SCOTUS dealt a potential blow to efforts to recover grants that Donald Trump’s administration had swiped from Springfield and other municipalities. In a fractured ruling, five of the nine Supremes stayed an order that had required the National Institutes of Health to restore grant funding. The ruling, in effect, said recovery of the funds did not belong in US District Court.
Little more than two weeks after the New North Citizens Council (NNCC) axed Maria Perez from her day job, the Springfield City Councilor for Ward 1 has struck back. Allegedly defamatory language now forms the basis of Perez’s suit that names her former employer, several NNCC staffers and board members, including Joesiah Gonzalez.
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.