K-ZONE WPKZ FM105.3/AM 1280

Your Hometown Radio

listen nowLISTEN NOW
listen nowLISTEN NOW
K-Zone Studio Line 978.348.1280

Secretary of State William Galvin

New funding helps domestic violence victims

by

BOSTON — Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who administers the Massachusetts Address Confidentiality Program, is applauding the approval of new grant funding for providers of services to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking.

“As Massachusetts continues to battle an epidemic of domestic violence, I applaud Governor Healey for signing into law a new statewide domestic violence service provider grant program,” said Galvin. “This program will enable my office to give funding to organizations that will help spread awareness of the many services already available to those who have been abused, sexually assaulted, or stalked.”

For those trying to get out of an abusive relationship, Galvin said this state program is here to help.

“The Address Confidentiality Program works closely with non-profit organizations who provide critical care and support to those fleeing abusive homes and relationships,” said Galvin. “These organizations, together with mental health professionals, law enforcement, and other government agencies, must all work together to ensure that those who face violence at home know that there are services available to them, to help them get out of those situations.”

And when it comes to this problem, he said he has high hopes for the state program.

“I look forward to administering this new grant program, and to working closely with our partners around the commonwealth in putting an end to this upsurge of violence.”

Maura Healey backs more transparency on public records

by

Gov.-elect Maura Healey will not follow in the footsteps of her predecessors and claim an exemption from public records laws as governor, she said on GBH News Tuesday afternoon.

“You told us in 2015, I’m sure you remember it well, you didn’t believe in blanket exemption,” said GBH host of “Ask the Governor-Elect” Jim Braude. “So I can assume two questions, one, will you confirm that you will not claim exemption from public records laws as governor and will you support legislation that at least cuts back whatever exemptions the Legislature and judiciary believe they have?”

“Yes and yes,” Healey responded.

The move would represent a shift for Massachusetts, which is the only state in the country where the governor’s office, the Legislature and the judiciary all claim that they are exempt from the public records law that makes many emails, documents and other records accessible to interested parties by request and, potentially, a fee.

While governors have historically claimed their own offices are exempt from the public records law, most of the executive branch is subject to its provisions. Agencies across state government, ranging from the Department of Transportation to the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security have online portals through which residents can request access to memos, emails and other records.

Healey has backed the idea of a more transparent governor’s office since early in her campaign. As attorney general, her office is responsible for enforcing the public records law.

In February when Healey said she believes the governor’s office should fall under the umbrella of agencies and bodies subject to the law’s provisions, she stopped short of saying whether the Legislature and judiciary should also comply.

Her “yes and yes” Tuesday afternoon shows a shift from previous non-comment on the law applying to other state government branches.

Shortly after he launched his latest reelection campaign, Secretary of State William Galvin announced he would seek legislation requiring the governor’s office — but not the Legislature or judiciary — to comply with the transparency law.

A petition to that end (SD 2981) that Acton Democrat Sen. Jamie Eldridge filed on Galvin’s behalf earlier this year has sat in the State Administration and Regulatory Oversight Committee since February.

Lowell, Fitchburg among communities with lowest voter turnout in midterms

by

LOWELL — Despite the higher-than-expected election turnout across Massachusetts this year at 51.4%, Lowell saw the third-lowest turnout in the commonwealth at just 29.7%.

The Mill City was ahead of only Springfield and Lawrence, which saw 24.9% and 22.8% turnout, respectively.

In North Central Massachusetts, Fitchburg fared a bit better at just under 40%. In stark comparison, many smaller communities from Greater Fitchburg to Greater Lowell saw upwards of 60%. Some communities, such as Littleton and Harvard in the Nashoba Valley, saw nearly 70% turnout.

Secretary of State William Galvin’s office released full breakdowns of each of the 351 towns and cities in the state on Monday, stating that more than 2.5 million people cast their ballots in the midterms this year. Though there was a slightly higher turnout in the 2018 state election, Galvin stated he was “delighted” that more people voted than expected.

But that wasn’t the case in Lowell, a city of 71,798 voters. Lowell Director of Elections Greg Pappas, who started in July, said he’s unsure what turnout has looked like in Lowell in years past but has seen a gradual decline in turnout in cities across the state, having worked in Galvin’s office for several years.

The city put up more signage this election cycle, Pappas said, and sent out mailings alerting residents to the new polling locations. They even had the help of local organizations, including the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, but people still showed up days and weeks after recent elections thinking they could vote.

