Ukrainian families in Massachusetts watch war from afar

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February 25, 2023

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Ukrainian families in Massachusetts watch war from afar

Ukrainian households in Massachusetts watch struggle from afar – CBS Boston

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‘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

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3 hours ago

November 27, 2024

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‘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.

LabCentral, a shared laboratory space for biotech startups in Kendall Square. The late Greg Bialecki got the state’s life sciences subsidy program off the ground, making Massachusetts the global epicenter for biotech.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

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.”

Greg Bialecki became the secretary for housing and economic development in Deval Patrick's administration in 2009. — Greg Bialecki became the secretary for housing and economic development in Deval Patrick’s administration in 2009.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

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.

The Assembly T station in Somerville bears Greg Bialecki's fingerprints. — The Assembly T station in Somerville bears Greg Bialecki’s fingerprints.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

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.

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Massachusetts

Editorial: Massachusetts citizens face fallout from anti-Trump ‘resistance’

Published

10 hours ago

November 27, 2024

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Editorial: Massachusetts citizens face fallout from anti-Trump ‘resistance’

Democratic leaders can’t make the case that laws should only be enforced if they like them. This stance will cost constituents in terms of both funding — and safety.