From an ad for a GOP state Senate candidate’s reception.

With top officials in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, Galvin, the secretary of state, will serve as acting governor until Friday. https://www.masslive.com/politics/2024/08/thats-acting-gov-bill-galvin-to-you.html

What races do you think that state reps will lost next month?

https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_2024_ballot_measures

Short version of each

1. Authorize auditor to audit state legislature.
2. Remove MCAS score required for graduation.
3. Unionizing and collective bargaining for transportation network drivers.
4. Regulated access to psychedelics.
5. Increase the minimum wage of tipped employees slowly till it matches state minimum wage.

All of these seem to be fairly reasonable and I would assume all will pass but what is your take on them? Do any of you have a strong perspective on any of them?

More than 2,000 people died of opioid overdoses statewide last year, a top Democrat said. [https://www.masslive.com/politics/2024/07/mass-senate-passes-sweeping-bill-fighting-opioids-crisis-approves-safe-injection-sites.html

Written from a Worcester perspective, but lots of good background info on 21 class action suits accusing real estate companies of collusion to fix rent prices. The former Worcester City Manager is executive vice president at one of the companies, WinnCompanies.

https://thisweekinworcester.com/ex-city-managers-firm-rent-fixing-realpage/

Hello all,

I'm working on a project to make it faster and easier for voters to learn about the candidates on their ballot. I'm starting with nearby contested elections in Suffolk county. Would love any feedback that you are willing to provide.

• Find my Districts

• Supreme Judicial Clerk of Courts

• Governor's Council - 4th District

• Clerk of Civil Courts

• State Senate - 1st District

• State Senate - 3rd District

• State Representative - 6th District

• State Representative - 8th District

• State Representative - 9th District

All information is sourced from candidate websites, social media profiles, and campaign finance filings. Unfortunately, many of the candidates currently have a light digital footprint. Hoping that as we move closer to election day much more information will be available.

Hey everyone! I’m a BU undergrad working on a project to inform Boston residents about our local government by creating and distributing a weekly newsletter summarizing Boston City Council meetings. This week was a pretty quiet week, with some money allocated to mental health training for our early childhood educators, discussions on creating a new protected parkland, support for veterans, and an upcoming hearing about removing restrictions on dispensaries around the city. The current budget proposed last month is still in committee and should be voted on in a short while.

If anyone is interested in a quick digestible update on Boston's city government I have included my newsletter and the link to get free weekly information about local issues important to life in Boston. Previous suggestions have been super helpful so any and all feedback is appreciated!

Passed Legislation:

• Resolution in support of H.R. 6452, the Veterans Scam and Fraud Evasion (VSAFE) Act in Congress. (0875)
• Designating the Putnam Nail Factory / George Lawley & Son Shipyard at 12-12R Ericsson Street as a landmark. (0755)

New Spending Authorized:

• $100,000 state grant to fund the Office of Early Childhood’s mental health training program for early childhood educators. (0281)

Committee-Specific Legislation Still in Committee

Committee on Ways and Means

• The FY25 Operating Budget, including department-specific appropriations, school department spending, and post-employment benefits remains in the committee being discussed.
• Capital grant fund credited apparitions remains in the committee.
• All revenue orders and bills, including loan orders and lease-purchase agreements for FY25 and beyond, remain in the committee.

Committee on Environmental Justice, Resiliency, and Parks

• Order to take land at 0 Dale Street in Hyde Park through eminent domain to become a permanently protected parkland. (0868)
• Hearing to discuss the creation of a Parks Administration position for Boston Common, Public Garden, Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Copley Square and Christopher Columbus Park. (0873)

Committee on Planning, Development & Transportation

• Hearing to discuss removing the half-mile buffer between cannabis dispensaries. (0871)

Appointments:

• Jeffrey Hawkins and Jonathan Lavine as members of the Boston Library Board of Trustees.

Resources:

• The city council meeting video and minutes for this week's meeting can be found here.
• Use this link to access the city council calendar with meeting agenda and minutes.
• To find information about who your Council Member is, use this link to look up your address.
• To get more details about any bill or resolution, use this link to search by number or topic. 
• If you have any questions you would like answered by the city council or any feedback on this newsletter, please email us at info@purplely.org.
• Sign up here to receive this letter after every city council meeting.

https://patch.com/massachusetts/salem/negro-election-day-festival-could-be-cancelled-2024-nodx?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0pwEFNCN7_YmFxGCQsm2_S3gPFKj0zOdf2beTNYWk3izPxaiQODw_oRAk_aem_AYiH5iDBFp17sG0XkZPv_VCV1I937PyMpUXf2G3pumqtlzJbaK7alOqIl5IgHFycd0s1M5KiEyfpykjS-EQyLfoT

Apparently, according to one of the creepier city councilors in Salem, the Salem Police Department is installing speakers in parts of town to deliver messages. Perhaps a public announcement each day when the bells toll 13 o’clock?

https://patch.com/massachusetts/salem/former-danvers-salem-water-officials-fined-ethics-violations?utm_term=article-slot-1&utm_source=newsletter-daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&user_email=431174e895200abcec166e63ec111c0fa7f9a0a6e31a74bf17c756e1cae86041&user_email_md5=af40ff7cb10bf01ed0b5855d860faf38&lctg=614b297c723ccd08f72d03ca&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2Wn4zGgQ7CdFs06zWA9cdio7PpYOeWOicRFjpADw8cv5Ubbk_DEwVDoqY_aem_AekLXoMNiMlwrgcwfkyjPPREc3XPLrhMM7eOnSB0ibRv3hMPf-Tal8jZGFUqzTAVfX3H3lxAGkj0avKbFwxK5TnY

Anyone else live in a community where a sitting City Councilor uses social media to push a petition to grant a special permit for a distillery, and is granted a special permit for that distillery, when the proposed location of said distillery breaks federal law because it’s located in a building containing residences? That’s what happens in Salem.

