THE PIONEER BLOG

Sabrina Chishti

Problems with Potholes in Boston

/0 Comments/in , /by Sabrina Chishti

Boston has a pothole problem. Or, more accurately, Boston has a transparency problem regarding pothole repairs. Since the historic snowfalls last winter, potholes proliferated around town, endangering those walking, driving, or cycling the roads. The city is tasked with fixing each pothole quickly. Every pothole has an associated file on record, which, when filled and fixed, should be marked as “closed” by Boston public works officials. Citizens are encouraged to be part of the process and report potholes as they find them. The website and app CitizensConnect allows the public to snap a picture of a pothole they see (or other concerns) and report the location to city officials. The technology is designed to connect the city to its people […]

Sabrina Chishti

The Control Board Needs to Insist on Transparency with Keolis

/0 Comments/in , /by Sabrina Chishti

On July 21, the special panel created to address failures at the MBTA met to discuss and revamp several of its management policies.  The fiscal and management control panel listened to multiple hours of findings by the Department of Transportation regarding the routine problems of the MBTA.  During the meeting, in referencing the $7.5 million in penalties collected from Keolis because of delayed trains, Frank DePaola, acting general manager of the MBTA, noted that the penalties would revert to Keolis, in part, to pay for an increase in the number of fare collectors on board the commuter trains. This is an emergency, and we all understand that the focus has to be on upgrading service now.  That means getting Keolis actually […]

Matt Blackbourn

A Promising New Direction for Justice Reform in Massachusetts

/0 Comments/in , /by Matt Blackbourn

Massachusetts is not notorious for overflowing prisons; nor is it a state where residents tune into the evening news to see police at war with frustrated locals amidst clouds of tear gas and burning vehicles. The Commonwealth might not fit the paradigm of most states that are the focus of national criminal justice reform today. However, we still have an enormous way to go to better manage our corrections system and improve the channels through which offenders re-enter our communities. Yesterday, Massachusetts’ elected leadership confirmed they are working together towards this change with their public announcement of support for bringing the Justice Reinvestment Initiative to the Bay State. Both the Governor’s office and leadership in both chambers of the legislature […]

Lauren Corvese

MBTA gets an F for Public Records Law Compliance

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by Lauren Corvese

Ten days. That is how long it is supposed to take for a Massachusetts state agency to respond to a public records request.  But here we are, twenty-one days later, and Pioneer has still not received so much as acknowledgement of a request we sent to the MBTA. You may recall a blog post from July about the MBTA’s poor practices when it comes to public records requests.  In March, Pioneer requested MBTA revenue information from 2014-present, to which the agency replied there were no responsive documents.  This seems impossible since the MBTA has clearly been collecting revenue since 2014. Pioneer also requested fare collection procedures submitted by Keolis and fare collection fines against Keolis from July 2014-present in June […]

Editorial Staff

After Losing the Olympics Bid, Boston Can Still Win

/0 Comments/in , , /by Editorial Staff

As the Olympic drama subsides following Mayor Walsh’s press conference decrying the USOC’s insistence on an immediate public funding guarantee, it is fair to conclude that the Olympics initiative has created valuable residual benefits for Boston and Massachusetts. For months No Boston Olympics said that the construction and city-wide improvements involved in Boston 2024’s bid were possible without the impetus of a pending Olympic games. No Boston Olympics co-chair Chris Dempsey argued that “Boston should not have to depend on the Olympics as a catalyst to fix basic services.” Dempsey is right that the undertaking of necessary infrastructure projects should not be contingent upon the fate of an Olympic bid, especially T maintenance. Improvements at the MBTA are long overdue, and […]

Kevin Lawson

Why Are Tuition and Fees Rising at UMass?

/0 Comments/in , , /by Kevin Lawson

Over the last half-century, college tuition costs have exploded at a rate that far outpaces the consumer price index (CPI). The reasons for this spike in cost vary by type of institution. For public higher education, the Delta Cost Project, a research institution focused on American higher education, notes the rise is rooted in increases in spending on administration and student support services alongside changes in government funding.  These factors are accountable in part for what the Office of Institutional Research at UMass’s flagship Amherst campus has reported to be an inflation-adjusted increase of 84% in tuition costs since 2000. Pioneer’s MassOpenBooks, a transparency application that pulls together and publicizes outgoing payments made by government organizations, sheds light on what […]

Editorial Staff

Kids and Families Deserve More: Catholic Education and School Choice

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by Editorial Staff

Pioneer held an education forum on Friday, July 31, 2015, “Know-Nothings’ Nativism, Catholic Education and School Choice,” with a keynote address by Salem State University Professor Nancy Lusignan Schultz, author of Fire & Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834. Dr. Cara Candal presented a policy briefing on a newly released research paper that she co-authored with Dr. Ken Ardon, “Modeling Urban Scholarship Vouchers in Massachusetts.” The event also included a panel featuring former Ambassador to the Vatican and Boston Mayor, Raymond Flynn; Thomas Gosnell, President of the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts; and Kathleen Mears, Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of Boston. Ambassador Flynn devoted his Boston Herald column to the topic of this event (published Sunday, August 2, 2015), “Kids, Families […]

