling is neither a cure all nor the end of civilization. On balance, however, and under certain conditions, I believe resort casinos can work well in, and for, the commonwealth."
There would additional revenues of tens of millions of dollars from hotels, sales, and meals as well. At this time gambling beyond the four racetracks and state lottery is illegal in MA so the Legislature would have to approve Patrick's plan. The casinos are planned to be open by 2012.
Those in favor of casinos include D-Plymouth Senate President Therese Murray, D-South Boston Representative Brian Wallace, D-Bridgewater MA Rep. David Flynn, D-New Bedford Sen. Mark Montigny, D-Worcester US Rep. James McGovern, R-Westfield Sen. Michael Knapik, Senate Ways and Means Chairman Steven Panagiotakos, Hotel Workers Union President Janice Loux, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, President of Back Bay Assoc. Meg Mainzer-Cohen, Springfield lawyer Francis Fitzgerald, partner Dennis Murphy at Ventry Associates, former Monson selectman Adolph "Al" Jurczyk, Holyoke City Councilor John Lecca , and President Robert Haynes of the MA AFL-CIO. Among those in opposition are D-Boston House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, D-Barnstable Sen. Robert O'Leary, D-Andover MA Sen. Susan Tucker, D-Barre Sen. Stephen Brewer, D-Worthington Rep. Stephen Kulik,
D-Dalton Rep. Denis Guyer, D-Pittsfield Sen. Benjamin Downing, North Adams MA Rep. Daniel Bosley, MA Council of Churches executive director Rev. Jack Johnson, executive director of MA Municipal Assoc. Geoff Beckwith, president of Legal Sea Foods Roger Berkowitz, MA Restaurant Assoc. board chairman Joseph Pignato, MA Restaurant Assoc. president Peter Christie, Blue MA Group cofounder Charley Blandy, former MA governor Michael Dukakis, Monson Selectman Kathleen Norbut, Ludlow Selectman Chairman Lawrence Nascimento, and the League of Women Voters.
September 19: Democrat Sen. Stanley Rosenberg said, "I've voted, historically, against expanded gaming, although I don't think anyone in Massachusetts government can say we're against it, because we run the biggest state lottery in the country. So we've crossed that Rubicon long ago on state- sanctioned gaming." He also mentioned money that could go to MA is instead going to Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort casinos in Connecticut.
The Governor met with the editorial board of The Republican and 40 students, at the Urban League of Springfield on State Street. "Frankly, the tourism market is different in the western part of the state than it is in Boston. Why would we leave that opportunity on the table?", Patrick said.
At a meeting of the Monson Voice on Casinos' at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Selectman Kathleen Norbut said that she doubted the casino jobs would pay as much as $35,000 to $40,000 a year.
September 20: Patrick visited the Big E for a longer-than-expected 3 hours, he said that he wants to bring back the New England Governors Conference which hasn't been at the Big E since 2000. The Conference worked to boost economic development in the region.
November 29: Casino tycoon Donald Trump considered buying the Holyoke Mall and converting it into a casino. Mayor Michael Sullivan said, "The Holyoke Mall has been up for sale for a year, and it has parking and infrastructure to handle a lot of traffic. Where else can I buy a 1.5 million square foot building?" The Pyramid Companies stated that 18 of its 20 malls are for sale, including the Holyoke Mall. The mall is the city's largest taxpayer, contributing 17% of all revenue, and is its second-largest employer.
December 18: Governor Patrick spoke to Legislators about his casinos plan, reminding them that John Hancock, the first MA governor, raised money from a lottery to rebuild Faneuil Hall in Boston after an 18th century fire, and that Harvard dorms were financed in the 19th century by lottery. "For a very long time now, gaming has been in practice in Massachusetts, and gaming revenues have been used to support public projects." Palmer town manager Richard Fitzgerald said, "It's more than likely inevitable. I haven't heard a plan B for the revenues. As a municipality we're hurting along with other municipalities and in need of lottery revenues." Leo Maley, of Amherst, a Volunteer with Casino Free MA Leo Maley also attended the hearing. He said, "Casinos are at best an economic wash. New jobs are created and others disappear."
