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By Jay Fitzgerald and Keith Regan

10/23/2017

‘Me Too’ | The thaw | JOB BOARD MONDAY

Happening Today

Bernie Sanders in Somerville, health-care reform hearing, Board of Education test-scores meeting

-- Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash join city leaders from across the state at the Massachusetts Resource Network Peer Convening for a day of workshops focused on economic development, DCU Center, 50 Foster Street, Worcester, 9 a.m.

-- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is scheduled to rally with candidates running for city council, school board and aldermanic seats in Somerville and Cambridge, ONCE Somerville, 156 Highland Avenue, Somerville, 9:30 a.m.

-- Auditor Suzanne Bump discusses her office's recent audit of the Sex Offender Registry Board on Boston Herald Radio, 70 Fargo St., Boston, 9:30 a.m.

-- Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who chairs the Mass. School Building Authority, and MSBA executive director Jack McCarthy attend a groundbreaking ceremony at the Dedham Early Education Center, 1100 High St., Dedham, 10 a.m.

-- Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight hears testimony on bills concerning businesses, non-profits and the workforce, Hearing Room B-2, 1 p.m.

-- Cardinal Seán O'Malley and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito join the Planning Office for Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Boston to celebrate the groundbreaking of Bethany Apartments, 369 Washington St., Hanover, 11 a.m.

-- The Special Senate Committee on Health Care Cost Containment and Reform holds a public hearing on the 100-page health reform bill Senate Democrats unveiled last week, Rooms A-1 and A-2, 11:30 a.m.

-- Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce hosts ‘Our Convention for the Next Generation’ to inspire and mobilize millennials, with U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton giving opening remarks and Boston City Council president Michelle Wu and Sens. Eric Lesser, Joseph Boncore and Ryan Fatten are also expected to attend, Edward M. Kennedy Institute, 210 Morrissey Blvd., 12 p.m.

-- Joint Committee on Public Health and the Joint Committee on Elder Affairs hold a joint informational session on the ‘preparedness of the Commonwealth for the Alzheimer’s and dementia epidemic,’ Room 428, 1 p.m.

-- Gov. Charlie Baker and legislative leaders from both parties hold their semi-regular private meeting, Governor’s Office, 2 p.m.

-- The Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety will hold a call to action and memorial for Robert Higgins and Kelvin Mattocks, who died when a pipe burst in a trench they were digging on Dartmouth Street in Boston last October, Nurse's Hall, 2:30 p.m.

-- Attorney General Maura Healey moderates a roundtable discussion about the opioid epidemic and the importance of substance use prevention programming, Boys and Girls Club of Fall River, 803 Bedford St., Fall River, 3 p.m.

-- Revere officials hold a press conference with Mayor Brian Arrigo to endorse the Question 1 senior tax relief ballot question, Revere City Hall, 281 Broadway, Revere, 3 p.m.

-- Board of Elementary and Secondary Education holds meeting to discuss student performance results and accountability designations from the spring 2017 state exams, 75 Pleasant St., Malden, 5 p.m.

-- Senators have until the end of the work day to file amendments to the criminal justice reform bill that will be up for debate on Thursday, 5 p.m.

-- Attorney General Maura Healey hosts a town hall forum in Walpole, Walpole High School, 275 Common St., Walpole, 6:30 p.m.

Today's News

Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Me Too’ moment

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and three other female senators divulged on Sunday that they’ve all been victims of sexual harassment and abuse in the past, joining a growing chorus of women speaking out about predatory male behavior in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual-harassment scandal, according to reports by Julia Jacobs at the Globe and Chris Villani at the Herald. Speaking on NBC's “Meet the Press” as part of the “#MeToo” campaign, Warren said that as a young law professor she was once accosted by a senior faculty member. “It was like a bad cartoon,” she said. “He’s chasing me around the desk, trying to get his hands on me. And I kept saying, ‘You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to do this. I have little children at home. Please don’t do this.’”

There are a lot more stories like this that will be coming out in the days and weeks ahead.

Fidelity’s own sexual harassment woes

Speaking of workplace sexual harassment: After the recent firing of two senior male portfolio managers amid charges of sexual harassment, Boston-based Fidelity Investments has hired a consulting firm to review a “yearslong problem” of improper employee behavior, according to stories at the Boston Business Journaland Boston Globe, based on a firewalled WSJ piece on Sunday.

The thaw: Elizabeth Warren actually talks to reporters

Switching gears: As the Washington editor of the New York Times once tweeted: “What does @realDonaldTrump have in common with @SenWarren? A disdain for the working press. Senator Warren, why won’t you talk to reporters?” But now Warren -- five years into her job, five years after mostly scurrying away whenever reporters ask her even the most mundane questions -- is up for re-election and she's starting to talk more to journalists, who have “noticed a thaw – of sorts,” reports the Globe’s Victoria McGrane. Some of the encounters are still somewhat scripted. But a thaw is a thaw – of sorts.

