Last Monday, a bloodless revolution in the Massachusetts Democratic party saw the incumbent chair replaced with the new governor’s pick to lead the party. A few months before, an acrimonious election on the GOP’s side also saw turnover but the process was anything but peaceful.
This week Governor Maura Healey’s office announced some staffing decisions of salience to the 413. On Thursday, Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll announced that Kristen Elechko, recently of Senator Ed Markey’s office, would lead her office in Western Mass.
In a 5-2 ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reinstated criminal charges arising from the COVID-19 outbreak that killed 76 veterans at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. Former Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former medical director David Clinton were the only officials to face such charges. Hampden County Superior Court Judge Edward McDonough, Jr. dismissed the indictment in 2021 prompting the appeal.
Another state agency has become embroiled in controversy and ostensibly the cause is an appointment of former Governor Charlie Baker. It is a reminder that the commonwealth must reckon with the true legacy of Baker to exemplify the problem. David D’Arcangelo, the head of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, is at the latest Baker appointee.
State money allocated to Springfield via Chapter 90 is nothing new to the City Council. Every year, the body formally accepts the disbursement. In recent years, city officials have paired it with bonding to maximize road repairs. The annual allocation has also been flat.
About a month short of the three-year anniversary of the COVID-19 conflagration at the Holyoke Soldier’s Home, a new structure to oversee veterans programs has taken effect. However, things picked up speed after the legislature issued its own report in 2021.
Not quite Santa Claus, but Lego was coming to town. The Danish toymaker known for colorful, interlocking pieces ably licensed both from and to blockbuster films, was relocating their offices and 740 jobs from Connecticut to the Hub. Further west, the news hit like a ton of bricks.
BOSTON—There was no outdoor swearing-in ceremony in the cold. No members received admonitions to stay away. There was a feast in the Great Hall and cake in the Senate reading room at the inaugural festivities of the 193rd General Court that formally installed the House and Senate.
Maura Healey, the former b-baller and civil rights attorney who leapt from obscurity to become the top lawyer in Massachusetts, took office Thursday as the commonwealth’s 73rd governor. She becomes the first woman and the first gay-identifying person to hold the highest office in Massachusetts and one of the most ancient in the United States.
BOSTON—On the eve of Governor Charlie Baker’s last day as governor—and Attorney General Maura Healey’s first—the Supreme Judicial Court considered an appeal in the waning litigation from the COVID-19 outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. The indictments reflect one of the Baker administration’s darkest hours.