"Boston luxury condo prices soar; High costs bring concerns about a widening gulf" by Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff April 21, 2014
The price of living in the heart of Boston is fast approaching an average of $1 million, as condominium sales sizzle and values surge.
****************
With sleek new residential towers and seven-figure selling prices, the central city is attracting financiers, doctors, foreign investors, and well-heeled baby boomers looking to “downsize,” taking on a tony character that many real estate specialists liken to Manhattan’s. At the same time, the trend is raising concerns that Boston, like New York, is becoming a community of extremes, a city of rich and poor with little room for those in the middle.
Take a quick wipe and you will see it has already arrived.
In Chinatown, on the edge of downtown, the Chinese Progressive Association is helping tenants in 10 buildings fight evictions and big rent increases as landlords move to redevelop the properties into luxury housing, said Mark Liu, the programs and operations director for the neighborhood group.
Yeah, the lack of affordable housing never seems to be much of a focus in my Globe, and rightly so. I've come to learn that the Globe is written for and of Boston's elite, and by those that serve and strive to belong. Not complaining about it, just recognizing and wondering why I am still doing this. Documenting the decline and destruction of the middle class through the agenda-pu$hing, $tatu$ quo whoreporate new$paper is going nowhere.
“It is leaving a lot of working class residents behind,” Liu said of the development boom. “Boston isn’t just for the wealthy. It’s for residents of all incomes.”
Since when?
Luxury units, with personal services and valet parking, have been driving the market.
I wonder how much the parking space costs.
***************
The influx of wealthy executives, entrepreneurs, professionals, and others has been followed by businesses catering to the luxe life.
Good thing the mayor is a labor leader, 'eh?
“We’ve gone through a major transformation in the city,” said Debra Taylor Blair, president of LINK Inc., “and we’re approaching more of a New York City lifestyle.”
Meaning the wealth inequality is yawning open even further.
Brigitta Herzfeld’s parents bought a penthouse unit at the Millennium in February for more $3 million. Her father, a money manager, had lived in Manhattan and wanted a building in Boston with the same white-glove services, including a residents’ lounge with a wine bar, a grassy terrace with room for the family’s two dogs, and a staff that remembered your name even if they didn’t see you for months.
“We were looking for a New York-style apartment,” said Herzfeld, who works for her father’s investment firm, Thomas J. Herzfeld Advisors Inc., and uses the condo as her Boston base.
I don't even need to say anything.
Herzfeld, who earned her MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management in 2008, said the transformation of the neighborhood has been remarkable. Nearly a decade ago, she recalled, it was a gritty stretch where you might stop for dim sum or shop for deals at the old Filene’s Basement. “It’s amazing how far that area has come,” she said.
Realtors said better public transportation, safer streets, and urban amenities are attracting more people to the city and contributing to the demand for condos. Adding to that demand are investors who see a strong local economy supported by technology and life sciences and anticipate solid returns from real estate.
The result: quick sales and rising prices.
A bubble.
****************
But a downtown address, as well as those in nearby neighborhoods such as the South End and Charlestown, is something most middle-income families can’t afford. Those who want to live in the city are getting pushed out to Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, or Savin Hill and Jones Hill in Dorchester, said Mark Lippolt, senior vice president at Hammond Residential Real Estate in Brookline. “The prices are eye-popping,” he said of the downtown market.
Still, Boston has a ways to go before it can rival Manhattan’s lavish lifestyle and real estate.
Now they are making excuses for the excesses of Boston's elite. Not surprising since they are owned by one.
While Boston’s condo prices have soared, they fall short of what people shell out for a Manhattan ZIP code, unobstructed views of Central Park, multiple fireplaces, and car elevators....
I suppose Boston has had an inferiority complex when jot comes to new York the last century or so.
--more--"
Related: Outdoor Church invites homeless in on Easter
Boston is a safe haven for the homeless.
Also see: Selfless rescuer stops assault of homeless man
Are you sure he wasn't an undercover cop?
Don't the BPD have BETTER THINGS TO DO?
Wegmans to open in Chestnut Hill on Sunday
How the Wegmans landed in New England
Wegman's Grocery Gamble
I wasn't very hungry for those articles.