Boston Globe

Worcester to state: Help us deal with influx of Puerto Rican students

As of last week, the Worcester public schools had seen 51 students from hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico arrive in the city seeking educational services, a surge in enrollment that has the city turning to the state for help, Scott O’Connell of the Telegram reports. The city is worried that with the annual Oct. 1 student count already in the books, the new arrivals could pose a long-term threat to school budgets.

Hampden cop flies to the rescue of Bay State officers kicked out of Puerto Rico

We still don’t understand how a reportedly good-intentioned side trip led to their being asked to leave hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. Anyway, via George Graham at MassLive: “A team of seven Massachusetts police officers, stranded in Georgia after a short-lived hurricane relief mission in Puerto Rico, finally made it home thanks in part to a Hampden police officer who also happens to be a commercial pilot. Michael Kane, co-owner of Aircraft Management Sales and Service, fronted the cost of the Oct. 13 return trip, which included at least $8,500 in fuel other costs.”

In contrast, Boston police officers, who also took side trips to see relatives while in Puerto Rico, found their post-hurricane experience on the island to be overwhelming and humbling, reports Cristela Guerra at the Globe

MassLive

Jackson gaining on Walsh, race tightening, poll shows narrowing gap

If we can’t have genuine excitement, we might as well invent it, after the latest poll, this one by Suffolk University and the Boston Globe, shows Mayor Marty Walsh with a commanding 35 percent lead over rival Tito Jackson in Boston’s mayoral election. That’s down from a 36 percent Walsh lead in a recent WBUR poll. Then again, an Emerson survey in the Herald this morning has Walsh up by 38 points, obviously an outlier number.

How it easily could have been Mayor Louise Day Hicks

Speaking of mayoral showdowns: Most Bostonians associate 1967 with the Red Sox and the Impossible Dream team that defied the odds and almost won a World Series. But it was also a momentous political year in Boston, with Louise Day Hicks squaring off against Kevin White in a “thrilling, tempestuous, defining election, maybe the most important in city history — a choice between two candidates that would reverberate for generations,” reports Andrew Ryan at the Globe.

Boston Globe

Walsh nixes pre-election ‘volunteer day’ home visits

This was a pretty brazen example of the ‘power of incumbency’ in action. From Joe Battenfeld at the Herald: “The Walsh administration abruptly canceled a planned door-knocking campaign by ‘volunteer’ city workers yesterday after the Herald raised questions about the timing of the event just 2 1⁄2 weeks before Election Day. ... The ‘connect-the-knocks’ project — similar to door-to-door political canvassing of voters — amounted to what would have been a taxpayer-funded effort to promote Mayor Martin J. Walsh and his administration in the waning days of his re- election bid.”

Boston Herald

DeLeo on the Suffolk Downs Amazon bid: It’s not just about the location

House Speaker Robert DeLeo, whose father worked as the maître D at the Turf Club at Suffolk Downs, says that the old race track may well be a perfect location for Amazon’s second headquarters, with its nearly shovel-ready status and close proximity to downtown Boston. But Amazon can also draw on much-needed talent produced by nearby community colleges, as well as prestigious universities, and that pipeline of talent is key to both Amazon and Boston’s future, he writes at WGBH.

WGBH

Baker administration releases summary of state’s 26 site bids for Amazon

The Baker administration ultimately dodged backing a single bid for Amazon’s second headquarters. Still, as SHNS’s Katie Lannan reports at CommonWealth magazine, the administration did release what amounts to a summary of all the state bids: “From the home of the New England Patriots to a mall in Leominster to oceanfront property in Lynn, 26 different sites in Massachusetts want to host Amazon’s second headquarters and the 50,000 jobs that will accompany it, according to a proposal state officials released Friday. Without making specific offers to Amazon, the bid highlights the state’s ‘broad array of financial programs to attract private investment and to promote innovation and job creation.’”

CommonWealth

GE execs among latest Baker donors

Several top GE executives, including new CEO John Flannery, helped boost Gov. Charlie Baker’s re-election campaign fund with $5,500 in donations last month, Max Stendhal reports in the Boston Business Journal. Meanwhile, Christian Wade of the Salem News has additional details from the latest campaign finance reports that show Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito together with nearly $10 million in their war chests.

Tick tock: Major legislation hangs in balance over the next month

WGBH’s Mike Deehan looks at the calendar and the legislative TTD list – including criminal-justice reform legislation and the supplemental budget – and concludes there’s not a heck of a lot time left to get things done before Thanksgiving.