“The City Council was very involved, all the departments were, it seemed like everybody knew there was an election, but we still had people coming in days later and saying ‘I want to vote’ three days after the primary,” Pappas said. “We saw people coming in last week asking to vote… I just don’t know how to explain that.”

About 63% of the Lowell turnout voted in person on Election Day, which is higher than the state average of 55.1% this year. Pappas said some of the polling places were unusually slow after 5 p.m., when turnout typically picks up.

One reason for the low numbers could be the races themselves, Pappas said.

“The bigger turnouts are always where the state rep races are, the state Senate following that, but we didn’t have any of those,” Pappas said. “Senator (Ed) Kennedy had no opposition and (Reps.) Rady Mom and Vanna Howard didn’t have opposition, it was just that one small part of Lowell, the other part went into Chelmsford.”

State Rep.-elect Rodney Elliott, who won an open seat in the 16th Middlesex District, was also partly running in Chelmsford, Pappas added, so it wasn’t solely a Lowell-based race.

Fitchburg also saw significantly lower voter turnout compared to surrounding communities. Only 39.4% of its 25,878 voters voted this fall.

But Fitchburg City Clerk Joanna Bilotta said it was actually “a little busier” at the polls than expected, adding that the “historical data” falls in line with the number of votes cast.

They put out flyers and mailers, advertise the warrant in the newspaper and send electronic memos to local businesses to promote upcoming elections, Bilotta said. There’s also an announcement at the end of City Council meetings to remind residents to vote, Bilotta said, so she couldn’t explain the turnout results.

“We, with the Department of Justice, have hit the demographic, that everything with elections is in English and Spanish for our Spanish community,” Bilotta said. “So we’re working very hard on that and trying to reach those voters as well.”

The Twin Cities were far from identical in their turnout. Neighboring Leominster saw 49.3% turnout, but it was still below the state average.

In Ashby, a town with only 2,598 voters, the vast majority — 69.8% — waited until Election Day to cast their ballots. But in Chelmsford, 42.5% of the town’s 26,730 registered voters voted by mail and 10.2% voted early. According to Galvin’s office, most people, 55.1% statewide, voted on Election Day, 37.4% voted by mail and only 7.5% voted early.

Of the communities in The Sun’s core coverage area, Littleton had the highest turnout percentage at 67.7%. Nearly every community in Greater Lowell had turnout percentages above the state average, but Dracut fell just below that at 49.7%.

The highest overall turnout in the greater region was seen in Harvard and Carlisle, which saw 69.7% and 71.8%, respectively.

A full, alphabetical list of area communities’ overall voter turnout is below:

Acton: 64.7%

Ashburnham: 58.7%

Ashby: 56.4%

Ayer: 55.7%

Billerica: 56.9%

Carlisle: 71.8%

Chelmsford: 61.5%

Concord: 69.2%

Dracut: 49.7%

Dunstable: 64.4%

Fitchburg: 39.4%

Groton: 62.6%

Harvard: 69.7%

Lancaster: 59.4%

Leominster: 49.3%

Littleton: 67.7%

Lowell: 29.7%

Lunenburg: 58.7%

Pepperell: 59.7%

Shirley: 60.1%

Tewksbury: 55%

Townsend: 57.2%

Tyngsboro: 53.9%

Westford: 62.1%

Westminster: 60%

Wilmington: 58.6%

Galvin, Sullivan clash in secretary’s race contest

by

The two Democrats in the primary agreed Monday that the job they are seeking is secretary of state and not Burger King, but that did not stop them from accusing the other of trying to have things their way.

Tanisha Sullivan, an attorney and life sciences executive who serves as president of the Boston branch of the NAACP, is running to unseat incumbent William Galvin, who has been in office since 1995. A statewide post, the secretary of state’s office oversees a broad suite of functions, ranging from elections and voting to corporations and securities, public records, lobbyists, the decennial census, and historical commission and state archives.

Much of Sullivan’s campaign, and much of Monday’s debate hosted by WBUR, the Boston Globe and WCVB-TV, has focused on the role of the secretary of state and whether the longtime incumbent is the right person to lead the office at a time when so many of its functions — elections administration, voter registration and more — have taken on new weight in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency and the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.

“This office must be more proactive and engaged in really addressing the issues that matter most to the residents of Massachusetts today,” Sullivan said. “This office can and should be on the front lines in our abortion fight. The fact of the matter is this office could be doing more to help protect the privacy of women and health care providers on the front lines when it comes to accessing an abortion. This office could be doing more through the Corporations Division to hold our companies accountable for ensuring that they are providing real access to reproductive care for their workers.”