January 4: "You've really got to get in the trenches with the Legislature and say, 'What are the options, folks?'" said Knapik, the ranking Republican on the Senate committee that oversees the budget.
Education
October 8: Associate vice president for communications of the UMass president's office Robert Connolly began a new TV campaign with an ad called "Transform" featuring Deval Patrick as he speaks about the power of education while touring the UMass campus in front of the Fine Arts Center, near Professor Derek Lovely's lab and in the Learning Commons of the W.E.B DuBois Library. The ad can be viewed by going to www.massachusetts.edu/transform/index.html and clicking on Launch Video under the Governor's photo. "Governor Patrick has been widely described as the most ardent champion UMass has ever had in the Corner Office", said Connolly ,"and we believe that his enthusiastic endorsement will resonate across the state."
October 21: Patrick signed a bill for a $278 million supplementary budget with $7 million in matching funds for UMass and $6 million for other public colleges. Created in 1996, the Public Higher Education Endowment Incentive Program is intended to encourage private donations by providing 50 cents in matching state funds for every dollar raised by the public campuses.
October 24: Patrick wants UMass Board of Trustees Chairman Stephen Tocco to leave when his term expires in June. On Nov 29 Tocco agreed to step down in December, saying that, "The ongoing battle over the chairman's post is causing a distraction that could hurt the university." Tocco will retain the rest of his three year term as a trustee seat on the Board. On December 14 the 19-member board chose Vice chairman Robert Manning by a unanimous voice vote to be the new chairman. Manning and his wife Donna, an oncology nurse at a Boston hospital who graduated at UMass Lowell, created a scholarship at the Lowell campus providing a cash award to two students each year, one in nursing studies and one in management.
November 6: The Governor filed a bill asking the Legislature for $2 billion in bonds over the next decade, $1 billion for the five-UMass-system and $1 billion for the nine state colleges and 15 community colleges. UMass Amherst is already earmarked for $85 million for an academic classroom building, $100 million for a laboratory science building, $12.6 million for repairs to Machmer Hall, $41.2 million for repairs to the Lederle Graduate Research Center, and $51.3 million for repairs and renovations to Morrill Science Center. The bill also earmarks $125 million for the Boston campus, $57.1 million for Dartmouth, $49 million for Lowell and $52 million for Worcester. The state and UMass officials have already committed $187.5 million over the next five years, 50 cents in addition to every dollar of the state's planned five-year, $375 million investment, to further address capital needs. (See Education, October 21.)
January 9: Patrick wants to increase funding for the universal pre-kindergarten program from last year's $4.6 million to $7.1 million, for 4,700 low-income children.
January 19: The Governor recommended a 4.4% increase for the five-UMass-system, from $469 million to $489.7 million, including Commonwealth College at $3.63 million, a $541,000 line item for the Edward Collins Jr. Center for Public Management at the McCormack School at UMass Boston, and a $441,467 increase in the state scholarship fund from $93.8 million to $94.3 million.
Jan 29: Patrick filed a bill to help prevent the layoffs of 15 teachers and 45 other school employees in Salem, by allowing Salem to borrow $1 million of its $4.7 million budget gap. The city has closed $3.5 million of the gap by new revenues, cuts and layoffs, leaving a gap of $200,000.
Employment
October 19: Patrick signed a $280 million bill to give the state's 11 district attorneys a 27% raise, double the governor's staff in D.C., grants for cultural organizations, the Hampshire County lockup, and court-appointed private lawyers for the poor. He also approved $116.5 million for contracts for unions around the state including employees for sheriffs in Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties, an up-to-36% raise for the new Turnpike Authority Executive Director Alan LeBovidge (See Turnpike and Transportation, November 19), and increasing the salaries of the adjutant general of the state National Guard, three assistant adjutant generals and the quartermaster. The governor approved 4.8% pay raises for himself, the lieutenant governor and other constitutional officers, retroactive to July 1 of this year. But Patrick said he and Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray wouldn't accept the raises unless they are recommended by the new advisory board he will appoint.
