This is the weather we’ve waited all year for — sunshine and 70s are inbound to kick off June.
One of the bonuses to the forecast this weekend will be the lack of humidity. Dewpoints do slowly creep up on Sunday evening and Monday, but the da…
Massachusetts
Boston City Council still not ready to move on Wu’s tax shift proposal
With the window for the necessary state legislative action quickly closing, Boston city councilors still have many questions about a proposed tax-shift plan that has drawn the ire of some influential real estate industry leaders.
A council subcommittee spent more than four hours Thursday weighing Mayor Michelle Wu’s plan to temporarily rebalance the property tax split between residential and commercial owners, at times expanding their inquiry to revenue-generating steps the city could take.
Members of Wu’s team are hopeful for prompt action on the proposal the mayor filed nearly two months ago, which they view as a targeted strategy to smooth out a potential sudden spike in residential property taxes that could result from a drop in commercial property values.
They said Thursday that failure to secure the measure’s passage in the council and then Legislature before July 31, when lawmakers wrap up their major business for the term, could leave the city with limited or no time to react if the property-tax dominoes begin to fall.
“If we don’t have this flexibility, we will have a very narrow to no timeline available to us to get this in place if we see commercial values decline in such a way that we see a 17 or higher percent increase in residential taxes,” Ashley Groffenberger, the city’s chief financial officer and collector-treasurer, said. “If this isn’t in place, and we see that change in value and subsequent result in the residential taxes, taxpayers will have 30 days to make up an enormous increase in their taxes relative to the prior two quarters.”
Public debate about the city’s property tax levy exploded in February, when a report from the Boston Policy Institute think tank warned that a pandemic-fueled drop in commercial property represented an “economic act of God” that could eat away at the city’s tax revenues.
There’s still no clear timeline for action. Wu filed a proposed home rule petition in early April that would temporarily give city officials the ability to shift a larger portion of property taxes onto business property owners if commercial values drop, effectively sparing homeowners from making up a revenue shortfall all at once.
The council’s Committee on Government Operations met to discuss the topic Thursday, six weeks after it convened an earlier hearing about the same measure. Councilors might move next to hold an additional “working session.”
“I think there’s still a few questions that remain unanswered,” Councilor Julia Mejia said at the end of Thursday’s proceedings.
Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata, who chairs the committee, said she too still has “outstanding questions,” especially about an idea she floated to embrace a local-option small business tax exemption as a partial offset for the effects of the proposed rebalanced tax levy.
“We are on a very real timeline at the State House,” she said, noting that other Boston home rule petitions affecting alcohol licenses and the Boston Planning and Development Agency spent months in limbo on Beacon Hill before moving.
“This is the time to get this up there,” Coletta Zapata added about Wu’s tax plan.
Even if councilors come to an agreement to support Wu’s proposal, its outlook in the Legislature is unclear. Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, the North End Democrat who is one of the most powerful figures on Beacon Hill, so far has avoided taking a stance on the measure.
The Legislature also has a mountain of its own business to address, including high-profile housing and economic development bond bills that still need to be introduced, approved in both chambers and reconciled in the next two months. That could leave limited bandwidth to take up a Boston-only priority, no matter how dire the warnings are from City Hall.
Under state law, municipalities can create separate tax rates for commercial and residential property and require commercial owners to pay up to 175% of what the single, unified property tax rate would have been.
Wu proposed giving the city the ability to increase the maximum commercial shift as high as 200% if business property values drop significantly, then reducing it a bit each year until it returns to 175% in the fifth year.
Homeowners would likely still need to pay higher property taxes if commercial values drop, but officials believe the temporary shift would phase in the increase instead of allowing it to hit all at once.
“This is just spread out over a couple of years. This isn’t ‘save the residents, tax the commercial’ — you’re going to have to pay that full amount anyway and in not that long a period of time, and potentially do irreparable harm to our downtown core and our neighborhood small businesses,” Councilor John Fitzgerald said Thursday.
Marty Walz, a former state representative and lobbyist who is interim president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, said the city could achieve “more of a shared sacrifice” by keeping the commercial property tax shift at a lower figure than 200% — in other words, make a change similar to Wu’s idea, but to a lesser degree.
“I honestly think that’s a good one,” Boston Assessing Commissioner Nicholas Ariniello said of the idea Walz floated. “The beauty of the proposal is that we have that flexibility and that ability to decide that. It doesn’t change anything about the administration and the council’s responsibility and duty and ability to set a shift every single year. Even if this legislation were passed, we wouldn’t have to go up to the 175 percent shift if we felt that that was not the appropriate level to reach. It gives us the flexibility to choose the right amount.”