Galvin argued that he has delivered on his promises from his 2018 reelection to oversee a fair count of Massachusetts residents through the 2020 Census, to ensure that the 2020 presidential election here was conducted securely and to protect voting rights, and said that he will use his seniority and experience to promote the party’s values and policies around voting rights at the national level if he is elected once again.

“I have been a champion of voters rights, not just here in Massachusetts, but throughout the country. We have the best record in the country when it comes to expanding voting rights. We had record turnouts in 2020. At this hour, too, I am literally putting democracy in the hands of tens of thousands of Massachusetts voters with a vote-by-mail program that many of them have chosen to use. I have conducted elections honestly and accurately. The New York Times described my administration of elections as a model for the nation. We are second to none when it comes to that. And in the area of securities regulation, once again, we are a model for the nation,” Galvin said.

Signs of tension between the candidates were quick to emerge in Monday’s debate. Less than five minutes in, Sullivan said that Galvin is “anti-abortion” when she was asked how the secretary of state’s office could play a role when it comes to reproductive rights. Galvin shot back that he believes that “ultimately, an abortion is a personal decision of the woman” and pointed to the reproductive rights law just passed and signed as proof that he can be trusted to defend a woman’s right to choose. He said the bill gave “my office the authority to protect the privacy of abortion providers and others.”

“Those that drafted that bill, many of whom are supporting me, who have been very strong in the pro-choice movement, have confidence in me,” he said. “They trust me, and they know why.”

A few moments later, moderator Tiziana Dearing suggested as part of a question that Sullivan had previously “praised Secretary Galvin for his performance at times in the past.” Sullivan wanted to correct that right off the bat.

“I have not praised Secretary Galvin for his performance,” she said. “What I have acknowledged is his service.”

Then, as part of a back-and-forth over Galvin’s implementation of automatic voter registration and a related lawsuit that the NAACP filed against him, the secretary accused Sullivan of giving listeners “a total misrepresentation of the facts” and said that it “just shows my opponent’s ignorance of the office and the laws around it.”

“See, you like democracy your way, but this is not Burger King,” Sullivan responded. “This is the American democracy and that is why we need a new secretary of state.”

Galvin turned the old hamburger joint slogan around and told his opponent, “It’s definitely not Burger King. You can’t choose your facts, and that’s what you’re doing.”

After Galvin again suggested that Sullivan had a “misunderstanding of the role” of secretary of state, she responded directly.

“I want to make it clear, I am not ignorant and I am not misinformed. I am highly credentialed, a BA, a JD, MBA, I am highly experienced. Twenty years of legal practice, I am highly experienced. A civil rights leader who has driven impact in this city, across the commonwealth and in this nation. I am more qualified and credentialed today than the day you walked into that office,” Sullivan said. “I am not ignorant and I am not misinformed. What I am is centered in our communities. What I am is centered on the issues that matter most to everyday people. We have to do something to increase voter participation and sitting behind a desk at One Ashburton Place is not going to get us where we need to be.”

Galvin countered that he is far more active than simply sitting behind a desk (which is in the State House rather than the Ashburton office building across the street) and called the suggestion that he had no credentials when he was first elected “completely untrue.”

“I tried cases to the Supreme Judicial Court on election laws for many years. I’ve actually worked elections for many, many decades. I don’t believe my opponent has any of that experience,” he said.

Though the debate between Galvin and Sullivan got tense at points, the two also answered a series of lighthearted questions about their personalities. Both like to (and plan this year to) vote in person, both said their phone was an item they could not live without and both said they prefer to drink hot coffee.

Sullivan said her favorite food is fruit salad while Galvin said he likes “almost anything” Italian. When it’s time for a vacation, look for Galvin on Cape Cod but Sullivan said she likes to take a drive out to the Berkshires. If it’s TV time, Sullivan said she likes crime dramas like Law & Order while Galvin said he is partial to the BBC programs that air on GBH.

Asked to name one person from Massachusetts, dead or alive, whom they would like to sit down for a drink with, Sullivan named civil rights leader Ruth Batson from Roxbury and Galvin pointed to Calvin Coolidge, the former Massachusetts governor and president. “We probably wouldn’t agree on anything,” Galvin said.

The Democratic primary election will be held Tuesday, Sept. 6 and the winner is expected to face Republican Rayla Campbell, who has no primary challenger, on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot.