Housing
October 4: The Patrick administration's Dan Crane, director of the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, is pressuring mortgage lenders who initiate foreclosures to provide up to $6 million to help up to 8,000 MA homeowners (mainly with adjustable rate mortgages) who may lose their homes in 2008. The $6 million would go to NeighborWorks America (1-888-995-4673) housing counselors to help homeowners modify loan terms or ease sales. In 2007 these lenders provided only a measly $10,000. They include Wells Fargo & Co, Countrywide Home Loans, and the Bank of New York's Wall Street investors. Wells Fargo, Option One Mortgage Corp (a subprime lender), and the Massachusetts Credit Union League said they will comply. Countrywide did not return any messages. The Bank of NY has flatly refused to give any funds.
November 17: Patrick created the largest affordable housing bill in MA history, $1.1 billion to update state owned public housing developments and make 4,000 five-year construction jobs.
November 20: The Governor reconstituted the Interagency Council on Homelessness and Housing, an 11-member panel led by Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray. The ICHH will assist the Commission to End Homelessness, a 30-member panel including the mayors of Holyoke, Northampton and Boston, and other local and state officials.
November 21: Patrick signed a bill to approve $15 million of state money for low-income people to heat their homes this winter. The federal government provided $90 million to MA but vetoed an extra $20 million aid to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program LIHEAP. With the state money, Patrick said a typical household would receive $865 (up from $715 last year) in heating fuel this winter. About 141,300 households in the state receive the aid last year. Patrick is the first governor to make such a serious attempt to help with fuel aid. D-Amherst U.S. Rep. John W. Olver said, ""The comparatively modest increase to LIHEAP that Democrats proposed is roughly equal to the cost of two days spent in Iraq. The price of home heating oil has nearly tripled since President Bush took office in 2001." Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, have called on Bush to change his decision.
December 23: Patrick asked legislators for an extra $800,000 for fuel aid for low-income veterans and their families (on top of the $3.9 million increase approved by the Senate in November 2007) by $104 a month, from $146 to $250 a month for about 1,500 veterans and their families.
January 3: The Patrick administration mailed letters to 12,500 homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages telling them about the Massachusetts Housing Finance Authority's new refinancing program, Home Saver, designed to put struggling homeowners in more affordable loans, and to ease eligibility. In a key change, homeowners seeking to refinance their mortgages will no longer be required to prove they were victims of predatory lending.
Public Safety and Civil Rights
October 1: Patrick designated $5 million of state and federal funds for preventing and identifying domestic violence. MA provides free and confidential 24-7 services at this time.
October 30: The Governor chose a 4th person to join the state's chief civil rights agency, MA Commission Against Discrimination, he is Malcolm Medley, a Boston lawyer and former Boston School Department lawyer, both times specializing in discrimination. Patrick also choose three people to join a key advisory panel board that works with the MCAD, Thomas Gallitano, Albert Toney and Tani Sapirstein.
November 2: Patrick is considering doing away with police details i.e. officers doing detail work at road-repair sites and replacing them with less costly civilian flagmen also known as flag men or flaggers. The police unions gave Patrick strong opposition as this would cut their earning potential. The MA Turnpike Authority (which spent $3.4 million on police details in fiscal '06) and the MA Highway Dept both use details and flaggers.
November 13: Governor Patrick created one of the strongest abortion buffer zones in the country, effective immediately. The old border was only 6 feet, this new law is a 35-foot perimeter around a clinic's entrances and driveways where anti-abortionists may not leaflet nor counsel.
December 20: Deval Patrick made the state's first Office of the Child Advocate to investigate serious allegations of child abuse. The OCA falls under the Executive Office of Health and Human Service but it is independent of the EOHHS and any other single state agency.
January 22: Patrick appointed 2 new judges, a Pittsfield lawyer Richard Simons to be a circuit judge for the court in Western Massachusetts, and Amherst lawyer Linda Fidnick to be a judge on the Hampshire County Probate and Family Court. In his first appointment to the Trial Court, Patrick last year selected Anne Geoffrion of East Longmeadow as a judge in the Hampden Probate and Family Court. This gives western MA three new judges.
January 23: The Governor has proposed almost $106 million to the struggling state Medical Examiner's Office (See Science and Environment, January 4), 100 new police officers, upgrades at the State Police Crime Lab, new safeguards at the Department of Corrections to decrease the number of prison suicides, summer jobs programs, grants for centers for at-risk youth, firefighting equipment, and firefighter training programs.
