Western Mass. transit gain is MBTA’s loss

Once again, Washington shows Western Massachusetts the love.  Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, Transportation Secretary Richard Davey, US Rep. John Olver, and other state and federal officials went to Greenfield recently to announce $73 million worth of stimulus-funded upgrades to the Connecticut River rail line from the Nutmeg State through Massachusetts to Vermont. The track improvements will speed up trips on Amtrak’s Vermonter service from Washington, DC, to St. Albans, Vermont. The route took in a large haul of federal dollars last year, too.

Springfield also got a boost from a $6 million award for the renovation of the city’s Union Station. The building, which has been closed since the early 1970s, will be transformed into an intermodal transportation facility that serves Amtrak, planned high speed and commuter rail routes, plus local, regional, and intercity bus lines. Work gets underway in 2012. Union Station will also serve as the terminus for the planned $880 million New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail line which is currently scheduled to begin service in 2016.

Regional transit authorities out west also made out like bandits in a federal grant awards program directed primarily toward buses and related facilities. The Berkshire Regional Transit Authority received more than $2 million for facility upgrades and vehicle and farebox replacements. The Montachusett Regional Transit Authority got vehicle replacements funds totaling $1.5 million. (The Brockton regional system also hauled in $675,000.)

The MBTA lost out in the competitive process for nearly $1 billion in federal transportation money. Federal officials turned down the MBTA’s grant application to renovate the Arborway Yard, a bus facility in Jamaica Plain, due to the authority’s continuing financial straits. The MBTA did not include the bus facility project in its most recent five-year capital investment funding program. The capital program outlines the projects the agency has the ability to fund. Omission from that list is a “Danger, Will Robinson,” signal to the feds:  Washington typically funds the lion’s share of many transit projects and relies on local authorities to furnish the rest—something that the MBTA could not do.

                                                                                                                                                        –GABRIELLE GURLEY

BEACON HILL

Supporters of a Senate amendment that would distribute casino revenues to underfunded school districts fight back against criticism that some wealthy municipalities stand to benefit.

Redistricting complaints box: Medway isn’t happy about its inclusion in a new House district with Milford, instead of Holliston and Hopkinton, since the two towns have little common, according to a Medway selectman. Two city councilors want Pittsfield to be represented by one state lawmaker in the House, not two. Triton school officials on the North Shore say the redistricting plan further splinters the regional district’s representation.

Meanwhile, The Springfield Republican sings the praises of Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat and the co-chairman of the redistricting committee.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

The Patriot Ledger urges the Navy not to shirk its responsibility in the cleanup of hazardous materials at the former South Weymouth Naval Air Base, which is slowly morphing into a mixed use development.

Fall River is now accepting credit cards for quarterly tax bill payments, albeit with a surcharge to recover processing fees.

Falmouth is considering a pay-as-you-throw trash fee similar to the one in Sandwich.

Great Barrington finally gets a fully-staffed police force of 16 officers.

Occupy the Berkshires descends on North Adams.

Once-and-future Boston mayoral hopeful Michael Flaherty slams the at-large field he’s campaigning against as “Tommy’s Team.”

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

Thomas Curry, former Massachusetts banking commissioner, appears to have cleared the last hurdle holding up his nomination by President Obama to run the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, the federal agency that oversees national banks.

US Sen. Scott Brown, at a rally in Gloucester, calls on President Obama to fire his administrator in charge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saying she is unaccountable and uninterested in the economic survival of fishermen, the Gloucester Times reports.

Lawrence Summers weighs in on how to stabilize the housing market.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor scraps a speech, rather than speak to a room filled almost exclusively by protesters.

Twenty-eight states’ redistricting plans have gone to court so far this year.

ELECTION 2012

Mitt Romney continues to rake in the dough, but a lot less of it is coming from Massachusetts than in his 2008 presidential bid, the Globe reports. Romney also appears to be hedging his bets on the flat tax. New York magazine publishes a long feature on Romney’s business legacy, headlined by the less-than-flattering, “Mitt Romney and the 1% Economy.” Also, this photo won’t go away. In a companion piece, Frank Rich says class warfare is much more fraught with tension in the US because we still think of ourselves as a classless society.

