Committee OK's Bill to Address Suicide Among Correction Officers and Prisoners

Here’s a thumbs-up to the legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.

Last week, the committee rightly gave a favorable report to Senate Bill 1284 mandating a study of how to keep prisoners and correction officers from taking their own lives. Every human life is of inestimable value.

The bill, sponsored by Acton state senator Jamie Eldridge, would set up a 10-member commission whose responsibilities would include:

• Examining and evaluating the state of jail and prison suicide prevention policies
• Examining and evaluating suicide prevention training for correctional facility staff
• Providing recommendations to improve observation and treatment plans for inmates identified as suicidal
• Examining how prisons and jails can reduce stress, anxiety and depression among correction officers

Such study and evaluation are long overdue.  The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has reported that, between 2009 and 2013, there were 20 suicides in the state of persons whose occupations were listed as correction officers. 

Based on the 2012 figures, the suicide rate for correction officers is six times that of the general Massachusetts population.

There are more disturbing facts.  A 2013 U.S. Department of Justice’s Programs Diagnostic Center Study found that: (a) all corrections officers suffer from some degree of post-traumatic disorder during their careers, and (b) corrections officers, on average, do not live past the age of 58.  (That's 20 years lower than the lifespan of the average white male in the U.S. today.) 

Back in 2012, I wrote a post arguing it was time to create a monument to correction officers on Beacon Hill because we need to be reminded that they serve on the front lines of public safety, just like police officers and firefighters, who are honored by impressive monuments just steps from the doors of the State House.  If you wish, you may find that at:

http://pretiminahan.blogspot.com/2012/06/these-often-overlooked-public-servants.html

Alas, no groundswell for a C.O. monument resulted.  I’m giving it another try...

I mean no disrespect for police officers or firefighters.  I’m glad they have those monuments.  They deserve them.   Totally.

But I do not know anyone who would answer correction officer if he or she were asked, “If you had to take one of only three jobs – police officer, firefighter or correction officer – which would it be?”  Do you?

I believe that, if we thought more (and more often) about what correction officers go through to earn a living for themselves and their families, we’d want to do more to take good care of them and help them live longer, happier lives.  A monument for them at the State House would serve to inspire thinking along those lines.

Let’s credit Senator Eldridge and the co-sponsors of SB 1254: Senator Jason Lewis of Winchester, and Representatives Jennifer Benson of Lunenberg, Gloria Fox of Boston and Sean Garballey of Arlington.  Kudos, too, to Senator Jim Timilty of Walpole and Rep. Hank Naughton of Clinton, who chair the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, for pushing through that favorable report on SB 1254.  

St. Patrick Parade Isn't Quite Wheezing but It's Time to Think about a Rescue Plan

The official celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in Boston came mercifully to a close with the parade yesterday in Southie.

What, if anything, will halt the forces transforming South Boston (and other parts of the city) into precious, amenity-filled enclaves for the winners in today’s knowledge economy?

Meanwhile, some folks haven’t gotten over that gay groups are now welcomed, never mind allowed, into the parade.

A group called MassResistance issued a press release this past Monday, March 14, saying it was joining the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts in calling for “an end to the use of St. Patrick’s name in the formerly traditional Irish-Catholic parade.”

MassResistance believes the inclusion of OUTVETS and Boston Pride in the parade “is a disgrace to the Catholic saint, who is regarded as a spiritual reformer in Ireland, and is in direct opposition to Catholic doctrine on homosexual behavior.”

MassResistance demands that the Allied War Veterans Council, the parade sponsor/organizer, remove St. Patrick’s name and rebrand the event the “Evacuation Day Parade,” commemorating the March 17, 1776, withdrawal of British forces from Boston during the Revolutionary War.

I don’t know if the parade was really ever a religious event; it has certainly not been such in my fairly extensive lifetime. 