WGBH

Sticker shock: Cape officials stunned by $128M price tag for new vocational school

The best and brightest on the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School Building Committee are in a state of shock over the projected price of their new vocational school -- $128 million. On a per-square-foot basis, it’s cheaper than the prices for other recently built high schools. But still ... Doug Fraser at the Cape Cod Times has more.

Cape Cod Times

Brighton’s Oak Square gets dragged into the Trump-Wilson phone-call fight

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell is coming to the aid of U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson in her ongoing dispute with White House chief of staff John Kelly over those fallen-heroes phone calls, reports the Herald’s Chris Cassidy. You see, Kelly is a native of Brighton, specifically Oak Square, and O’Donnell is a Dorchester native, and O’Donnell says he knows all about those racist and misogyist ruffians from Oak Square from the bussing era of the 1970s and ... we’ll let Chris explain. Fyi: The Herald’s Howie Carr is going after both Gov. Charlie Baker and O’Donnell.

Boston Herald

Lawmakers sound alarm on Alzheimer’s

The state may be consumed by the current public health crisis in the form of opioids, but two key lawmakers want to sound the alarm about the next crisis: The rising rates of Alzheimer’s disease and the toll it takes on caregivers and society as a whole. State Sens. Barbara L’Itallien—whose mother suffered from Alzheimer’s—and Jason Lewis lay out the case for additional state action in CommonWealth Magazine ahead of an informational hearing planned for the State House on Monday afternoon.

CommonWealth

Domestic violence as public health issue …

Meanwhile, state Rep. Kate Hogan and Sen. Jason Lewis, co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Public Health, penned an op-ed over the weekend in the MetroWest Daily News calling attention to the depressing and deadly persistence of domestic violence across Massachusetts and elsewhere. Their piece comes as the committee and the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators prepare to co-host a State House informational hearing next Monday on domestic violence as a public health issue.

MetroWest Daily News

Disposed-needle hazard seen rising in Boston

The number of hypodermic needles in Boston’s public parks has surged 60 percent in the last year, exacerbating the public health risks amid the opioid epidemic, the Herald reports in a rare five-byline team report. The city now has four full-time employees who respond to calls of discarded needles and is looking to expand a used-needle collection program.

Boston Herald

Norman Rockwell’s sons sue to block museum’s sale of father’s artwork

The Berkshire Museum must really want that auction money. From WBUR: “Norman Rockwell's three sons are among the plaintiffs who have filed a court complaint seeking to halt the Berkshire Museum plan to sell 40 works of art, including two by their famous father. The complaint filed Friday seeking a temporary restraining order alleges the Pittsfield museum contracted with Sotheby's for a public auction of the works before it announced its plans publicly.”

WBUR

Hold on: SJC imposes limits on DCF’s ability to separate kids from parents

From Bob McGovern and Matt Stout at the Herald: “The state’s high court is slapping strict limits on child welfare workers who yank kids from their parents too quickly, stating in a sweeping ruling that investigators must make reasonable efforts to keep families together. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled (Friday) that before a child is seized by the state, a judge must twice determine whether the Department of Children and Families made reasonable efforts to keep kids with their natural parents.”

Boston Herald

‘Putin’s Revenge’

The WGBH-produced Frontline on Wednesday explores Russia’s social-media and cyber-hacking interference in last year’s presidential elections in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabonowitz and the Herald’s Mark Perigard review part one of the two-part ‘Putin’s Revenge’ series, which airs on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Bottom line: Vladimir Putin really hated Hillary Clinton.

PBS

Paul Krugman at UMass Amherst

For all you economic and political wonks in western Massachusetts, via Jim Kinney at MassLive: “Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and a columnist for The New York Times, will speak Thursday, Oct. 26 at 6 p.m. at the University of Massachusetts as the university's annual Philip Gamble Memorial Lecture. Krugman's talk at the Mullins Center – ‘What's the Matter with Economics?’ -- is expected to be his explanation of how macroeconomics, the study of national and regional economies, is a very good predictor of world events at least since the financial crisis of 2008-09. "

MassLive

Today's Headlines

Metro

Eastie, Revere anti-casino activists take brighter view of Amazon - Boston Business Journal

Group to help recruit Latino officers to BPD - Boston Herald

Massachusetts

Framingham: Spicer, Stefanini trade barbs - MetroWest Daily News

Proposed Provincetown funicular a monumental task - Cape Cod Times

Vargas picks up endorsements of DeLeo, Coppinger - Eagle-Tribune

Worcester receives perfect score from LGBTQ rights group - Worcester Magazine

UMass Amherst faces lawsuit over handling of sexual misconduct investigation - Hampshire Gazette

Nation