Mary Connaughton

Our Letter to the Open Meeting Advisory Commission

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by Mary Connaughton

Public trust and citizen engagement is fundamental in a healthy government.  Transparency engenders both. The Massachusetts legislature is one of the minority of state legislatures in the country where open meeting law doesn’t apply.  In fact, according to a 2011 study by the Reporters’ Committee of Freedom of the Press, it’s one of only 19 legislatures in the nation that isn’t bound to give the public access to its meetings. Perhaps even more noteworthy, according to the same study, is that Massachusetts is one of only six states where state legislatures are not subject to both open meeting and public records law.  In this day and age of transparency, we think more openness in the legislature will promote public trust […]

Erin Thomassen

Extend Private Transportation Innovation to the Suburbs

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by Erin Thomassen

This past year, Boston and Bridj celebrated a transportation innovation victory: a successful partnership between public officials and a private data-driven bus enterprise. Bridj, a “smart” bus line, bases its route on electronically communicated customer needs. Bridj experienced initial pushback from the Cambridge City Council, which called its early route maps “unacceptable.” The Council was concerned that the private bus system would interfere with and infringe upon the existing public bus and taxi system. However, Bridj aimed not to steal customers away from existing businesses, but to fill a gap left open by existing transportation systems. By offering a shuttle system which considers its customer’s travel needs, Bridj was the bridge between private and public transportation. It introduced a new […]

Sabrina Chishti

How Top Suburban Schools Compare

/0 Comments/in /by Sabrina Chishti

Quality public schools drive both real estate development and student success. Many public schools in Massachusetts are widely regarded to have set high academic bars. There are pockets within the state, though, that cry out for much-needed improved schools. It’s interesting to take a look at the spending habits of school districts. Specifically looking at some of Massachusetts suburban high schools, MCAS results are a good indicator of how a public school is doing compared to its peers. The Pioneer website MassReportCards compiles pertinent information (including  MCAS information) and assigns a “grade” to public schools in Massachusetts based largely on standardized test (high school grades also consider dropout and college matriculation rates). Take Wayland as an example. From data collected […]

MuckRock

For Massachusetts Public Records law, a Little Progress Goes a Long Way

/0 Comments/in , , /by MuckRock

Earlier this month, Massachusetts transparency advocates celebrated a rare win when the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC) – a regional SWAT team which covers the greater Boston area – agreed to be considered a public entity, and therefore subject to public records laws. If that doesn’t sound like much cause for celebration – why wouldn’t a police force be considered a public entity? – then you’ll be further underwhelmed to hear that this only came after a year-long suit with the ACLU that cost the taxpayer (yes, you) $30,000. NEMLAC’s argument, that is was technically a non-profit that just so happened to run by law enforcement officials operating in their official capacity, was laughable on its face, and […]

Kevin Lawson

An Open Request to the State Ethics Commission

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Kevin Lawson

When the State Ethics Commission was created in 1978 under Section 2 of Chapter 268B of Massachusetts General Laws, it aimed to establish meaningful transparency. The law required every public official and candidate for public office to submit a yearly Statement of Financial Interest (SFI) and tasked the Ethics Commission with creating and overseeing these forms in accordance with the law. Today, the Commission’s system of financial disclosure largely lacks relevance and it falls short of the spirit of the law. The law gives the Commission broad discretion over details of the disclosures. Section 5 (f) states, “the statement of financial interests filed pursuant to the provisions of this section shall be on a form prescribed by the commission…”  Thus, […]

Editorial Staff

Join us 7/31: “Know-Nothings’ Nativism, Catholic Education, and School Choice”

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by Editorial Staff

In the wake of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling against the constitutionality of Douglas County’s school voucher program, Pioneer Institute is co-sponsoring a breakfast forum on “Know-Nothings’ Nativism, Catholic Education, and School Choice.” Event co-sponsors include Parents Alliance for Catholic Education, Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. The event will feature Dr. Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Salem State University English Professor; Dr. Cara Candal, Senior Fellow, Pioneer Institute; Ambassador Raymond Flynn; Tom Gosnell, President of AFT-MA; and Kathy Mears, Superintendent of Schools, Archdiocese of Boston. At the event, Dr. Lusignan Schultz will discuss 19th century anti-Catholic bigotry in Massachusetts, which was the basis for Know-Nothing Amendments that […]

Kevin Lawson

Making Financial Disclosures “Available for Public Inspection”

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Kevin Lawson

Chapter 268B, Section 3(d) of Massachusetts General Laws provides that the State Ethics Commission must “make statements and reports filed with the commission available for public inspection and copying”, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into the filings being available to the public in any meaningful way. By withholding Statements of Financial Interest (SFIs) from online publication, the Commission has failed to keep up with the modernization of filing methods. Even in person, forms are not always viewable. When asking to view many forms at once, requestors face waits that can reach “a number of months”, according to the Ethics Commission’s response to a Boston Globe request for all 3,800 SFIs filed in 2014. Yes, this is a large request, but […]

Sabrina Chishti

Elimination of Old “Honor Boxes” for MBTA Parking

/0 Comments/in /by Sabrina Chishti

As part of their latest efforts to modernize, the MBTA has recently replaced all “honor boxes” that commuters would use to pay for parking with their more technologically advanced PayByPhone, an app for smartphones. Reputed as archaic and time-consuming, honor boxes required commuters to fold dollar bills and insert them into small metal boxes in order to pay for their parking spot on a daily basis. The right change was needed to pay the $4-7 daily parking fee, and during the morning rush, the process could become frustrating and time-consuming. While PaybyPhone has been an option since 2008, the MBTA decided to completely switch over to the cashless system, which enables a commuter to either download the app and pay […]