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History In The Making

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There’s been more to talk about in Massachusetts during the past week than we’ve seen in a very long time: Mayor Kim Janey is making history, there’s a multi-million dollar shot in the arm for the Commonwealth’s climate and job goals, a potential game-changer for the gig economy emerging on the horizon, and the call to reverse service cuts on the T is being taken seriously. 

And in the “strange but true” category, did you know that Massachusetts has the second-fewest dispensaries per capita in the entire country? It’s true. More than 30 U.S. states have more dispensaries per person than the Bay State. But that’s about to change…

Politics

Kim Janey Makes History as Boston's First Black/Female Mayor

If we could have reported a year ago that Marty Walsh would resign as Mayor of Boston, there would be some head-scratching going on. What on Earth could cause Walsh to resign? Now, as we all know, President-elect Biden has called Walsh to Washington to fill the position of U.S. Labor Secretary.

A mayor of a prominent U.S. city becoming a cabinet member, although often unexpected, isn’t uncommon. (Transportation Secretary “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg is another example.) However, what is uncommon is when the filling of the vacancy becomes far bigger news. 

Boston City Council President Kim Janey is not the acting mayor making history as Boston’s first female and first person of color to hold the office. Although her position is interim, Janey will have a profound effect on the future of Boston politics.

Janey hasn’t yet come out and announced a run for mayor in the fall, but if she were to do so, she might be the favorite to win. Case in point, city council president Thomas Menino stepped in as interim mayor and went on to win the mayoral election later that year becoming Boston’s longest-serving mayor.

One fact greatly increasing the chance that Boston will continue to make history is that, so far, three women of color have announced they will run for mayor — city councilors Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell, and Annissa Essaibi George. 

Read all about Janey’s history-making move at U.S.A Today.

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Business

Lawsuit Over Uber, Lyft Driver Status: There’s a Lot At Stake 

As the pace of technological advancement and consumer adoption accelerates, legislation intended to regulate that technology quite often struggles to keep up. Ride-hailing, and the gig economy as a whole, are ground zero in the race to reign in commercial technologies before they can get so entrenched that their defenses are impenetrable.

Here in Massachusetts, a battle is raging to determine whether or not drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft can be considered contract workers or if they actually qualify as employees. 

As contractors drivers typically have limited legal rights, no minimum wages, and few if any benefits. And declaring them employees greatly increases the cost of doing business and cuts deep into profits of the companies that provide these opportunities. 

In a heated battle last year, much to the relief of Uber and Lyft, California voters declared that so-called “gig workers” are, indeed, contractors and not employees. 

Massachusetts is now fighting a similar battle as the state's attorney general attempts to dismantle Uber's and Lyft's argument that drivers are independent contractors. 

The defendants had requested that a Massachusetts judge dismiss the lawsuit. The motion was denied on Thursday when Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Salinger said the state’s argument has merit.

Was the argument proffered in the California case strong enough to become a nationwide precedent? Or will the Baker Administration deliver a historic and crippling blow to the gig economy? We’ll keep you posted on this important story. 

Meanwhile, BusinessInsider.com has more on this story.

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Energy

Offshore Wind Energy Gets Booster Shot 

President Biden is on a mission to clean up the energy industry in an effort to stem the tide of climate change, accelerate innovation in clean energy, boost the economy, and create jobs. A key goal in the effort is to have all electricity generation in the U.S. carbon neutral by 2035. And a key piece of the plan is offshore wind energy. 

While the Biden administration begins pulling up stakes on drilling for oil on public land, The Department of Interior plans to start selling leases for a new "wind energy area" in the waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast. 

Although this particular project doesn’t directly impact Massachusetts, others are in the planning stages. In time, the administration envisions a thriving offshore wind industry spanning the entire East Coast. Along with projects in the Gulf of Mexico and along the West Coast the goal is to deploy 30 gigawatts of turbines by 2030, supplying more than 10 million American homes with electricity and creating tens of thousands of jobs in the process. The longer-term goal is to generate a staggering 110 gigawatts of electricity offshore by 2050.

The Department of Energy plans to offer the wind power industry a booster shot in the form of $3 billion in government-backed loans and an additional $8 million in grants for research and development.

The Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is undertaking environmental reviews for potential projects that will directly affect the Bay State including the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts and South Fork Wind off Rhode Island. 

NPR has more on this story. 

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Transportation

Mayor Janey Demands Reversal of MBTA Service Cuts

We’ve talked many times in the past year about the MBTA’s budget woes and the controversial service cuts that were recently put into place to stem the tide of red ink as ridership fell to around one-third of pre-pandemic levels. 

However, with the agency about to receive $1 billion in federal COVID-19 relief money, history-making interim Boston Mayor Kim Janey, whom we mentioned above, has joined transportation advocates in imploring the MBTA to restore services to pre-pandemic levels. The argument is that the relief money will more than cover the costs. 

An MBTA spokesperson said the agency is likely to acquiesce and will provide more specifics after a joint meeting of the MassDOT Board of Directors and the MBTA’s Fiscal Management and Control Board happening as we write.

We’ll surely update you on this story next week.

Meanwhile, you can read all about it at NBC Boston.

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Real Estate

Solar Arrays Burn Local Homeowners 

A new study shows the property values of houses located near industrial solar facilities decline, costing homeowners millions of dollars in value.

According to the study, house prices within a mile of Rhode Island or Massachusetts commercial solar arrays fell by an average of 1.7% while homes within a tenth of a mile of the installations declined by a staggering 7%.

Solar energy is an important part of the Bay State’s goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. However, solar arrays use significant amounts of land and “may create local land use disamenities,” say the report’s authors.

According to researchers at the University of Rhode Island, their primary sample consists of 208 solar installations, 71,337 housing transactions in Mass. and Rhode Island, occurring within one mile (treated group), and 347,921 transactions between one to three miles (control group).

Here’s an excerpt from the extensive report:

“We observe 71,337 housing transactions occurring within one mile (treated group), and 347,921 transactions between one to three miles (control croup) of 208 solar installations in MA and RI. Our preferred model suggests that property values in the treatment group decline by 1.7% ($5,751) on average compared to those in the control group after the construction of a nearby solar installation, all else equal. This translates to an annual willingness to pay of $279 per household to avoid disamenities associated with proximity to the installations. However, this average effect obscures heterogeneity. We find substantially larger negative effects for properties within 0.1 miles and properties surrounding solar sites built on farm and forest lands in non-rural areas. 

The entire report can be downloaded here.

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Cannabis

Dispensaries Popping Up Faster Than New Customers

Anyone who is not a stakeholder in the Massachusetts cannabis industry might be surprised to learn that Massachusetts has the second-lowest number of dispensaries per capita. While Mass. has 15 dispensaries per 1 million residents, Illinois has only 7 stores per 1 million people. The greater Boston area has the highest deficit of stores with only two within city limits.

Of course, these numbers are on the rise. More than 200 adult-use dispensaries are currently being developed in Mass. According to a report in Benzinga, the density could reach 47 stores per 1 million people, putting the state in fourth place behind cannabis vanguards Oregon, Colorado, and Washington.

But there’s a problem with that. According to the report, the store count is actually growing faster than sales which means that individual shops will see a smaller and smaller cut of total sales as more and more pot shops open for business.  

Visit Benzinga for more details.

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