Allegations were made regarding the connections between the Treasurer and some lobbyists at the end of last summer. The State Ethics Commission recently started investigating the allegations and certain folks on the left started jumping for joy (see here and here). They assumed this was the end of a potential challenge to their Governor. But Cahill was ‘cleared’ yesterday by the Ethics Commission (that’s the Herald headline, the actual wording was “this matter does not warrant further action at this time”). Regardless, Cahill has a clean bill of health on the matter should it come up later and he did it before the vast majority of voters are paying much attention. My guess is that this was his intent all […]

The amendments to the House Ways & Means Budget are in!! Take a spin through and find your favorites. First, two requests in the name of transparency — give them names that are comprehensible (FY 2010 Amendment (TAP-LIFT).doc, anyone?) and don’t use the .docx format. I encourage loyal readers to add their favorites in the comments. I’ll start the bidding with $217,000 for new tennis courts at Wakefield High. Maybe it really is for the children…. More generally, I may be naive, but I’m always puzzled by the legality of naming specific, non-public providers for specific state services and the dollar amount they should receive. Look, I think Junior Achievement is probably doing a great job, but does putting a […]

The House passed a limited version (more to come, they promise) of pension reform last night. I note one particular amendment that got added on the floor: FAGAN AMENDMENT – EFFECTIVE DATE: Rep. Fagan offered amendment # 48 providing that only employees hired after July 1, 2010 will be affected by provisions of the bill prohibiting public officials earning less than $5,000 from crediting that time toward their pensions. The amendment was adopted. [Provided by State House News, sub. req.] As our 2006 paper noted: According to the legislators’ biographies on the General Court website, at least 62 out of 200 representatives and senators served in one or more of these local positions [i.e. local positions at no or low […]

Yesterday’s Globe covered the expansion of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford. The article talked to newcomers to that community (who generally wanted the subway) and ‘old-timers’ (who generally opposed it). One quote stood out: “It will be that much more connected to civilization,” said Elizabeth Bolton, a real estate agent who moved here in 2005. Eh, I don’t think the negative space around that comment are great for building coalitions. The notion that Medford is somehow disconnected from ‘civilization’ will not endear you to the ‘old-timers’.

An eye-opening quote from the CBO’s analysis of the proposed Truth in Writing act (my emphasis added): S. 574 would amend federal law to require all federal agencies within one year to use plain writing (clear, concise, well-organized, and readily identifiable to the intended reader) in all documents except for regulations. Thus, we are lead to believe that regulations will continue to be written in opaque, lengthy, disjointed, and obscure bureaucratese.

Noah Bierman of the Globe had an interesting piece in Sunday’s Globe on commuter rail’s on-time performance. He found that peak service trains fared significantly worse than non-peak service trains for on-time service. The interesting part is that that the commuter rail operator, MBCR, is evaluated and reports on the basis of trains delayed, not passengers. What this means is that the bulk of commuter rail riders (i.e. rush hour passengers) experience a far higher level of late trains than the publicly reported data would suggest. I would suggest that a more customer-oriented metric would be based on the total delay per passenger but that would take a level of detail and information the MBTA cannot currently collect.