Though named for a saint, the parade has basically been an occasion to celebrate how well the Irish and their descendants have done in America.  It’s been a fairly respectable excuse to have a good time for a few hours, which is perfectly valid, social- and civic-wise, provided injuries and arrests are kept to a minimum.

At some point, most likely when the entire membership of the Allied War Veterans Council can fit comfortably into a single Uber car and no one living in Southie can count even one Irish immigrant as a grandparent, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade will die a peaceful, natural death.  Everything slides quietly into the dustbin of history eventually…unless, unless, a strong economic justification exists for keeping it alive.

The inevitable demise of the parade was on my mind the other day when I happened upon an article on the State House News Service web site regarding the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, wherein the Campaign rebuked organizations like the Massachusetts Hospital Association for opposing the ballot question the Campaign is sponsoring to legalize the recreational use of everyone’s favorite intoxicating plant.

The article said the Campaign had rented space on a digital billboard in Boston’s Seaport District, a.k.a. the South Boston Waterfront, to promulgate a message featuring pictures of a glass of whiskey, a glass of green beer and a marijuana leaf, with these words beneath each image: “Liquor,” “Beer,” “Safer.”

“Our goal,” said Will Luzier of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, “is to make this year’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities as educational as they are enjoyable.  While folks are celebrating with a pint of green beer or a glass of whiskey, we want them to think about the fact that marijuana is an objectively less harmful substance.”

Added Luzier, who served with distinction for years on the staff of former Watertown state senator Stevie Tolman: “Marijuana is less toxic than alcohol, it’s less addictive, and it’s far less likely to contribute to violent crimes and reckless behavior.”

(Translation: Young Irish-American male inebriates would be more manageable on pot than on booze.) 

Luzier’s press release statement continued: “It simply doesn’t make sense to have laws that allow the use of alcohol, yet punish adults who prefer a less harmful substance.”

Imagine you are still on the right side of the ground in March of 2041, twenty-five years hence, and that you’re physically capable of getting yourself to South Boston.  If so, you should not be surprised to see that some outfit with a name like Massasoit Marijuana Marts (Serving ALL Your Recreational Needs at 50 Great Locations!) is sponsoring the St. Patrick’s Day Parade to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armada of Lobbyists, Lawyers and Consultants Has to Fear Curtatone in His Rowboat

If you’re in a construction trade, you’re probably not too happy with Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, the only person standing between Steve Wynn and his dream of a $2 billion casino in Everett.

Yet I have to believe that even the most diehard union carpenter or electrician silently admires how Curtatone is standing up so forcefully to the crowd that wants to get on with building the casino, which was renamed yesterday by Wynn as “Wynn Boston Harbor.”  (Previous name: “Wynn Everett.”)

The typical union guy would likely use a different short word for courage but I’m sure he's crediting the mayor for having guts…and getting a boot out of the mayor’s in-your-face style. 

Curtatone told the Boston Globe in late-February that he expects Wynn’s “armada of lobbyists, lawyers and consultants” to attack him personally, but vowed that “no amount of public theater and political harassment will stop me.”  For emphasis, the one-time competitive weightlifter declared, “I’m not backing down.”

Earlier this month, after Wynn’s on-site executive in Boston announced they were stopping the multi-million-dollar environmental clean-up at the site until Somerville’s challenge of a key state permit for the casino was resolved, Curtatone issued a statement that said, in part:

“We have a city to run, and we’re not going to let the antics of Wynn’s giant PR machine distract us every time they choose to issue another statement rather than get to work addressing our very real, serious and legally grounded concerns.”

On a different occasion, Curtatone told the Boston Herald, “We’re not looking to be bought off.  We’re not looking for an arbitrary payday.  We are resolved on our principles and we will fight on.”

Continuing in that vein, he said, “There are serious issues here.  We’re seriously committed to them.  We’re not backing down…The City of Somerville works with its regional partners, but make no mistake, we will not wither.”

