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Just after 8:30 a.m. on Thursday as the Senate prepared to vote on a major housing bond bill, Republican Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr took the floor. Members, he said, had gotten the $5.16 billion bill after pulling an all-nighter, with no time to review it, hours after formal legislative sessions were supposed to have concluded at midnight. “We can’t accept this,” Tarr said. “It can’t become normal. It can’t be institutionalized. Members deserve better than that. Citizens of the Commonwealth deserve better than that.”
Tarr is right. A legislative process that starts with months of inaction and ends in a flurry of overnight lawmaking — where important legislation is left on the cutting room floor simply because time expires — does not serve members or the public.
To its credit, the Legislature completed one of its most important tasks this session. Lawmakers reached agreement on a housing bond bill that will invest in building all kinds of housing that the state desperately needs to address sky-high prices, a homelessness crisis, and a cost of living that threatens to chase companies out of state. The bill will provide money for affordable housing, public housing, mixed-income housing, market-rate housing, and the conversion of commercial to residential properties, among other initiatives. It will allow accessory dwelling units to be built without special permits everywhere in Massachusetts.
While the housing bill was a top priority of Governor Maura Healey — who introduced her version of it last fall, giving the Legislature ample time — there were real differences between the versions passed by the House and Senate, and passage wasn’t assured until a compromise was reached early Thursday.
Lawmakers also passed a bill increasing access to benefits for veterans. They sent Healey a bill — which this board supported — modernizing parenthood laws in cases when a parent uses assisted reproduction or surrogacy and does not have a genetic tie to their child. They also sent Healey a bill phasing out PFAS chemicals in firefighting equipment.
But lawmakers failed to pass important bills related to health care, economic development, and the environment.
On health care, the House and Senate both passed complicated bills aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs, ensuring better oversight of for-profit health care companies, and improving long-term care facilities. But while the topics had been discussed for months, the House only passed its version of a prescription drug bill in July, and the Senate waited until July to pass its version of the long-term care and market oversight bills. Lawmakers were simultaneously considering bills related to substance use and maternal health, which presumably required expertise from lawmakers on health care committees.
House Speaker Ron Mariano said health care negotiators were trying to consider the hospital oversight and prescription drug bills together, and it simply became too difficult at the last minute. “I’d rather have a good bill than bills with errors and mistakes,” Mariano told reporters.
The economic development bill — a $3.40 billion bill in the House and a $2.86 billion bill in the Senate, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation — also fell through. Those bills included major investments in climate technology and life sciences. They were also loaded with policy priorities, many of which differed between the House and Senate, ranging from allowing happy hour to advancing a proposed Everett soccer stadium.
Legislation related to energy project siting also fell through, even though there was agreement on core parts of the bill; the Globe reported key negotiators blamed the collapse on differences related to natural gas usage policy.
The House and Senate each passed a flurry of last-minute bills in the last few days on topics as diverse as Boston property taxes, animal rights, and safe injection sites. But as Mariano himself said — a line Senate President Karen Spilka repeated back to him — passing a bill at the very last minute “tells me you’re not serious about getting the bill done.”
To be sure, there’s nothing like a deadline to motivate action. Key lawmakers defended the flurry of last-minute lawmaking as the way Beacon Hill has always done business. Representative Paul Donato, a Medford Democrat and a representative for 23 years, said lawmakers working on conference committees “have to stay here as long as we can until we figure that we can’t do anything else.” Mariano called all-night sessions “the nature of the business we’re in.” Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues said there is less overnight work today than 20 or 30 years ago when “working around the clock happened all the time.”
Caffeine-fueled levity powered lawmakers through the night. Representative Brian Ashe, a Longmeadow Democrat, said he would offer a quote — then snored loudly. Retiring Representative Smitty Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat, said he was “humbled that in my last formal session my colleagues don’t want me to leave.”
But on a more serious note, Pignatelli called it “frustrating” and “disappointing” that lawmakers failed to agree on the economic development bill. “The bond bills give everybody across the Commonwealth opportunities to get some money and put it to work,” Pignatelli said. Ashe added, “Staying this late, sometimes you might expect that. What you hope is you get the results with it.”
While buying coffee at the State House café, Representative Rodney Elliott, a Lowell Democrat, called it “disappointing” given the urgency of climate change that lawmakers failed to pass an energy bill.
