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Boston's Morning Newsletter
Somerville is letting all residents 12 and up vote on how to spend $1 million
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
We’ve officially entered chilly morning season. Before you bust out that jacket, let’s get to the news.
Dollar voting: There’s no preliminary election in Somerville this month, but that doesn’t mean residents aren’t casting votes. For the first time ever, the city is letting everyone over the age of 12 vote to decide how to spend $1 million. It’s called “participatory budgeting.” And while it’s a small slice of the city’s overall $337.4 million budget, WBUR’s Josie Guarino reports the opportunity to directly decide how to spend some of the mayor’s money is garnering a lot of interest. It also serves as a preview for Boston residents.
- How it works: First, the city solicited over 900 project ideas from residents — you can explore all of them here — and narrowed the list down to 20 finalists based on impact, feasibility and cost. Somerville budget analyst Meaghan Huckenpahler says the most popular suggestions centered around pedestrian safety, with climate change a close second.
- The final options on the ballot range from more bike lanes and trash cans to adding public workout equipment in local parks to making cooking utensils and power tools available at the library. You can even vote to commission a sculpture of “a scaled model of the solar system.”
- Voting is open online through Oct. 13. You can rank up to five choices. City officials say the top candidates will be funded until the $1 million runs out (most cost less than $200,000). The winners will be announced shortly after voting ends next month.
- Zoom out: Boston is about to embark on its own inaugural round of participatory budgeting next year, thanks to a 2021 ballot measure. (The exact scale and scope of the program is still being worked out.) Meanwhile, Cambridge is now in its 10th year of participatory budgeting, though they don’t vote until December.
Fed fail: Gov. Maura Healey says she hasn’t gotten a sufficient federal response to her calls for help dealing with the recent influx of migrants. “Not to our satisfaction,” Healey said yesterday on Radio Boston, when asked if she’d heard back from President Joe Biden’s administration on her letter asking the feds to streamline the work permit approval process for new immigrants and refugees. You can listen to the full interview and expert panel discussion here.
- What she’s saying: “We have a failure of the federal government. We have people coming into this country over the border — they are escaping terrible, terrible, dire circumstances — and they are coming into our states,” Healey said. “And because of Congress’s failure to act on immigration reform, because of the federal administration’s failure to do things like give us expedited work permits and … reimburse us for what we’re incurring, states are holding the bag and bearing tremendous burden.”
- In related news: Healey also revealed on Radio Boston that she met with a top federal transit official to vouch for the MBTA following several close calls on the tracks.
Do tell: Military veterans in Massachusetts who were discharged due to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies now have a pathway to get state-based veterans benefits. Healey announced the process yesterday, officially dubbed the Veterans Equality Review Board, or VERB.
- Who’s eligible: Any veteran who believes they got an “other than honorable discharge” due to the since-repealed policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” or their sexual orientation or gender identity.
- You can apply online or through the snail mail here. Officials say applicants should hear back from the state in around one to two months. Here’s where to get more answers to FAQs about the program.
We’ve got bad news for any Bay Staters holding out hope that we’d get a second round of 62F tax rebates this year: It’s not happening. When she wasn’t singing (literally) about the Massachusetts Legislature’s lack of transparency, State Auditor Diana DiZoglio was crunching the numbers on this year’s tax revenues and found it came in below the allowable limit (by exactly $4,236,527,013).
P.S.— The Red Sox may be officially eliminated from playoff contention, but at least we have something new to look forward to at Fenway Park: Noah Kahan is capping off his new 2024 stadium tour with a concert at the ballpark. (If you don’t yet know Kahan, make sure to read this story from the spring by WBUR’s Andrea Shea on the Watertown resident and Vermont native’s meteoric rise.) Registration for the chance to buy tickets is open through Sunday.