He also said, “Not one job, not one dollar of new revenue coming to the Commonwealth (from a casino project) is worth the well-being of any resident, certainly not in my community.”

Curtatone is the kind of guy who, if you tap him on the nose, he pummels you all over -- the kind of guy that guys who wear hardhats look up to.  Mayor Joe is also the kind of genuine, sharply defined leader who could one day -- as I am not the first to observe -- be a credible candidate for governor on a Democratic ticket. 

I happened to offer that opinion in passing the other day to a former elected official, a Democrat, who is close to Charlie Baker, who responded, “Charlie’s going to be very hard to beat in 2018.”

I said, “Yes, of course.  But what if Curtatone, as an energetic upstart with a much smaller campaign treasury, decided to take Baker on?  Say Curtatone runs a good race and cuts a strong figure across the state.  Say he draws a respectable vote while still losing, then comes back four years later, like Charlie did after losing to Deval, and he wins.  A respectable-but-unsuccessful first run can be a good way to eventually become governor.”

Given the way we like to elect governors president in this country, why don’t more mayors run for governor?  The executive parallel exists:  effective mayors are in a place to demonstrate executive ability in the public sector.  A mayor makes tough choices in any number of complex areas and has to take sole responsibility for difficult decisions with the electorate, just as governors have to do. 

Mayors, however, do not become gubernatorial candidates in Massachusetts.  Maybe Curtatone will be the one to break that mold.


MITIGATE THIS! I was glad to see today that Steve Wynn is continuing his outspoken and plainspoken ways.  (In a public square stale with pre-programmed sound bites and meaningless generalities, the casino mogul is a breath of fresh air.)  Speaking with reporters at an office he has in Medford, Wynn commented thusly on the expensive community agreements he had to negotiate:  "If someone had a hemorrhoid, we had to mitigate it."

'Fake' May Not Have Been the Best Word for Romney to Hurl at Trump

As he was speaking yesterday morning in Utah, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney must have known he was not the best one to deliver the message that Donald Trump is “a fake,” and that a “business genius he is not.”

He must have known every reporter would dig up what he’d said in February, 2012, when Trump endorsed him for President, which was, one, “I’m so honored and pleased to have his (Trump’s) endorsement,” and, two, “I spent my life in the private sector. Not quite as successful as this guy (Trump), but successful none the less.”

Why did Romney give that speech?  My guess he could not help himself: he could no longer contain his disgust for Trump.  Of course, everything he said about Trump was dead-on accurate.

“If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee,” Romney said, “the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished.” Check.

“If Donald Trump’s plans were ever implemented,” he said, “the country would sink into prolonged recession.” Check.

“Mr. Trump’s bombast,” he said, “is already alarming the allies and fueling the enmity of our enemies.”  Check.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that when it comes to foreign policy he (Trump) is very, very not smart.” Check.

Romney’s attack was hardly a political masterstroke.

He did not endorse any other Republican candidate.  His core message was unrealistic and rather strange: I think he was suggesting that the three men still in the race besides Trump should collude in taking turns winning the various upcoming primaries.

“Given the current delegate selection process…,” he said, “I’d vote for Marco Rubio in Florida and for John Kasich in Ohio and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state.”

That counsel aims to deny Trump a majority of delegates, apparently in the hope of creating a deadlocked convention.

There is no doubting Romney’s intellectual skills. He’s accomplished extraordinary things in his life and has raised a wonderful family with his wife Anne. By any measure – and dramatically so compared to Trump -- Romney is a thoroughly decent and compassionate human being.  But he was born lacking any particular talent for politics. 

While he certainly got better at politics since his first unsuccessful run for office against Ted Kennedy, there are many intangibles about the political arts that have always eluded him, and doubtless always will.

Within a couple of hours of Romney’s speech, the New York Times posted an editorial on its web site under this headline: “Mitt Romney Aims at Donald Trump, Hits GOP.” Check.