Wu’s proposal has drawn criticism from groups such as the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, whose CEO argued last month that adding more tax burden to commercial property owners “could do irreparable harm to an already struggling industry.”
Several affordable housing advocates, community organizers and labor leaders used Thursday’s hearing to line up in support of the plan, arguing that failing to soften a possible residential tax hike could add even more fuel to the housing crisis.
Symone Crawford, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, told a council subcommittee that homeowners and those looking to buy houses in the city already face a steep climb due to high interest rates and soaring prices.
“A tax increase on our homeowners would also be a burden that most of us could not rebound from,” she said.
Representatives from civic groups such as the Charlestown Neighborhood Council and some labor unions also voiced support for the proposal during the early stretch of Thursday’s hearing.
Some councilors and attendees signaled Thursday they want to rethink the city’s reliance on property tax as such a major source of revenue. The Boston Policy Institute report estimated that property tax collections currently make up 75% of the city’s revenue, up from 54% in 2002.
Walz said her group is researching other “revenue diversification” options and described a need to put the topic “back at the top of our collective agenda.”
“We’ve had the luxury over the past number of years of not having to think very hard about this. I think that those days are over now,” Walz said. “That’s a longer-term solution because we can’t just flip a switch and make that happen. It’s likely to require going back to the Legislature. But it’s something that if we start now, we will be ready by next year to perhaps do another home rule petition.”
“It’s a two-edged sword. It’s a blessing and a curse,” replied Councilor Liz Breadon. “Now we’re facing the consequences. The City Council and all of us need to really put our minds to seriously looking for other revenue sources so we’re not so incredibly reliant on real estate taxes to pay our bills in the city.”
As Thursday’s hearing wrapped up, Coletta Zapata urged more city residents to get in touch with councilors and share their opinions on the topic. Even a one- or two-sentence message would suffice, she said.
“There has not been as much participation as I thought there would be,” she said.
Equestrian center destroyed in massive fire overnight in Templeton
An equestrian center was destroyed in a massive fire overnight in Templeton, Massachusetts.
The Gardner Fire Department said in a Facebook post that they responded to the fire scene shortly after 9 p.m. Liberty-Belle Stables, located on Patriots Road in Templeton, was fully involved in flames, and the fire had also extended into the adjacent home.
Fire officials said all of the horses were safely removed from the barn.
Liberty-Belle Stables said in a Facebook post at 9:42 p.m. that their barn was on fire, but all of the horses had been saved.
The stables posted an update on Friday morning asking people to share happy stories about the stables, or some way it has touched their lives.
“We need all the good memories we can get. This place was my dream, and I went into it with one of the best instructors out there. I could not ask for a better barn family. We are so grateful to have you all.”
Over 100 people had commented on the Facebook posts as of Friday morning, offering support and even assistance in boarding the horses.
More Massachusetts news
What’s next after Donald Trump’s conviction?
There are now a lot of questions about how former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his New York hush money case could impact the upcoming presidential election.
The 12-person jury found Trump guilty Thursday on all 34 felony counts in connection with a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.
His sentencing is four days before the Republican National Convention.
By all accounts, Trump is likely be the GOP nominee. Republicans in Washington were quick to react after the verdict, releasing statements defending the former president and condemning the jury’s decision.
The U.S. Constitution lays it out clear: a candidate must be a “natural born citizen,” at least 35 years old and have lived in America for 14 years.
It’s also unlikely he’ll be imprisoned based on age, and lack of a criminal record. In fact, NBC News did an analysis of thousands of similar cases and found that very few people charged with the same crime receive jail time.
NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne says Trump will appeal the verdict.
“They will, in fact, perfect their appeal and then the case with take months and months and perhaps even years before it ever is resolved, so the significance is what the jury did today,” said Coyne.
A statement from the Biden-Harris administration reads in part, “In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law…but today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box.”
New polling out just before the verdict shows roughly 2/3 of Americans said a conviction would make no difference in their vote.
Trump will speak Friday morning on the guilty verdict.
Sunny and warm end to the workweek
Now that the rain is behind us, we can focus on the sunshine. Happy to report that it’s here for the long haul.
Temperatures stay in the mild to warm range, and the sea breezes visit the coast each afternoon. After logging the second wettest …
‘Once-in-a-lifetime experience’: Rutland teen summits Mount Everest
The idea to be on top of the world — literally — was born out of a whim for a Massachusetts teenager.
Ryan Mitchell, a 19-year-old from Rutland, explains why he summited Mount Everest.
“I literally thought of the idea, ‘I…