The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the Health Safety Net program signed into law by Mitt Romney which provides care for undocumented immigrants and others. Via Political Wire

The National Review says there are conflicting reports over whether all, some, or none of Michele Bachmann’s New Hampshire staff quit.

BlueMassGroup’s David Kravtiz and Charley Blandy chat up Elizabeth Warren.

In case you didn’t notice: Rising Republican star Bobby Jindal won re-election as governor of Louisiana.

Rick Perry, born-again birther?

Newt Gingrich has some advice for the rest of the GOP: Start “actually knowing things.” Of course, Gingrich is also the most recent intellectual author of this.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

There is something very fishy going on in Massachusetts restaurants, as a Globe investigation reveals that lots of area eateries are serving mislabeled fish by substituting a lower-cost catch for the fish that is billed on their menu.  Today, the paper follows-up on yesterday’s story with a look at the the supply chain where a lot of the shenanigans take place.

Cry me a river: Massachusetts millionaires lament the fact that they may have to pay more taxes. The Bay State has the fourth highest concentration of millionaires in the country.

Michelle Malkin, in a Lowell Sun column, decries the “endless Occupy Wall Street sleepover” and the growing chorus in favor of a tax on financial transactions.

Older and younger jobless MetroWest residents lament their poor employment prospects.

The Wall Street Journal spotlights efforts by aging New England states to retain college graduates.

EDUCATION

Boston school Superintendent Carol Johnson is dropping her plan to relocate Boston Latin Academy to the former Hyde Park High School building, the Globe reports.  It is the latest in what has become a long string of policy reversals by the city’s schools chief.

State officials, in a report on the Lawrence Public Schools, suggest state intervention may be necessary because of a lack of leadership by the School Committee, which is headed by Mayor William Lantigua, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

Lowell Mayor James Milinazzo is upset with the headmaster of Lowell High School for backing a plan to place a drop-in center for the poor and homeless in a nearby church, the Lowell Sun reports.

The Berkshire Eagle weighs in on the side of students and “grinding” at high school dance parties.

HEALTH CARE

Paul Levy continues to hammer away at the Blue Cross-Partners HealthCare deal that he says was an “opportunity lost” despite the pronouncement it could save a quarter-billion dollars in payment increases over the next decade or so.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are launching a massive tumor registry study that will test cancer patients’ tumors for genetic markers in order to better understand the processes at work in the development of cancer and design targeted therapies to combat it.

TRANSPORTATION

Steamship Authority employees are implicated in parking lot scam.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

The state’s big utilities have spent more than $400,000 on lobbying and another $55,000 in campaign contributions to defeat a bill on Beacon Hill that would revamp the archaic process allowing municipalities to start their own power companies, according to a report by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

Solar power still costs three times as much as power from natural gas, but those costs are falling fast, the Boston Globe reports, via AP.

A University of California-Berkeley physicist who did not believe in global warming takes heat from climate change deniers for changing his mind after he conducted an extensive study of the issue.

The Cape Cod Times says that Sen. John Kerry’s work on behalf of the fishing industry is paying off.

Cape Wind’s difficulty in obtaining financing has slowed work on a New Bedford marine industrial terminal.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Jury selection begins today in the case of Tarek Mehanna, the Sudbury resident accused of plotting terrorist attacks.

Copper thefts have been rising in the Berkshires over the past three years.

MEDIA

The Providence Journal is rolling out its new online pay strategy that Dan Kennedy says is a “print first” approach that minimizes the paper’s Web site in favor of the dead tree edition.

WBUR is asking for “citizen journalism” from Occupy Boston.

David Carr, in the New York Times, takes Gannett to task for doing what it editorializes against in USA Today – rewarding executives who do a poor job with huge bonuses.

SALEM WITCH TRIALS

One Framingham woman, a distant relative by marriage of one of the 17th century victims, is unhappy with all the Halloween hoopla.