You may find the NYT editorial at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/opinion/mitt-romney-aims-at-donald-trump-hits-gop.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prominent MA Senators Clash on Resolution Dealing with Top Court Vacancy

A mini-debate in the Massachusetts Senate yesterday afternoon over a resolution concerning the nomination of a U.S. Supreme Court justice revealed an intriguing difference of opinion on the requirements of bipartisanship. 

Ken Donnelly, the Arlington Democrat who serves as Assistant Majority Whip, introduced a resolution calling upon the U.S. Senate to act swiftly on the nomination of a Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, who died in his sleep Feb. 13 while on a trip to Texas.

Donnelly described the measure as “a simple ask and an important resolution.” It states, in part:

“Whereas there are several examples in history where a judge has been successfully nominated, confirmed and appointed to the Supreme Court in the year preceding a presidential election, including Justice Anthony Kennedy by President Reagan, Justice Benjamin Cardozo by President Hoover and Justice Louis Brandeis by President Wilson, and

“Whereas, in the event of a vacancy on the Supreme Court, failing to timely nominate, consider and confirm the next justice for partisan political reasons would undermine the plain meaning and intent of the Constitution and be a profound disservice to the American people, now therefore be it

“Resolved that the members of the Massachusetts Senate respectfully urge the members of the United States Senate to swiftly and diligently fulfill their constitutional responsibility by granting a fair hearing and a timely vote to the President’s next nominee to the Supreme Court.”

You will recall that the Republican majority in control of the U.S. Senate has said they will not even meet with President Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee, never mind hold hearings or vote on that person.

Donnelly contrasted the endless partisan warfare and cynicism within the U.S. Senate to the normal fair play and comity in the Massachusetts Senate.  Said he, “When we have 34 Democrats in this branch and five Republicans, we make sure the Republicans have a say. To have it happen in Washington, D.C., that the Republicans don’t let the Democrats have a voice is hypocritical.”  [Note: All quotations in this post have been excerpted from a State House News Service account of the Senate session of Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016.]

Minority Leader Bruce Tarr of Gloucester was quick to disagree.  “This invitation, this resolution,” he declared, “is an invitation to the hounds of partisanship to enter this chamber, to consume our thoughts, to consume our debate, at a time when the issues are pressing and critical.”

Donnelly said, “I believe it is important to make sure that our citizens, the 160,000 people that I represent (in the Fourth Middlesex District), believe in the political system.  For the many people in my district that spent weeks and months and in some cases years going all across this country to elect the President of the United States and have a vote, I feel insulted that the people down in Washington could say the people should decide.  They have decided.  They decided in the election (of 2012) who should be President until January, 2017.  To say otherwise is insulting.  To say our president is a lame duck is a terrible message to send across the world.”

Tarr said, “If we go down the path of this resolution, then I would suspect that, using the logic of the gentleman (Donnelly), we have an obligation to file resolutions every day to express frustration with the inaction of the President and Congress.  We don’t yet have a state budget in place and have not yet lifted the cap on net metering and have not addressed ourselves to the things we want to do with regard to the opioid crisis.

“If we want to say that our time will be consumed by things of a national scale that we are all interested in, we have the ability to take the direction and the focus of the (Massachusetts) Senate away from what we have done thus far and become a proxy for the United States Congress.

“As much as I understand the frustration and concern of many of us on this one issue, I wonder how many other appointments have not been acted on (in Washington).  Are we going to debate those?”

Tarr moved that Donnelly’s resolution be tabled, and it was.  Senate President Stan Rosenberg then announced the resolution would be brought up at the Senate’s next formal session, which will likely be held on Thursday, March 3.

We can only hope that the next discussion on this issue will be as lively as the first. Invitations to the hounds of partisanship and terrible messages, indeed!