The Legislature will meet in informal sessions through the end of the year, so there will be opportunities to pass more bills — and lawmakers can and should keep working. Both Spilka and Mariano said they would. But the objection of a single lawmaker can derail a bill in informal sessions, and bond bills like the economic development bill can only pass in formal sessions since they require approval by a two-thirds majority of members in a roll call vote.
Legislative leaders did find time to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars in state budget earmarks benefiting their districts, the Globe reported. Democratic senators found time to hold a 9:30 a.m. fundraiser on July 31, according to State House News Service. It’s a shame they couldn’t find time to pass vital legislation affecting the health, environment, and economic prosperity of the people of Massachusetts.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
BROCKTON, Mass. (WJAR) — Four people were shot on Friday night after hundreds had gathered to watch a World Cup match in Massachusetts.
Police said the shooting happened just before midnight on Main Street in Brockton.
Officers said the victims were taken to the hospital.
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Police have not said if there were any arrests.
BOSTON, (WPRI) — A somerset man has been cited for allegedly causing a deadly wrong-way crash in Boston late Saturday night.
Just before midnight, troopers from the H9 Barracks were called for a report of a multi-vehicle crash on I-93 North before Exit 15A.
A preliminary investigation showed that the driver of a 2004 Cadillac Escalade, identified as 81-year-old Antone Carvalho, of Somerset, entered Route 93 North at Exit 15B and drove southbound in the northbound lanes.
Two vehicles, a Honda Odyssey and an Audi A4, attempted to avoid the Carvalho and crashed into each other.
Four people in the Honda Odyssey, were taken to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.
Shortly after the initial crash, police say Carvalho collided head-on with a Chevrolet Cruze.
Carvalho and the other driver were taken to Boston-area hospitals for their injuries
The driver of the Chevrolet Cruze, identified as a man in his 20’s from Haverhill, died from his injuries.
Carvalho will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.
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Norman Rockwell painted Stockbridge so often that the real Main Street now looks like one of his canvases come to life. That is the trick these Massachusetts towns pull off. A whaling-era cobblestone lane on Nantucket and a Revolutionary common in Concord do the same thing in different accents. Each one packs its best landmarks into a few blocks you can cover on foot. The eight New England streets here all sit under 50,000 residents and earn their reputation the honest way.
Fewer than 2,000 people live in Stockbridge, yet its Main Street may be the most recognizable in the state. Credit Norman Rockwell, who lived here and painted the view down the street so many times it lodged in the national memory. The white clapboard buildings, the old inns, and the big shade trees are all still right where he left them, and people still use them.
The Red Lion Inn has welcomed guests on this corner since 1773, and its long front porch is the street’s anchor in every sense. A short walk away, the Norman Rockwell Museum holds the largest collection of his work and even his relocated studio. Naumkeag adds a Gilded Age cottage with terraced gardens climbing the hillside. Come December, the town recreates Rockwell’s famous “Main Street at Christmas” scene with vintage cars parked along the curb, which is about as close as a real place gets to stepping into a painting.
Edith Wharton built her dream house just outside Lenox, and the writer’s eye for proportion seems to have rubbed off on the whole town. The center is small enough to park once and walk, with bookshops, cafes, and galleries shoulder to shoulder under the trees. Under 10,000 people live here, and the place wears its Berkshire elegance lightly.
The Mount, Wharton’s 1902 estate, runs as a house museum and public garden and hosts readings and outdoor events all summer. Ventfort Hall, a Jacobean-style mansion built for a sister of J.P. Morgan, fills in more of the Gilded Age story. Just up the road, Tanglewood draws crowds every July and August as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, so a quiet shopping street can be ten minutes from a world-famous concert lawn. Few towns this size balance that kind of culture against that little traffic.
On April 19, 1775, the shot heard round the world was fired a short walk from where Concord shoppers now buy their morning coffee. That is the strange gift of this town. Its pretty village center sits below 20,000 residents, and its old houses, churches, and civic buildings look calm until you remember what happened among them.
