Massachusetts
‘He had his eye on the big picture’: Greg Bialecki left a lasting legacy in Mass., from real estate to life sciences – The Boston Globe
Two days before his death, Bialecki texted Yvonne Hao, Governor Maura Healey’s economic development secretary, to congratulate her that the Legislature had reached a deal on a $4 billion economic development bill, a key priority of Healey’s and Hao’s — and Bialecki’s, too, as someone who once held Hao’s job. Hao promised she would save a seat for him in the front row of the bill-signing ceremony. Like everyone who knew Bialecki, she was shocked to learn she wouldn’t be seeing him again, after all.
Now, the movers and shakers who knew Bialecki are reflecting on his lasting impact. The zoning reform known as Housing Choice? Bialecki planted the seeds. The MassWorks program that distributes hundreds of millions for infrastructure projects, from Pittsfield to Provincetown? Bialecki’s brainchild. The Mass. Growth Capital Corp. agency that helped so many small businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic? That was originally Bialecki’s idea, too. The state’s life sciences subsidy program that made Massachusetts the global epicenter for biotech? Bialecki got it off the ground.
“It’s those kinds of big ideas that he would come up with, not knowing what the results will be or where they would go, but just knowing it’s an interesting exercise and we should give it a try,” said land-use consultant April Anderson, a protegee of Bialecki’s who worked with him in the Patrick administration.
After growing up in Connecticut and moving to Massachusetts to attend college and then law school at Harvard, Bialecki started his career at the law firm of Hill & Barlow. Working there for 18 years, starting in 1985, he gained valuable experience as a real estate lawyer. He also made a momentous friendship with another young attorney, Deval Patrick.
“He was so unflappable, just all this incredible brainpower, but just so even with everybody and so decent,” said Patrick, who now works for Vistria Group, an investment firm. “This was a guy with a brain that was superior to most of us. But he never made anybody feel small or that they didn’t have something to contribute.”
In 2003, Bialecki was on the real estate team that jumped to what was then Piper Rudnick, now DLA Piper. Around that time, Bialecki helped the Pritzker family of Chicago secure permits for the Fan Pier development on the South Boston waterfront. On that project, Bialecki made several other consequential friendships, with future economic development secretary Dan O’Connell and future Redgate partners Kyle Warwick and Ralph Cox; all three were with local real estate firm Spaulding & Slye, the Pritzkers’ local development manager.
Patrick and Bialecki reconnected after Patrick launched his campaign for governor in 2005. Bialecki introduced Patrick to O’Connell, and after Patrick won the election the following year, he brought both of them into his administration. O’Connell became Patrick’s first secretary for housing and economic development, with Bialecki working as permitting ombudsman and then as undersecretary, before moving up to the top job after O’Connell left in early 2009.
During those early years, Bialecki came up with the idea of tying together various state grant programs for cities and towns, to give the grants more heft, and to attach housing and economic goals to them. That effort, known as MassWorks, is widely used today to help build infrastructure such as roads, sidewalks, and utility connections across the state. He also helped launch the life sciences initiative, billed when it was launched in 2008 as a $1 billion investment over 10 years to extend the state’s leadership in that sector.
“He had his eye on the big picture,” Patrick said. “He understood how the infrastructure work, the education work, and the work around encouraging innovation were all tied to one another.”
Bialecki was always willing to tackle a thorny problem, and never cared much about getting the credit, said Jeff Mullan, a transportation secretary under Patrick and now a partner at Foley Hoag. “That’s why he was universally liked and was respected,” Mullan said. “He was always focused on the end game.”
As secretary, Bialecki pushed for new housing, drawing attention to its economic importance, including by instituting an annual production target of 10,000 multifamily units for the state. His agency’s work on housing policies earned an award from the Urban Land Institute in 2013.
“Greg understood right from the beginning that we’ve got to do something about our housing crisis,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency.
While he believed in consensus building, he courted controversy by proposing a subsidy program for market-rate housing in struggling mid-tier cities, an idea that irked some affordable housing activists, said Joe Kriesberg, chief executive of the MassINC nonprofit civic organization. That concept, known as the Housing Development Incentive Program, has proven to be wildly successful. To reduce its backlog, the Legislature last year passed a tax reform package that included tens of millions of dollars for the program.
Bialecki tried to get a comprehensive zoning reform bill passed during Patrick’s time as governor. That effort didn’t succeed, although he helped assemble a coalition of advocates who would keep the push going during successor Charlie Baker’s tenure. Baker turned a few of the tenets — namely, changing the two-thirds requirement to pass local land-use votes to a simple majority — into his own “Housing Choice” bill. Eventually, the Legislature included Housing Choice in an economic development bill that Baker signed in early 2021, while tacking on what’s now known as the MBTA Communities Act, which requires communities served by the MBTA to increase their multifamily zoning.
Bialecki also saw the value in making targeted state investments for specific properties that could have a regional impact: the University Station redevelopment in Westwood, the Assembly Row T station in Somerville, the Boston Public Market, and the Gateway Park campus in Worcester all bear his fingerprints.
Former House Ways and Means chair Brian Dempsey said the fact Bialecki stayed for the full eight years, unusual for any economic development secretary, was a testament to how much he believed in the work he was doing. “He had a joy in it,” said Dempsey, now a lobbyist. “With that came an ability to develop relationships with the Legislature and members of the business community.”
When Bialecki finally did leave state government in early 2015, he chose to work with his old friends from the Fan Pier days, Cox and Warwick, at Redgate, helping with the firm’s developments and its consulting work. Bialecki was pivotal in tackling what might be the firm’s most ambitious project, the redevelopment of the sprawling Edison plant on the waterfront.
Arthur Jemison, who worked with Bialecki in the Patrick administration, said he doesn’t think the politically sensitive project in South Boston could have made it to the finish line — the Boston Planning & Development Agency approved a 1.7-million-square-foot project for the 15-acre site in 2021 — without Bialecki at the helm.
“All the neighborhood pressure, all the environmental questions, it was really something significant,” said Jemison, who was Boston’s top planner from mid-2022 through mid-2024 and now heads up the Detroit Housing Commission. “Only someone with his talent and persuasion could do it.”
Jemison had hoped to see Bialecki during a return visit to Massachusetts on the weekend after he died. He said he was devastated by the loss of his friend.
Also trying to come to terms with Bialecki’s death last week was Governor Maura Healey. She noted the advice he provided to Hao and others in her administration as they worked on various policies.
“He was a visionary,” Healey said. “What he did during his time in government was really transformational [and] he continued on, though, while he was in the private sector to be directly engaged with our administration. … It’s hard to believe.”
The signing ceremony for that big economic development bill has not yet been scheduled. But when it does happen, there should be an empty seat, right in the front row.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
Massachusetts
New Bedford MS-13 Member, Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Role in Brutal Murders In Massachusetts, Virginia
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Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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