A Blogster's Miscellany: Thoughts on Judges, Living and Gone, and on a Former AG

LET’S HEAR IT FOR POLITICS.  Justice Robert J. Cordy has received some serious praise since announcing earlier this month his intention to leave the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court this summer, three years before he would have had to retire at age 70.  Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel to the Massachusetts Bar Association, hailed Cordy as “a leading voice on criminal justice issues and an intellectual powerhouse on constitutional law,” and said, “Justice Cordy has played a vital role in modernizing court operations, which will leave a lasting legacy on the administration of justice for years to come.”  Ralph Gants, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, told a reporter for The (Springfield) Republican newspaper and MassLive web site that Cordy’s productivity on the court is “the stuff of legend,” adding, “He (Cordy) leaves an enduring legacy as a justice of this court, not only because of the over 360 carefully crafted and reasoned majority opinions he has authored so far, but also because of the countless unseen contributions he has made to maintain the excellence of this court.”  Cordy has a double-barreled Ivy League education: an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and a doctor of laws from Harvard.  He had a successful career in private legal practice and served with distinction as managing partner of the Boston office of McDermott, Will & Emery, an international law firm.  However, he never served as a judge before being nominated for the supreme court in late-2000 by Gov. Paul Cellucci, God rest his soul.  Thus it’s impossible to imagine him getting to the top court had it not been for his prominence in Republican circles and his cachet within the Weld-Cellucci administration, which preceded the Cellucci-Swift administration.  Cordy was Gov. Weld’s chief legal counsel for three years in the early-Nineties.  (The legal counsel, I should point out, is definitely not a part of a governor’s political apparatus. Those holding the job dispense legal advice to the governor and work to ensure that the administration functions properly, from a legal standpoint, across the board.  They’re prized most for their legal acumen; should they possess political skills, all the better.)  The Governor’s Council confirmed Cordy’s appointment to the court on a unanimous 8-0 vote in early-January, 2001.  A number of Democrats endorsed him during his confirmation hearing, including then House Speaker Tom Finneran and former Attorney General Frank Bellotti.  “I hope you will learn I am fair-minded.  I am not by nature a partisan person or one who’s afraid of responsibility,” Cordy told the Council, according the account of the hearing from the files of the State House News Service.  That they did. Cordy will end his public service as a total judicial success, with not a single blemish – and many a high point -- on his long (15 years-plus) SJC record.  He will also leave as a living-breathing refutation of the view that our political system can’t ever get anything really right.  It was good GOP politics that made Bob Cordy Mr. Justice Cordy.  And good justice.

SPEAKING OF JUDGES, WHAT’S THE DUKE THINKING?  Michael Dukakis is doing his usual winter stint as a professor at UCLA, which is where Slate’s Isaac Chotiner caught up with him earlier this week to get his views on the late US. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was a classmate of Dukakis’s at Harvard Law, and on other subjects of current interest.   I was happy to see that age has not mellowed our former governor, who is 82 and hasn’t lost anything off his fastball.  Chotiner asked, “How well did you know Scalia at law school?” Dukakis said, “Not well…in those days, Isaac, we had a class of 475 that was divided in thirds.  So you got to know your section very well.  But I didn’t know who Scalia was until the last semester of my last year, when I took a class called Federal Courts and the Federal System, with a great man named Henry Hart.  It is 1960.  We are in the middle of the civil rights revolution. And there’s this guy in class who begins engaging Professor Hart every day in these long dialogues over whether it was appropriate for federal judges to reach in and take cases away from Southern criminal courts, in cases where, as everyone knew, if you were a black defendant, forget it.  And this went on for about three weeks.  I finally turned to the guy next to me and said, ‘Who the hell is that guy?’ He said, ‘That’s Scalia, he’s on the law review.’  And I said, ‘Does he know what it’s like to be black in the South?’  A bright guy – yeah.  But he was to the right of Marie Antoinette for Christ’s sake.  There was no consistency in his so-called philosophy.  Money is corporate speech.  This is all preposterous.”  I strongly recommend you read the entire Chotiner-Dukakis interview. Go to:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/02/michal_dukakis_on_the_bush_family_antonin_scalia_and_donald_trump