Dublin retailer to open store at former Filene’s site
Speaking of tax breaks:
"Mayor Walsh calls for Fenway Center tax break; $4.6 million deal could spur a start to 5 buildings over Pike" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff April 14, 2014
Mayor Martin J. Walsh is proposing to give a $4.6 million tax break to one of Boston’s most ambitious developments, a $550 million project near Fenway Park that could allow him to make his first major imprint on the city’s skyline.
The tax deal is designed to jump-start the development of Fenway Center, enabling construction to start early next year on retail spaces, hundreds of apartments, and a parking garage on property that straddles the Massachusetts Turnpike.
A vote on the financing is scheduled for Thursday at a Boston Redevelopment Authority board meeting.
Fenway Center has languished for several years due to legal and permitting challenges, and its developer, John Rosenthal, has struggled to generate enough funding to move forward with the project.
But Walsh has expressed a willingness to help since his first days in office, saying the construction would generate jobs and continue a building boom that is transforming vast swaths of the city.
“This is a positive partnership that’s going to help to spur growth,” Walsh said in an interview Sunday. “The city is open for business, and we’re going to work with developers on good solid projects that can be supported by the community.”
Fenway Center would result in construction of a total of 1.3 million square feet of residential and commercial space in five buildings between Brookline Avenue and Beacon Street. It would include 420 apartments, space for stores, restaurants and offices, and nearly 1,000 parking spaces.
Plans also call for a farmers market, a bike-sharing station, multiple restaurants, and other amenities.
“We are going to cover up the highway and build a new neighborhood out of thin air,” said Rosenthal, president of Meredith Management Corp. “This is going to be where the pebble drops in terms of smart, transit-oriented, and sustainable development.”
The project is particularly costly and complex because it requires construction of a $35 million deck over the Mass. Pike to support its main parking garage as well as a 27-story tower with offices, apartments, and stores.
Rosenthal and city officials said the tax relief is structured to help fund construction of the project’s retail spaces, not its luxury apartments.
Boston is a homeless haven with a lack of affordable housing and the heroin clinic is being closed, but they can grant tax breaks to a spot that is going to have luxury apartments.
Can there be any doubt that government at all levels now $erves wealth and nothing el$e?
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Boston to shutter drug treatment facility
It's being privati$ed. They must not have a union.
***************
The arrangement holds some political risk for Walsh. There is no guarantee the costly and technically complex Fenway Center will be built — even with the city’s help.
I'm wondering what $4 million could bring in city services.
***************
Though the mayor’s offer is less than requested, Rosenthal said, the deal has been accepted by his primary financial backer, the international pension fund investor Bentall Kennedy, and will allow construction to proceed.
But the battle to start construction is not over. Rosenthal said it will take at least a year to finalize construction drawings, get a building permit, and complete financing arrangements with Bentall Kennedy.
That leaves the project vulnerable to changes in the economy or local real estate market that could undermine its feasibility. For example, about 8,000 apartments are expected to be completed in Boston during the next few years, an unprecedented influx of supply that has caused some to question whether development of additional units will pay off.
That never stopped developers or the lenders before.
The tax break is tied to the onset of construction and would not be provided unless the work proceeds.
Rosenthal said he is more confident about Fenway Center’s prospects than ever. Earlier this year, a new Yawkey Commuter Rail Station was completed at the edge of the property, and the neighborhood around it has continued to attract new residents, restaurants, and stores.
“I think we’re going to be hitting the market at the right time,” Rosenthal said.
For Bostonian taxpayers $ake, I hope so.
--more--"
Related:
BRA approves $4.6m tax break for Fenway Center project
Don Chiofaro’s prospects may be looking up
Siemens offers $660 million to help narrow skills gap
More help needed to expand tech education
Walsh, Huffington talk Boston startups
I'm no longer a fan and am embarrassed that I thought she was something back in 2003-2004.
"Arianna Huffington, pioneer of 24-7 news, says put the phone down" by Shirley Leung | Globe Columnist April 11, 2014
It is 6 a.m., and it is yet another morning where I am in my pajamas tweeting, writing, and cursing Arianna Huffington under my breath.
