No wonder Massachusetts residents voted in favor of auditing the Legislature, even if it’s not clear exactly what would be audited or whether it would make any difference. We just wanted some accountability.

Susan Clark

Brighton

My takeaway from the demise of Mayor Wu’s property tax proposal? The business and commercial property owners walked away from the negotiated settlement to share the burden of a tax increase with Boston residents and needed the Legislature to help them do it. Good lesson for voters, no matter where you live in the state: Ask your senators who they listen to when casting their votes.

Carolyn Royce

Jamaica Plain

In the article “Wu’s tax bid declared ‘dead’ on Beacon Hill,” the reporters suggest that the apparent failure of Mayor Michelle Wu’s plan to moderate property tax increases for homeowners is due to her “lack of pull in the upper chamber.” While the mayor may have foolishly thought the Massachusetts Senate would support her effort to help homeowners stay in their homes, the roadblock to the passage of her bill was one lawmaker, Nick Collins, who seems to be looking to become the Joe Manchin of the Senate, a Democrat in name only.

Collins was singlehandedly able to block a vote on the legislation, which the mayor had painstakingly and successfully negotiated until running into his power play. Collins has abandoned both homeowners and renters. His actions may be related to donations made to him recently from the real estate industry, reminding one of the frequent critique of federal and state lawmakers: that it is the best government money can buy.

Rosemary Kean

Dorchester

Re “In the end, the numbers didn’t add up for Wu” (Page A1, Dec. 12): A longtime commissioner of assessing who served under previous Boston mayors says that it was reasonable to expect property valuation numbers to change within a short period, with significant impact on the size of the increase in revenues required from Boston’s property taxes.

Therefore, some might argue that any compromise between representatives of the business community and the city regarding the bill that was reached based on estimates that proved to be incorrect should still be honored, and lawmakers should have passed the bill.

Yet strategic planning in the face of predictable uncertainty is a fact of life, not an oxymoron. Under these conditions, a responsible and competent mayoral administration should have had a fiscal plan B (and maybe even a plan C) ready to go to deal with the overall revenue shortfall the city is facing.

Such contingencies could have included choices of where to cut the budget and how to find additional revenues. These ideas were suggested by multiple parties including individuals and groups of residents, the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, and the Small Property Owners Association, with enough time for the administration to have had plans B and C at the ready. They were ignored. Now that plan A has not worked out, the administration is resorting to ad hominem attacks on those who refused to vote for it.

Martyn Roetter

Boston

The Senate’s refusal to take up Mayor Michelle Wu’s home rule petition to shift the city’s tax burden is a damning indictment of the home rule process in Massachusetts (“Wu’s defeat could put her on defensive: Tensions high with Senate, business leaders,” Page A1, Dec. 11).

Whenever a Republican Legislature in another state tries to block its liberal capital city from passing its own laws, liberals in Massachusetts are rightly outraged. But our Commonwealth beat those other states by almost half a century, reinforced repeatedly in the years since by Boston’s business class, who rallied behind Proposition 2½ in the early 1980s and against rent control in the early 1990s.

If the petitions from cities and towns to pass their own laws can’t even get a vote at the State House — and this is just one of a few examples from this session, including rejected petitions on real estate transfer fees and rent control — the fundamental mechanisms of democracy are not working.

Jonathan Cohn

Policy director

Progressive Mass

Boston

It’s no secret that the MBTA has faced a lot of problems over the years, from derailments to crumbling stations and, yes, those dreaded slow zones. While some issues do remain, there has been a lot of progress to make things better for riders.

NBC10 Boston was the only station invited down inside the final track improvement project of 2024. MBTA General Manager Phil Eng showed us the work being done on the Green Line at Haymarket Station.

“The amount of work we’ve done gives us the ability now to stay ahead,” Eng said.

One year ago, there were 226 slow zones across the transit system with rolling shutdowns. The T replaced 246,000 feet of rail during that time. The final two slow zones are set to be lifted after work is done on the Green Line on Dec. 20.

Eng said the reason they were able to finally able to get this work done is because they were able to shut down lines instead of doing the work in small chunks.