WITH ALLIES LIKE THAT, COAKLEY NEEDS NO ENEMIES. Martha Coakley, a former Massachusetts attorney general, might have evinced interest in the outcome of a plan to oust Margaret McKenna, president of Suffolk University, in the slightest of ways.  A nod of her head during a conversation over coffee or a murmured “Umm, umm” over the phone could have done it.  It’s not hard to see why she may have been interested.  Coakley is a good and honest person.   No doubt she was sincerely sorry to learn that President McKenna might soon be out of work.  But that sorrow would not have kept Coakley, or most people, for that matter, from entertaining the idea of succeeding McKenna.  Most everyone in that situation would have reasoned that, if McKenna is leaving, someone is going to replace her, so why not me?  And by now everyone who follows the news is familiar with the story of the embattled university president who survived a coup attempt.  On Jan. 29, you will recall, the Boston Globe published an article stating: “Suffolk University president Margaret McKenna, whose short tenure has been marked by tumultuous relations with the school’s governing board, has been told privately that the board has the votes to fire her if it chooses and has been asked to resign, according to a (never identified) person close to the university.”  The article also said: “At the same time, the board is in negotiations (emphasis added) with former state attorney general Martha Coakley to take over as president, according to the same (unidentified)person, and confirmed by a second person briefed on the developments.”  Coakley, the article said, had not returned calls from the newspaper seeking her comments on the matter.  The Globe story was obviously planted by someone on the Suffolk board who hoped the publicity would scare McKenna into concluding her situation was hopeless and deciding to resign in order to avoid being fired.  It was a bluff. McKenna called it.  Soon, an impressive array of persons and groups materialized in her defense.  The tide turned quickly in her favor.  Around Day 3, Coakley made her first public comment, announcing she was not a candidate for the Suffolk presidency and not  interested in the job.  One can infer that Coakley had come under pressure from friends, acquaintances and random budinskis, who wondered: Why do you want to be associated with the ouster of a woman college president who has been on the job only seven months and is being railroaded by the old boys on the board? The situation culminated with surprising rapidity in an agreement between the university and McKenna, which stipulated that the chair of the board would leave the board when his term expired shortly and that McKenna would keep her job for another 18 months.  My wish for McKenna is that, 18 months hence, when the makeup of the Suffolk board is likely to be substantially different from what it is today, she’ll be granted a three-year contract extension.  Things at Suffolk could be going so swimmingly by then they'll have to implore President McKenna to stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LET’S HEAR IT FOR POLITICS!  Justice Robert J. Cordy has received some serious praise since announcing earlier this month his intention to leave the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court this summer, three years before he would have had to retire at age 70.  Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel to the Massachusetts Bar Association, hailed Cordy as “a leading voice on criminal justice issues and an intellectual powerhouse on constitutional law,” and said, “Justice Cordy has played a vital role in modernizing court operations, which will leave a lasting legacy on the administration of justice for years to come.”  Ralph Gants, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, told a reporter for The Republican newspaper and MassLive web site that Cordy’s productivity on the court is “the stuff of legend,” adding, “He (Cordy) leaves an enduring legacy as a justice of this court, not only because of the over 360 carefully crafted and reasoned majority opinions he has authored so far, but also because of the countless unseen contributions he has made to maintain the excellence of this court.”  Cordy has a double-barreled Ivy League education: an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and a doctor of laws from Harvard.  He had a successful career in private legal practice and served with distinction as managing partner of the Boston office of McDermott, Will & Emery, an international law firm.  However, he never served as a judge before being nominated for the supreme court in late-2000 by Gov. Paul Cellucci, God rest his soul.  Thus it’s impossible to imagine him getting to the top court had it not been for his prominence in Republican circles and his cachet within the Weld-Cellucci administration, which preceded the Cellucci-Swift administration.  Cordy was Gov. Weld’s chief legal counsel for three years in the early-Nineties.  (The legal counsel, I should point out, is definitely not a part of a governor’s political apparatus. Those holding the job dispense legal advice to the governor and work to ensure that the administration functions properly, from a legal standpoint, across the board.  They’re prized most for their legal acumen; should they possess political skills, all the better.)  The Governor’s Council confirmed Cordy’s appointment to the court on a unanimous 8-0 vote in early-January, 2001.  A number of Democrats endorsed him during the confirmation hearing, including then House Speaker Tom Finneran and former Attorney General Frank Bellotti.  “I hope you will learn I am fair-minded.  I am not by nature a partisan person or one who’s afraid of responsibility,” Cordy told the Council, according the account of the hearing from the files of the State House News Service.  That they did! Cordy will end his public service as a total judicial success, with not a single blemish – and many a high point -- on his long (15 years-plus) SJC record.  He will also leave as a living-breathing refutation of the view that our political system can’t ever get anything really right.  It was good GOP politics that made Bob Cordy Mr. Justice Cordy.  And good justice.