I blame, in large part, the Huffington Post for supercharging the 24-7 news cycle that has given readers a voracious appetite for information. To keep up, traditional journalists like me have been forced onto a Web schedule, tweeting and filing stories around the clock.
We have won, bloggers. That is why the war plans are turning to s***.
How I long for those days of a single 5 p.m. deadline for the next day’s paper.
So I found it ironic that Huffington, eponymous cofounder of the wildly successful website, published a book last month called “Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder.”
It’s already number one on The New York Times’s bestseller list. The message: unplug and remember to recharge your own batteries.
For real?
This from a media mogul who carries, wherever she goes, an iPhone, three BlackBerrys, an iPad, and a laptop. Or as she puts it, “the whole catastrophe.”
Should we really be taking advice from her on how to take it easy?
That sounds kind of eliti$t to me.
*****************
At 63, Huffington hardly looked it Wednesday, coiffed and impeccably dressed in a fashionable brown lace suit. Maybe all that sleep — or all that money — does help. She was once married to Michael Huffington, the awfully wealthy former Republican congressman from California. He later came out of the closet after their divorce.
I felt sorry for her back then, then realized later that the elite class is perverted and sick.
She probably has her own money now after selling HuffPost to AOL for $315 million in 2011. She remains very much in charge, as chair, president, and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group.
HuffPost is in 11 countries with 850 employees, and the enterprise has made her a reigning queen of media to a generation of digital natives. The site attracts nearly 80 million unique visitors a month in the United States, more than the websites of the New York Times and CNN get individually, according to comScore.
The left-leaning HuffPost has changed dramatically since its launch, but it remains a mixture of celebrity bloggers, original reporting, and the infamous aggregation of stories from other news sites.
While traditional media consider it a nemesis, Huffington herself is quite fond of old-fashioned newspapers. She is even optimistic about our future.
“Despite the prognostications of the end of the newspapers, there are still newspapers, and there are still people like me who love reading newspapers,” she said....
I see it more as a thankle$$ chore, sorry.
--more--"
Just in case you are planning on partying in Boston:
"$1.1b plan for convention center meets skeptics" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff April 10, 2014
Boston’s largest convention center will lose tens of millions of dollars in business in coming years unless the state authorizes a $1.1 billion expansion of the facility, Massachusetts convention chief James Rooney told lawmakers Thursday.
All so the elite will have a nice place to hold their meetings and parties.
But the expansion proposal faced questions from legislators and others who raised concerns that the financial benefits of the plan would not justify the cost. Some also questioned whether Boston should get so much funding when other communities are in danger of losing money for cultural and tourism activities.
“Where I am, 110 miles from the State House, no one wants to keep footing the bill for construction in Boston,” said state Representative Nicholas Boldyga, a Republican from Southwick. “They come here very infrequently, and they’re upset because they can’t even get $10,000 a year for their cultural council budgets.”
I couldn't have $aid it better myself.
*****************
“We have tried to craft a financing mechanism that allows monies collected in Cambridge and Boston to pay for this,” said Rooney. He noted no tax increases would be required by the legislation that proposes the expansion. Nearly all the funding would come from existing fees levied on hotel and tourism activities in Cambridge and Boston. If those funds fall short, statewide hotel tax revenue would be used to make up the shortfall.
Rooney appeared before the legislature’s Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets, which will make a recommendation on the bill to the House and Senate. It is unclear when the measure will come up for a final vote, but the legislative session ends in July.
Rooney said the expansion would place Boston among the top five convention destinations nationwide, generating $184 million more in annual economic benefits for the state and $12 million in additional taxes each year.
“The creation of the BCEC was a wise investment by the Massachusetts Legislature,” Rooney said. “And we have an opportunity to do more -- more in terms of job creation, more in terms of attracting additional major conferences and meetings, more in terms of tourism activities.”
Some critics of the expansion say it would take money away from other priorities by extending the length of time the state would need to pay off debt for the facility. Without the expansion, they say, tax revenue now raised for the convention center fund could be used to cover other expenses by 2034. Under the expansion proposal, the state could be paying off debt on the facility until 2060.