​

https://preview.redd.it/auwkdbj0uevc1.jpg?width=2484&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=01817456402fcb9167ee27171ec6871ddbdb6af8

"The vast majority of that shortfall, roughly $593 million, involved lower-than-expected collections of capital gains taxes ...". Gee, yah think maybe the so-called millionaires tax had something to do with this? https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/02/metro/state-employee-hiring-healey/

Hello, my name is Matt Lynch, I am 27 years old, and I am from Abington. I am making this post to tell you who I am, why I am doing this, and do an AMA to allow the people of this state to get to know me, as well as get to know the issues that are truly important to the people so that I can also better represent you in the event I am able to get elected.

Policies:

• Defend the rights of the citizens as enshrined by the Constitution and vote against any bills/laws that look to take them away.
• Work to solve the illegal immigration crisis and create a reasonable path to citizenship for those who truly wish to become Americans while limiting entry of those who wish to do harm
• Reform the criminal justice system and work to enact codes that eliminate racial and gender disparity in sentencing
• Enact term limits for all branches of the federal government
• Criminalize the ability of sitting politicians to engage in insider trading
• Eliminate the income tax and shut down the IRS. Edit: to clarify, the income tax and IRS are extremely predatory and were created for somewhat noble reasons. I believe the personal income tax should be eliminated and the IRS needs to be either torn down and rebuilt from the ground up, or a new solution created that is simpler for the average citizen to work with and understand. I also believe rampant corruption is to blame for the modern existence of the IRS and the income tax due to the ludicrous amount of misplaced funds to every branch of our government and armed forces which easily totals to hundreds of billions in misplaced funds.
• Enact cost of living control measures such as rent control laws for apartment complexes

Those are merely the policies that my campaign is aiming to accomplish. I take every issue that affects the people seriously and I would do everything in my power to serve the people of Massachusetts, and the United States of America. I also want to make it clear that I don't intend to be a career politician. I wish to remove the sitting career politician, Congressman Stephen Lynch (no relation) who has been in his seat for over 20 years. I will only run for multiple terms if I am 1) working on an important bill that will require me to be reelected to see through or 2) something extremely important is occurring during my term that would not be beneficial for a change of congressman during said times. I have a soft cap of two terms and a hard cap of five. I simply wish to do my civic duty to steer the country on the right track before stepping aside for someone else to hopefully do the same.

About me:

I graduated from South Shore Vocational Technical High School in Hanover in June of 2015 from their CIT program. I then went on to New England Institute of Technology in East Greenwich, RI and graduated with an Associate degree in Network Engineering. Since then I have been working in the IT field doing just about every job and wearing every hat short of officially being promoted to a manager position. Currently I work for a tech company whose primary product is a logistics software used by large retail stores like Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc. When I was 18, I was very involved in the politics of this beautiful state and even joined in on a few rallies, like the ones ran by the Gun Owner's Action League (GOAL) in the summer of 2016. However, my out of state college really limited my ability to participate in events in my state and I ended up falling off politics, focusing more on my IT career and starting my family. For anyone interested, my hobbies include working on my jeep, playing dungeons and dragons, Warhammer 40k, militaria collecting, and training my dog. I also work part-time doing IT work for a game developer.

Fast forward to around August of last year, popular guntuber Brandon Herrera posted a video announcing his run for Congress. I thought, "Hey, good for you, you're frustrated and want change. Go for it!" But then that got me thinking about how I used to be involved in my state, how I used to care so much about what was going on and would travel to political rallies to be involved. Why did I stop? Why did I stop caring? What is even going on in my state? In the country? I spent the next four months thinking really hard about those questions and catching up with everything I missed. I began to become more and more frustrated. Wondering how these politicians who were supposed to represent the people could sit there and vote on laws and bills that actively harmed the people of our state? How do they keep getting elected over and over again?

Around Christmas, while recovering from Covid, I began looking into what it would take to run for Congress. I found all the information I could on the procedure, what I would need, and the most important piece of information, the cost. My wife wasn't supportive at first, having many fears. Becoming a public figure, losing our privacy, dumping thousands of dollars into something that likely won't work out, the danger I would possibly be putting not only myself but my family in. But she asked one simple question, and my answer told her how I felt about this, "Would you regret it if you didn't do this, even though you know you will likely lose?" I only had a single word to respond, "yes. "

Since then, I have been going all in. I have been dedicating all of my free time, every spare penny I have, and giving up my own life to the people of the great state of Massachusetts. I have been going to town meetings across the district, I have spoken at a town meeting in Brockton in defense of our post office, I have been campaigning outside grocery stores, and I walked in the Abington St. Patrick's Day parade. Everything just to get my name out there and I have amassed a good-sized following. Whenever I start to lose morale or feel like I might be wasting my time, someone recognizes me out at a store and tells me how they support me, or a person says that their friend told them about me. It is what gives me the drive, like I am doing the right thing.

I am still actively collecting signatures, and anyone who is interested in finding out more or following my campaign can also go to www.mattlynch4congress.com