Sullivan earned a resounding victory at the Democratic Party’s convention over the incumbent Galvin in June. She took more than 2,500 delegates to Galvin’s roughly 1,500 delegates.

Galvin has lost at the party convention but then prevailed in the party primary three times previously — in 1990 when he ran for treasurer, in 1994 when he first ran for secretary of state and in 2018 when the upstart campaign of Josh Zakim won the party’s endorsement before being crushed by Galvin when the contest extended beyond the most hardcore party insiders.

In June, a University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll found that Galvin led Sullivan 35% to 21% among those polled who expressed a preference with 44% of voters still undecided in the secretary of state primary.

Sunday Notebook: The relatedness test

by

It didn’t come down to persuasive TV ads, high-profile endorsements, Big Tech money, the strength of organized labor or a vote one way or the other.

Instead, what ultimately brought an end to the costly and contentious ballot campaign around the employment status of drivers for platforms like Uber and DoorDash was — to borrow a phrase from Supreme Judicial Court Justice Scott Kafker’s ruling — “a separate, significant policy decision that has been obscured by murky language.”

The SJC spiked the driver-benefits question from November’s ballot, finding that because the proposal also contained “confusingly vague and open-ended provisions” about the companies’ potential liability to someone injured by a driver, it failed a constitutional requirement that ballot questions contain only related or mutually dependent policies.

While voters won’t be weighing in this fall, neither the backers of the question nor its opponents sound ready fully to stand down. Pending legislation on Beacon Hill and Attorney General Maura Healey’s 2020 lawsuit alleging Uber and Lyft violate labor laws by treating their drivers as independent contractors could give them another battleground or two.

If the Supreme Judicial Court had a relatedness standard to live up to like ballot questions do, it would have met that bar this week. Sticking with a theme, the high court also issued relatedness rulings on initiative petitions seeking to change the state’s liquor-licensing rules and impose new requirements on dental insurers’ spending, clearing both to continue their path to the ballot.

The court stopped short of making it fully Ballot Question Week, leaving for a future date its pending decision on Healey’s summary of a proposed constitutional amendment imposing a surtax on incomes over $1 million.

With one bruising ballot campaign now off the table, another one could be newly taking shape. This one’s also about drivers, or at least the licensing of them.

Over objections from Gov. Charlie Baker, legislators last week put a new law on the books making immigrants without legal status eligible for driver’s licenses, starting in July 2023.

While legislative Democrats celebrated their veto override and the years of work from advocates, opponents of the new policy took their first steps in a repeal effort.

To put a repeal question before voters in November, the referendum campaign will need signatures from more than 40,000 registered voters by Aug. 24 — a hefty lift, to be sure, but one that could get a boost from the GOP candidates for governor and great weather for signature-gathering.

Typically, if lawmakers’ timing imperils legislation, it’s because they acted too late — for instance, giving Baker the final say by not leaving enough room in the legislative calendar for an override vote. This case could be something of a reversal: if they overrode Baker’s veto of the license bill later this summer, it would have given opponents less time to gather their repeal signatures.

The news wasn’t good this week for anyone who relies on trains as an alternative to driving.

The MBTA, starting on Monday, is slashing weekday service on its Red, Orange and Blue Lines through the summer, leaving longer gaps between trains in response to a staffing shortage flagged by federal officials.

The Federal Transit Administration is still working on its broader probe of the T, but has already found enough cause for concern to order immediate corrective action addressing problems like insufficient control center staffing, lapsed certifications and delayed maintenance.

An infrastructure bond bill advanced out of committee, still without the language Baker and Congressman Richard Neal are seeking to create a new public authority to oversee rail expansion into Western Massachusetts.

Calling an East-West Rail authority “very premature,” Speaker Ron Mariano said state lawmakers need more information before they move ahead.

It turns out lawmakers — at least the House ones — also aren’t ready to move on another Baker ask.

Representatives on the Economic Development Committee put forward a new, smaller version of Baker’s jobs and downtown revitalization bill, stripping out the $2.3 billion in American Rescue Plan Act money the governor proposed spending, and instead just calling for about $1.2 billion in borrowing.

Baker has said supply chain constraints and the general complexities around construction planning mean cities and towns need to get their projects in the pipeline as soon as possible, or risk running up against the 2024 and 2026 deadlines for committing and spending ARPA funds.

The committee’s Senate members were “not prepared” to eliminate the ARPA money from the bill but wanted to keep the bill moving, so did not vote yes or no on the bill, co-chair Sen. Eric Lesser said.