Hey, that will make the BANKERS HAPPY!
“The cost of that would be approximately $5 billion to the Commonwealth,” said Charles Chieppo, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, a nonpartisan research organization.
Rooney said that expansion of the South Boston hall has always been contemplated and, in any case, taxes that go into the convention center fund will be needed to operate the facility beyond 2034.
In addition to the expansion, Rooney also wants to construct thousands of additional rooms around the convention center, which suffers from a lack of available rooms nearby. There are 1,700 rooms within walking distance of the facility, compared with 8,000 or more in New Orleans and other cities that compete with Boston.
It's a richer's world, folks.
Currently, 500 new hotel rooms are under construction across from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. But Rooney wants to build a larger headquarters hotel that would add another 1,200 to 1,500 rooms. The state’s convention center authority is awaiting responses from developers interested in building that hotel.
Rooney has acknowledged that construction of the headquarters hotel will almost certainly require government financial assistance because private developers have been unwilling to accept the risk of funding those projects. But he said such assistance come in the form of tax forgiveness or discounted leases, as opposed to direct subsidies.
You just never mind those service cuts and state neglect.
“There are ways to structure this that don’t require me or the state or the city to put up cash,” he said.
Then where is it coming from, $cum?
--more--"
Related: Conventioneers Caught in Boston Globe Briar Patch
Yeah, maybe you want to hold your $hin-dig in another city.
Let's review:
"Unforeseen events shaped Walsh’s first 100 days" by Meghan E. Irons | Globe Staff April 15, 2014
While Mayor Martin J. Walsh has tried to set his own pace and follow his own agenda, he has lurched from one crisis or controversy to another, trying to gain a firm hold on the job.
In his first week in office, Walsh attempted to embark on a comprehensive violence prevention campaign, only to witness a surge in homicides, which prompted him to revive a controversial gun buy-back program.
Related: The Mattapan Mistake
Man shot dead by Boston police during dispute is identified
"Police rushed around downtown Boston Wednesday night, responding to calls for help after a group of up to 20 males and females launched at least six unprovoked attacks on people on Boston Common and in the neighborhood, police said. On Thursday, police said there were at least six incidents, but only in four did victims want to press charges. Police and prosecutors offered this summary of the four cases."
Boston police unions approve labor deals worth about $34m
I guess they are earning it.
Two major snowstorms in his first weeks in office deflected attention from his initiatives and caused him to cancel his national coming out party as Boston’s new leader — a planned trip to Washington, D.C., for a mayors’ conference.
Yeah, I won't forget those once the fart-mi$ting $pew regarding global warming starts -- if spring ever gets here, that is.
Then Walsh expended significant political capital plunging into the St. Patrick’s Day parade controversy, trying — and failing — to broker a deal to allow a contingent of gay marchers.
Yeah, I would like to forget about that.
And in late March, he found himself comforting his city after two Boston firefighters died while trapped in a burning Back Bay basement.
Related:
Welding Together Back Bay Fire Stories
Federal agency to probe cause of fatal Back Bay fire
Welding business sued over fatal Back Bay fire
Building destroyed by Back Bay fire would cost $4.2m to rebuild
Officials to investigate worker safety at Malden welding firm
Also see:
"A New York City police officer died early Wednesday from injuries suffered in a Brooklyn high-rise fire over the weekend, becoming the first member of the police force to die responding to a fire in a residential building in nearly three decades, according to authorities. A second officer remained hospitalized in critical condition after sustaining injuries in the blaze, which police said was set by a “bored” teenager."
I'm board with my Globe, but I haven't burned them.
***************
Over the weekend, the mayor juggled a press conference laying out Marathon security and the separate announcement that the city had reached a tentative contract with the union representing Boston firefighters, the first time in more than a decade a deal has been reached without arbitration. Walsh had pledged during the campaign that as a former labor leader, he would be able to negotiate successfully with the fire union.
See:
Walsh, union reach tentative deal on contract
Walsh refuses to release details of firefighters’ contract
Why is Mayor Walsh hiding details of proposed fire contract?
