This past Wednesday, the Massachusetts Appeals Court overturned a lower court ruling and, in effect, reanimated—although did not fully resurrect—the prospect of a biomass plant in Springfield. The decision gives the biomass plant proposed for Page Boulevard enough life to punch open the project’s coffin.
Hampden Superior Court Judge James Manitsas largely rejected a motion the City of Springfield and Mayor Domenic Sarno had filed to dismiss the discrimination suit former mayoral aide Darryl Moss had brought against them. While the courts have whittled it down, the meat of Moss’s suit could now advance to a jury.
SPRINGFIELD—Lawyers for former Springfield mayoral aide, Darryl Moss, and his old employer, Mayor Domenic Sarno were in court last month to argue over whether Moss’s discrimination lawsuit can proceed. The parties, which include the city itself as a defendant, had not been in open court for months.
As attorney general of Massachusetts, Maura Healey essentially ran point for the commonwealth’s legal opposition to Donald Trump. Now Healey is governor, a very different role than attorney general, and Trump has returned. Her successor in the AG’s office is facing a landscape not unlike the one Healey did—and Attorney General Andrea Campbell has been busy.
After two years in office, Governor Maura Healey has made a mark on the judiciary. Governors can effectively choose whomever they wish to sit on the bench, subject to Governor’s Council confirmation. To that end, advocates have been pressing Healey to pick someone from Hampden County to join the Appeals Court.
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Another major staffing change has hit Springfield City Hall with the exit of City Solicitor John Payne. Mayor Domenic Sarno has chosen former legislator and onetime district attorney candidate Stephen Buoniconti to replace Payne. Given his late-career return to City Hall, Payne’s exit should not be a shock.
About 15 years after biomass entered the public consciousness of Springfield, the matter is still milling paper. Most recently, this took the form of a fresh defeat for the proposed project once slated for East Springfield. What now seems like beating an expired horse, is actually a reminder of how far opponents have gone.
To fulfill a campaign promise, Massachusetts State Auditor Diana Dizoglio will have to go to voters to change the law. Fellow statewider, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, announced Friday that existing law does not authorize an audit of the legislature, a key plank of Dizoglio’s platform.
It was just a line in The Republican’s election profile of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, but it was a reminder of one of his longest-running falsities. Sarno still “maintains the court order gave the commission power only over discipline, and not as an overall supervisory body.”
Taking far less time than another judge did on a similar motion last year, Hampden Superior Court Judge James Manitsas has already decided the fate of a claim that lawyers for Mayor Domenic Sarno and his former aide Darryl Moss did battle over on Tuesday. The court dismissed the claim that Sarno violated Moss’s First Amendment rights.