“Trying to do it on the overnights — not enough hours,” said Eng. “We just got too far behind on the amount of work that needed to get done. The ability to tackle these with longer diversions allows us not only the ability to eliminate the restriction but, again, to do significant more repair in addition, a much more robust repair.”

Over on the Red Line, the slow zones are gone. It’s the first time that’s happened in 15 years. The T said roundtrip travel time on this line alone has improved by nearly an hour.

“I get here in 40 minutes from East Boston, which I think is great,” said Mario Rojas, who takes the Red Line to JFK UMass Station. Rojas said his commute used to take about an hour and a half.

Another rider told us his commute is returning back to what it used to be: “Instead of an hour, it’s 45 minute.”

“I think the T is on the upswing,” said Jim Aloisi, a former Massachusetts secretary of transportation.

But Aloisi has concerns that much of the progress made over the last year could face a setback. The MBTA is facing a $700 million operating deficit for the next fiscal year.

The MBTA is headed toward a fiscal cliff and transit advocates say decisions on how to trim the budget need to be made by the end of the year or advocates say the outcome will be detrimental for the state.
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“There’s no solution to this,” said Aloisi. “You either cut back on service or you solve the fiscal cliff.”

He does remain cautiously optimistic that the funding will come through.

“Our Legislature and our governor really need to confront the reality that this is not a one-time fix,” said Aloisi. “We need a structural, long-term, permanent, fair solution that gives the T ample money.”

Eng said the T is fully funded through 2025.

“I’m confident, as the T, we’re doing everything we can to be more efficient,” he added.

While a lot of progress has been made, Eng doesn’t rule out more limited closures to fix future problems when they come up.

“We know there’s going to be another restriction ’cause there’s so many areas that need to be done, but we also know that we can tackle them,” Eng said.

The Boston Red Sox have spoken with free agent pitcher John Means, MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reported Thursday.

Means, 31, underwent Tommy John surgery for the second time in his career back in June, meaning he is unlikely to pitch in the first half of the 2025 regular season. The Baltimore Orioles, who drafted Means in 2014, let the left-hander hit the open market last month.

In four starts this past season, Means went 2-0 with a 2.61 ERA, 0.871 WHIP and a 0.7 WAR.

Means was an All-Star and AL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2019, going 12-11 with a 3.60 ERA, 1.135 WHIP and a 4.4 WAR across 155.0 innings of work. He remained a staple in the Orioles’ rotation in 2020, then became their Opening Day starter in both 2021 and 2022.

However, Means underwent Tommy John surgery in May 2022, knocking him out for the rest of that season and most of the next. Baltimore signed the southpaw to a two-year, $5.925 million contract to avoid arbitration amid his recovery, only to see him go down again midway through 2024.

Means has made a total of 10 starts over the past three seasons, but he has been effective when healthy. Between 2022 and 2024, Means has gone 3-2 with a 2.75 ERA, 0.860 WHIP and 1.6 WAR, averaging 5.1 innings per start.

The Red Sox swung a blockbuster trade with the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday, acquiring All-Star starting pitcher Garrett Crochet in exchange for four top prospects. And yet, their interest in Means, Corbin Burnes, Luis Castillo and others suggests that they aren’t done adding to their rotation just yet.

Crochet, Brayan Bello and Tanner Houck are effectively cemented into Boston’s rotation for 2025. Kutter Crawford could stake a claim to a starting job as well, considering 68 of his 85 big league appearances over the past three seasons have been starts.

Then there’s top prospect Richard Fitts, who posted a 1.74 ERA and 0.6 WAR across his first four MLB starts in 2024. Swingman Cooper Criswell is also in the mix, as are former All-Stars Lucas Giolito and Michael Fulmer, both of whom are coming off UCL surgeries of their own.

Since Means wouldn’t be able to take the mound in the majors until late in 2025, he wouldn’t fill an immediate need for Boston, whose front office seems to be in the market for one more reliable starter. Regardless, the Red Sox had no problem signing Fulmer and All-Star closer Liam Hendriks last winter, knowing full well they were bound to miss all of 2024.

Means could be the Red Sox’s latest reclamation project – one with an incredibly high ceiling upon his return.

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