But, somewhere in the State House’s back channels, there’s another ARPA spending plan in the works.

“I was under the assumption that the chairman of Ways and Means in the House and the chairman of Ways and Means in the Senate were negotiating three things: the budget, the expenditure of ARPA money, and the expenditure of the surplus money,” Mariano said Wednesday.

Only one of those things — the fiscal 2023 budget — is formally before a conference committee, and the other two haven’t even hit the floor in either branch.

Whenever those bills, in whatever form, do surface, it looks like Rep. Maria Robinson, D-Framingham, will still be around to vote for them. As long as it’s this session.

Last fall, it was widely expected that she was headed for the exits after President Biden in September announced her as his pick to serve as assistant secretary of energy in the Office of Electricity. It was seen as such a sure thing that her House colleagues carved up her district when they drew new legislative maps in 2021, and Robinson this year did not file for re-election.

But Robinson’s nomination lingered, and then languished. Pointed questions at a February hearing turned into a postponed vote in March, and then a deadlocked committee in May.

Rather than setting up another potential situation where Vice President Kamala Harris would need to break a tie to confirm a Bay Stater over Republican opposition in the U.S. Senate — as was the case with U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins — Biden withdrew Robinson’s nomination last week.

That now leaves just Rep. Jim Kelcourse, R-Amesbury, in the will-they-or-won’t-they confirmation hot seat.

Kelcourse, Baker’s nominee for a seat on the Parole Board, appeared before the Governor’s Council Wednesday for a hearing where councilors drilled into his lack of social-sciences experience and his motivation for making the move.

The Legislature, as it often does, had deadlines on its mind this week.

The House and Senate on Monday agreed to set this year’s sales tax holiday weekend for Aug. 13 and 14, making their pick two days before the June 15 cutoff when the scheduling power flips over to the Baker administration.

And with the Sept. 6 primary inching closer, lawmakers on Thursday sent Baker a compromise voting reform package that enshrines mail-in and expanded early voting options into state law.

Also landing on Baker’s desk was the annual Chapter 90 bill funding local road and bridge repairs, this year featuring another $150 million in grants for other transportation-related projects.

A $5 billion borrowing bill financing maintenance at state buildings and other government infrastructure needs could soon make its way to the governor as well, depending on how quickly the House and Senate agree on a final version.

Once it does, the big question will be what Baker will do with language calling for a five-year moratorium on prison and jail construction in Massachusetts. Legislative supporters describe the pause as a way to build on the state’s 2018 criminal justice reform law and renew focus on treatment and services over incarceration, but administration officials say it would hinder efforts to upgrade aging facilities and evolve alongside the needs of the incarcerated population.

“This Senate knows that mental health and addiction treatment in alternative settings has proven to be much more effective, rehabilitation in alternative settings, not to mention less expensive,” Sen. Jo Comerford said as the Senate took up the bond bill and moratorium Thursday.

Mental health was the focus down the hall in the House, where representatives unanimously passed a bill that looks to beef up school-based behavioral health services, avoid long stays in the emergency room for patients awaiting psychiatric beds, and otherwise make it easier for people to access needed care.

The bill is the House’s answer — or “complement,” as top Democrats in that branch have been describing it — to a mental health bill the Senate passed in November.

As the July 31 end of formal legislative sessions end, bills start to fall into a handful of categories, with different likelihoods of getting over the finish line. The House’s Thursday vote moves mental health legislation out of the no-man’s-land where bills passed by one branch but not the other dwell and into a more optimistic space where striking a deal has a formal spot on the to-do list.

Still in that first, cloudier realm are a pair of other health care bills — the Senate’s drug cost and transparency bill from February and the hospital expansion oversight bill that cleared the House last November.

Another class of bills is the ones that the governor really, really wants but that haven’t stirred the same level of passion in the Democrats who control the Legislature. Chief among those is Baker’s “dangerousness” bill that would make it easier for police and the courts to detain defendants deemed a risk to the community, still ensconced in the Judiciary Committee.

“Well, everything’s going through the process,” Mariano said Monday. “We have looked at some of the dangerousness issues that the governor raised, and we’re making some decisions.”

STORY OF THE WEEK: SJC pumps the brakes on app-driver ballot question, while a license law repeal committee hits the gas.

SONG OF THE WEEK: Come up short and end up on the news. Whether you’re a ballot committee, the House, the Senate or the governor, you just may never know what’s the fun in getting everything you want.