SPEAKING OF JUDGES, WHAT’S THE DUKE THINKING?  Michael Dukakis is doing his usual winter stint as a professor at UCLA, which is where Slate’s Isaac Chotiner caught up with him earlier this week to get his views on the late US. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was a classmate of Dukakis’s at Harvard Law, and on other subjects of current interest.   I was happy to see that age has not mellowed our former governor, who is 82 and hasn’t lost even a bit off his fastball.  Chotiner asked, “How well did you know Scalia at law school?” Dukakis said, “Not well…in those days, Isaac, we had a class of 475 that was divided in thirds.  So you got to know your section very well.  But I didn’t know who Scalia was until the last semester of my last year, when I took a class called Federal Courts and the Federal System, with a great man named Henry Hart.  It is 1960.  We are in the middle of the civil rights revolution. And there’s this guy in class who begins engaging Professor Hart every day in these long dialogues over whether it was appropriate for federal judges to reach in and take cases away from Southern criminal courts, in cases where, as everyone knew, if you were a black defendant, forget it.  And this went on for about three weeks.  I finally turned to the guy next to me and said, ‘Who the hell is that guy?’ He said, ‘That’s Scalia, he’s on the law review.’  And I said, ‘Does he know what it’s like to be black in the South?’  A bright guy – yeah.  But he was to the right of Marie Antoinette for Christ’s sake.  There was no consistency in his so-called philosophy.  Money is corporate speech.  This is all preposterous.”  I stromgly recommend you read the entire Chotiner-Dukakis interview. Go to:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/02/michal_dukakis_on_the_bush_family_antonin_scalia_and_donald_trump

WITH ALLIES LIKE THAT, COAKLEY NEEDS NO ENEMIES. Martha Coakley, a former Massachusetts Attorney General, might have evinced interest in the outcome of a plan to oust Margaret McKenna, president of Suffolk University, in the slightest of ways.  A nod of her head during a conversation over coffee or a murmured “Umm, umm” over the phone could have done it.  It’s not hard to see why she may have been interested.  Coakley is a good and honest person.   No doubt she was sincerely sorry to learn that President McKenna might soon be history.  But that would not have kept Coakley, or most people, for that matter, from entertaining the idea of succeeding McKenna.  Most everyone in that situation would have reasoned that, if McKenna is leaving, someone is going to replace her, so why not me?  By now, everyone who follows the news in Massachusetts is familiar with the story of the embattled university president who survived a coup attempt.  On Jan. 29, the Boston Globe published an article stating: “Suffolk University president Margaret McKenna, whose short tenure has been marked by tumultuous relations with the school’s governing board, has been told privately that the board has the votes to fire her if it chooses and has been asked to resign, according to a person close to the university.”  The article also said: “At the same time, the board is in negotiations with former state attorney general Martha Coakley to take over as president, according to the same person, and confirmed by a second person briefed on the developments.”  Coakley, the article said, had not returned calls from the newspaper seeking her comments on the matter.  The Globe story was obviously planted by someone on the Suffolk board who hoped the publicity would scare McKenna into concluding her situation was hopeless, and that she should resign and quietly go away.  It was a bluff; McKenna called it.  Soon, an impressive array of persons and groups came to her defense.  The tide turned quickly in her favor.  Around Day 3, Coakley made her first public comment, announcing she was not a candidate for the Suffolk presidency and not interested in the job.  One can infer that Coakley had come under pressure from friends, acquaintances and random budinskis, who wondered, Why do you want to be associated with the ouster of a woman college president who has been on the job only seven months and is being railroaded by the old boys on the board? The situation ended with an agreement between the university and McKenna stipulating that the chair of the board would leave the board when his term expired shortly and that McKenna would keep her job for another 18 months.  My wish for McKenna is that, 18 months from now, when the makeup of the Suffolk board is likely to be substantially different from what it is today, she’ll be granted a three-year contract extension.  Things could be going so well at Suffolk by then that they will have to ask her to stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Smart Guys in Everett Saw Steve Wynn's China Strategy from a Mile Off