I dunno.
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Boston firefighters would see 18.8% pay hike
Among his achievements so far, Walsh revamped the top echelons of the Boston Police Department, installing a veteran officer as commissioner and naming the department’s first African-American chief. He took on the Boston Redevelopment Authority, launching a review and firing 14 people from the agency’s business arm, while still moving forward with Boston’s building boom, such as the planned Fenway Center and the redevelopment of Dudley Square.
Walsh also consolidated his Cabinet, creating some roles and sharpening others, but his early hires were mostly white men from his inner circle from Dorchester and South Boston.
Related: Walsh withholds diversity records
Walsh spoke briefly with a Globe reporter about his 100 days on the job, after an event on aging at the University of Massachusetts Boston last Thursday, which was also his 47th birthday.
“It’s been incredible,’’ Walsh said. “I don’t think roller coaster is the right word. Really, it’s been highs and lows.”
Critics and supporters said among the highlights so far of Walsh’s administration has been his willingness to be visible in the neighborhoods, a skill virtually trademarked by Menino, who held the job for two decades. Walsh has attended community meetings and ribbon cuttings, and made a point to meet residents, including those at the margins of society.
Many residents and analysts who were interviewed lauded the mayor for putting his heart in the right place on issues such as his insistence that East Boston and Charlestown residents have a say in casino proposals on the city’s border; his early involvement in the effort to improve troubled schools; and his stance against two proposed marijuana dispensaries in the city.
Where is his wallet, though?
See: Boston’s pot pushback
Not a surprise. Former addicts are the worst.
Hunt for a Boston Public Schools chief accelerates
Hold the search: McDonough is best chief for city’s schools
A leadership loss for Boston’s schools
ABott time.
UPDATE: Walsh taps Lottery financial officer to become Boston’s budget czar
Those residents said they were rooting for Walsh and willing to give him a break during the first months of his administration.
I did. 100 days are up.
UPDATE: Mayor Walsh’s solid start
*****************
The 100-day milestone was pioneered by Franklin D. Roosevelt at the height of the Depression and seen as one way to reassure an anxious public that the nation would pull through hard times. In his first 100 days, Roosevelt pushed through 15 major pieces of legislation that led to the restructuring of the financial market and reform.
While some analysts contend that 100 days is too soon to judge any political officeholder harshly — or to judge them at all — journalists, scholars, and politicians themselves embrace the marker.
*****************
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, elected the same day as Walsh, spent his first 100 days pushing a string of broad policy initiatives, including trying to make good on a campaign pledge to tax the rich to pay for universal prekindergarten. Governor Andrew Cuomo scrapped the tax bid, but Cuomo did fund universal prekindergarten to the tune of $300 million.
De Blasio also signed a bill expanding the number of workers eligible for sick days, and he withdrew the city’s challenge to federal oversight of a controversial stop and frisk police tactic.
Related: Globe Tracks De Blasio's Trailblazing
He is going in reverse!
In Seattle, Ed Murray, a former state legislator and the city’s first openly gay mayor, has taken the lead in the minimum wage debate during his early days in office. He quickly kept the public up to date after a news helicopter crashed yards from the Space Needle.
In Boston, political observers acknowledge that Walsh had a hectic honeymoon period. They are willing to give him a pass for some stumbles out the blocks....
Which is what I'm going to do on the rest of the piece.
--more--"
Going up again$t the odds here:
"Walsh accuses gaming chief of bias, demands recusal" by Mark Arsenault | Globe staff April 17, 2014
Mayor Martin J. Walsh is calling on the state’s top gambling regulator to recuse himself from any decisions about licensing a casino in the Greater Boston region, accusing him of bias against the city and its efforts to gain more influence over two casino proposals just beyond its borders.
“Throughout the process, Chairman [Stephen] Crosby has made several statements, which the city deems prejudicial,” Elizabeth Dello Russo, a lawyer for the Walsh administration, wrote in a blistering letter to the commission on Thursday.