Minute Man National Historical Park preserves the battle road and the fields where colonial militia turned back British regulars. Old North Bridge marks the spot itself, with Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man statue standing guard. Concord also raised more than its share of writers, and Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, where she wrote “Little Women,” still opens for tours. Two miles south, Walden Pond holds the woods Thoreau made famous, an easy swim or walk that closes the loop between the town’s history and its quieter ideas.
The streets in Marblehead’s Old Town were laid out for foot traffic and fishing nets, not cars, so they bend and narrow and dead-end at the water. The town tops 20,000 residents now, but the historic core feels far older and more intimate. Washington Street and the lanes around it run past brick sidewalks and preserved houses, with the harbor flashing into view between rooftops.
The Jeremiah Lee Mansion, a grand Georgian house built in 1768 for the wealthiest merchant in colonial Massachusetts, still keeps its original hand-painted English wallpaper. Old Burial Hill rises above town with weathered colonial gravestones and one of the best harbor views around. Abbot Hall, the brick town hall with the clock tower, houses the original “Spirit of ’76” painting. Walk the waterfront and the reason for the whole town becomes obvious. Marblehead grew up facing the sea, and it never turned away.
Federal-era sea captains built their fortunes at the mouth of the Merrimack, and their three-story brick blocks still line the streets of downtown Newburyport. The Main Street feeling here spreads across several streets rather than one. Under 20,000 residents keep the center humming, with shops and restaurants filling old facades right down to the riverbank.
Market Square and State Street form the heart of it, a tight grid of brick that survived a great fire and a wave of 1970s urban renewal to come out the other side intact. The Custom House Maritime Museum, set in a granite 1835 building, tells the port’s seafaring story. Waterfront Park gives you a bench and a view of the boats. A few miles out on Plum Island, the Parker River refuge at Joppa Flats turns the same trip into prime birdwatching, so a downtown afternoon can end with herons instead of storefronts.
A plain red fishing shack on a granite pier may be the most painted building in America, and it sits right in Rockport’s harbor. Locals call it Motif No. 1, after an art teacher who got tired of seeing his students paint it. The town runs under 10,000 residents and folds its best parts into a few tight blocks by the water.
Main Street leads to Bearskin Neck, a skinny peninsula crammed with galleries, candy shops, and lobster shacks that ends with the open Atlantic. Front Beach puts sand and water within a short stroll of the shops. The Shalin Liu Performance Center, opened in 2010, built a concert hall with a wall of glass behind the stage, so the ocean becomes the backdrop for a string quartet. You can wander from a storefront to a harbor view to a gallery without ever breaking stride.
Great Barrington wired the first downtown in the world lit entirely by alternating current, back in 1886, and the place has kept that forward lean ever since. Under 10,000 residents fill a center that feels genuinely busy, with restaurants, bookstores, and galleries spread along Main Street and Railroad Street. It looks like an old Berkshire town and behaves like a young one.
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, a restored 1905 theater, books films, concerts, and live broadcasts year-round. The Housatonic River Walk threads a half-mile greenway along the water right behind Main Street, the work of volunteers who spent decades clearing a once-polluted bank. Just outside town, Monument Mountain offers a short climb to a quartzite ridge and a long view over the Housatonic River valley, the same trail Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne hiked together in 1850.
Whaling money built Nantucket’s Main Street, and the cobblestones laid to keep wagon wheels out of the mud are still there to rattle your suitcase. The island stays well under 50,000 year-round residents even at the height of summer. Brick sidewalks, weathered shingles, and window boxes give the downtown the texture of an old port rather than a new outdoor mall.
The Whaling Museum, set in an 1847 candle factory, explains how a small island once lit the lamps of the world, right down to a full sperm whale skeleton. Brant Point Lighthouse marks the harbor entrance and ranks among the most photographed beacons in New England. Straight Wharf keeps the working waterfront within steps of the shops, and the Oldest House, built in 1686, anchors the streetscape in the island’s first century. Every detail down to the gray shingles seems to point back to the same seafaring story.
What ties these eight together is not a shared look but a shared honesty. Stockbridge and Lenox lean on Berkshire culture, Concord carries the weight of 1775, and Great Barrington keeps reinventing itself. Marblehead, Newburyport, Rockport, and Nantucket all grew up facing salt water and never lost the habit. The best Main Streets here are not stage sets. They are working downtowns that happen to be worth a long, slow look.
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