One of the proverbs lodged in my cranium is, “The judgment of the village is never wrong.”

I buy that.  I also think that units within cities – social clubs, softball leagues, busy restaurants and bars, neighborhoods and even certain street corners -- take on the characteristics of villages in that vital information is exchanged and fresh insights emerge there.

So when I heard in Everett last summer that Steve Wynn had his eye on a large number of Chinese customers for the casino he’s planning on the old Monsanto Chemical site, I paid attention.  Later I wrote a blog post on it. 

Repeating what a friend told me one Saturday afternoon in Everett Square, I wrote on September 14: 

“You watch! Wynn will be doing charter flights from China every other weekend.  He’ll have yachts picking up his most loyal Chinese customers at the Logan Airport dock and whisking them to the casino (on a Mystic-River-front lot, deep inside Boston Harbor).  These high rollers will be dropping Franklins at the tables as soon as they recover from the flight.  And when they’re not betting in the casino or eating at Wynn’s restaurants and shopping at the high-end shops in his luxury hotel, he’ll be sending them in his fleet of limos to the best that Boston offers: restaurants, shows, art galleries, you name it.”

I happened to see on the Internet this morning that Steve Wynn had mentioned Everett during a Wynn Resorts investors call yesterday, and that he’d trumpeted the value to his business of the direct flights that exist between cities in China and Boston.  “Hey, wait a minute,” I thought.  “I heard that months ago.”

I easily found a transcript of that investors call online.  (What can’t you find online?)  Here’s the operative section, from Wynn verbatim:

“I think…the Everett Boston metropolitan area opportunity is enormous.  And we can’t wait to be there.  It’s the first time we’ve ever had a hotel that has nonstop service from every major capital in the world: Hainan Airlines and Cathay Pacific fly nonstop from Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai to Boston.  So does every other world capital, nonstop to Boston.  And we are 12 minutes from Logan Airport with our new hotel.  So all of that sort of makes me feel confident and positive about our future prospects.”

There was also a press release to be found, one that had a vanilla headline: “Wynn Resorts, Limited Reports Fourth Quarter and Year End 2015 Results.”  In the fourth quarter of 2015, the release said, “net revenues were $555.7 million, a 27.0% decrease from the $761.2 million generated in the fourth quarter of 2014.”

Charter Contracting Company, one of the nation’s top specialists in complex environmental clean-ups, is hard at work decontaminating the land where the Wynn Everett resort casino will rise.  Construction of the complex will begin as soon as site remediation is done.  If all goes as planned, Wynn Everett will open late in 2018.

By the sound of yesterday’s investors call, that day can’t arrive soon enough.  Who’d have thought it?  Old Everett riding to the rescue of a mogul from Las Vegas.