Dello Russo accused the commission of trying to “stack the deck” against Boston, to deny the city a fair hearing on its claim for more say over a Wynn Resorts casino proposal in Everett and a Mohegan Sun casino plan in Revere. The letter mentions a federal lawsuit by Caesars Entertainment that also accuses Crosby, chairman of the state gambling commission, of bias.
At least the lawyers are finding work.
“Taken together, the pending federal lawsuit, recent commission statements, current press articles, and the commissions’ own actions, create a cloud over the proceedings when Chairman Crosby participates,” the city stated.
Hey, as long as the state gets their cut.
Crosby and the commission declined last evening to respond, through the commission’s spokeswoman, Elaine Driscoll. The commission’s legal staff is reviewing Boston’s letter, she said.
The relationship between the new mayor and the gambling commission is off to a bumpy start: Walsh last month unexpectedly upset the casino licensing sweepstakes by declaring to the commission that the city is a “host community” to the two casino projects under the 2011 state casino law, with rights to hold binding votes in Boston on the proposals.
He isn't worried about gambling addiction?
The question of Boston’s status could have enormous influence on the development of the state’s nascent casino industry. If Boston wins “host” status, both casino projects would be in jeopardy: It is unlikely either development would survive a neighborhood referendum in Boston.
Why? I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want a casino in town.
The mayor insists that the Charlestown neighborhood should vote on the Wynn project and that East Boston residents deserve to vote on the Mohegan Sun proposal.
The commission, in response to Walsh’s demand for “host” status, delayed its June target date for the award of the lucrative casino license, and set up a month-long process to sort out Boston’s assertions. The commission invited interested parties to submit briefs by Thursday on whether Boston qualifies as a host community for one or both of the casino projects.
Walsh, in the city’s letter, objected to the process, calling it “unfair.”
Hey, life's unfair!
--more--"
Related:
"The state gambling commission on Friday rebuffed Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s call for its chairman to recuse himself from any involvement in licensing a casino in the Greater Boston region. Casino regulators will also press ahead with a hearing in two weeks to determine if Boston deserves more influence over two casino proposals on its border, despite Walsh’s boycott of the process, which he has blasted as unfair to the city."
Also see:
Undoing gaming law would harm Mass. business reputation
Everett’s land-buying scheme should draw official scrutiny
Everett to Use Eminent Domain to Wynn Casino
UPDATE: Eastie casino critics want Boston named a host community
At least they are being open about it:
"Mayor Walsh opens up Boston’s online data
Mayor Martin J. Walsh signed an executive order Monday night to make the city’s data — information such as restaurant inspections, crime statistics, emergency response times, and liquor licenses — accessible to the public and published online for software developers to create web pages and mobile applications.
Everywhere you turn -- federal, state, city -- it's a dictator at the helm.
Boston has been slower than many other cities in opening up its data to public use, but now the city will join San Francisco, New York City, Seattle and other communities that have sought to spur innovation by putting vast amounts of data online.
What??!!
Through a partnership with the review site Yelp, for example, restaurant-goers in San Francisco can see the health department’s latest score and reports for the location. In New York, developers took movie locations from a city database to build an app called Scene Near Me that can alert users when they check in near locations used in films like “Annie Hall,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Spider-Man.”
Oh, this is all about PROMOTING BU$INE$$!
Advocates for big data applauded Walsh’s move.
I knew there was a reason I didn't like it beyond the executive order.
“By ordering city departments to open their data, lots more data collected by the city will be available either for commercial purposes or for study and analysis by academics or activists who might use data to ask questions about fairness and service deliver by the city,” said Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media....
See: Frat House Fun
They even party on Sunday.
Adam Friedman, a local civic technologist and web developer, said open data is a “movement that’s sweeping the nation and the world” and he praised Walsh for his actions. “Obviously, this is the new era of open government and he seems to be embracing it,” Friedman said....
Where?
--more--"
Going up again$t the odds here:
"Walsh accuses gaming chief of bias, demands recusal" by Mark Arsenault | Globe staff April 17, 2014
Mayor Martin J. Walsh is calling on the state’s top gambling regulator to recuse himself from any decisions about licensing a casino in the Greater Boston region, accusing him of bias against the city and its efforts to gain more influence over two casino proposals just beyond its borders.
“Throughout the process, Chairman [Stephen] Crosby has made several statements, which the city deems prejudicial,” Elizabeth Dello Russo, a lawyer for the Walsh administration, wrote in a blistering letter to the commission on Thursday.
Dello Russo accused the commission of trying to “stack the deck” against Boston, to deny the city a fair hearing on its claim for more say over a Wynn Resorts casino proposal in Everett and a Mohegan Sun casino plan in Revere. The letter mentions a federal lawsuit by Caesars Entertainment that also accuses Crosby, chairman of the state gambling commission, of bias.
At least the lawyers are finding work.
“Taken together, the pending federal lawsuit, recent commission statements, current press articles, and the commissions’ own actions, create a cloud over the proceedings when Chairman Crosby participates,” the city stated.
Hey, as long as the state gets their cut.
Crosby and the commission declined last evening to respond, through the commission’s spokeswoman, Elaine Driscoll. The commission’s legal staff is reviewing Boston’s letter, she said.
The relationship between the new mayor and the gambling commission is off to a bumpy start: Walsh last month unexpectedly upset the casino licensing sweepstakes by declaring to the commission that the city is a “host community” to the two casino projects under the 2011 state casino law, with rights to hold binding votes in Boston on the proposals.
He isn't worried about gambling addiction?
The question of Boston’s status could have enormous influence on the development of the state’s nascent casino industry. If Boston wins “host” status, both casino projects would be in jeopardy: It is unlikely either development would survive a neighborhood referendum in Boston.
Why? I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want a casino in town.
The mayor insists that the Charlestown neighborhood should vote on the Wynn project and that East Boston residents deserve to vote on the Mohegan Sun proposal.
The commission, in response to Walsh’s demand for “host” status, delayed its June target date for the award of the lucrative casino license, and set up a month-long process to sort out Boston’s assertions. The commission invited interested parties to submit briefs by Thursday on whether Boston qualifies as a host community for one or both of the casino projects.
Walsh, in the city’s letter, objected to the process, calling it “unfair.”
Hey, life's unfair!
--more--"
Related:
"The state gambling commission on Friday rebuffed Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s call for its chairman to recuse himself from any involvement in licensing a casino in the Greater Boston region. Casino regulators will also press ahead with a hearing in two weeks to determine if Boston deserves more influence over two casino proposals on its border, despite Walsh’s boycott of the process, which he has blasted as unfair to the city."
Also see:
Undoing gaming law would harm Mass. business reputation
Everett’s land-buying scheme should draw official scrutiny
Everett to Use Eminent Domain to Wynn Casino
UPDATE: Eastie casino critics want Boston named a host community
At least they are being open about it:
"Mayor Walsh opens up Boston’s online data
Mayor Martin J. Walsh signed an executive order Monday night to make the city’s data — information such as restaurant inspections, crime statistics, emergency response times, and liquor licenses — accessible to the public and published online for software developers to create web pages and mobile applications.
Everywhere you turn -- federal, state, city -- it's a dictator at the helm.
Boston has been slower than many other cities in opening up its data to public use, but now the city will join San Francisco, New York City, Seattle and other communities that have sought to spur innovation by putting vast amounts of data online.
What??!!
Through a partnership with the review site Yelp, for example, restaurant-goers in San Francisco can see the health department’s latest score and reports for the location. In New York, developers took movie locations from a city database to build an app called Scene Near Me that can alert users when they check in near locations used in films like “Annie Hall,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Spider-Man.”
Oh, this is all about PROMOTING BU$INE$$!
Advocates for big data applauded Walsh’s move.
I knew there was a reason I didn't like it beyond the executive order.
“By ordering city departments to open their data, lots more data collected by the city will be available either for commercial purposes or for study and analysis by academics or activists who might use data to ask questions about fairness and service deliver by the city,” said Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media....
See: Frat House Fun
They even party on Sunday.
Adam Friedman, a local civic technologist and web developer, said open data is a “movement that’s sweeping the nation and the world” and he praised Walsh for his actions. “Obviously, this is the new era of open government and he seems to be embracing it,” Friedman said....
Where?
--more--"
