It's back.. the Blue Ribbon Commission

From the City Council:

At the City Council meeting held on Tuesday, February 25, 2020, the Council voted 6 to 5, to establish a Blue Ribbon Commission for the following purpose:



To advise municipal leaders in identifying and meeting the short- and long-term needs of its leaders, workers, and residents to have safe, efficient and effective space to convene and conduct the business of the municipality of Framingham, including recommendations for ordinances and budgets to achieve its recommendations. The Commission shall survey the needs of public officials and municipal workers, identify opportunities to utilize innovate structures, techniques and technologies to achieve operational efficiencies, and solicit input from the public in developing a comprehensive plan for Framingham's Capital assets. The Commission shall present its report to the City Council no later than October 1, 2020.

At this time, we are seeking the following members: 

• Architect
• Engineer
• Veteran
• Retired Municipal Employee (City/Town of Framingham)
• Officer of any Framingham Municipal Union

Interested individuals should submit a letter of interest and resume via email to jgalliardt@framinghamma.gov  no later than Friday, March 13, 2020.

It will be 15 members strong, including the Mayor, Council Chair and one other member of the council, SC Chair, Chair of Disability commission, chair from Council on Aging as well from the Framingham Business Association and the Director of MWRTA.

Makes no sense to me at all, why Jim Paolini and Matt Torti and not on the list of must have people. What purpose does a retired Framingham employee and any officer of a Framingham union and a veteran have to do with an assessment of Framingham's buildings? Unless I misunderstand this, I see a very large group, headed by the Mayor that may not have the technical expertise to evaluate buildings. The original Blue Ribbon Committee was  last heard of in 2016, made similar recommendations about the Memorial Building and the Perini property, but nothing was done about it. The report is due out in October which may create more problems for buying the Perini building, which given the flood zone issue and the pollutants already known to be there underground, I'm not convinced it's a good deal. 

the Globe sues the MSP over record requests being denied

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court, the Globe is claiming the MSP have ignored deadlines for producing public records, even though the public records officer ruled that the MSP must turn over requested records.
The lawsuit focuses on three public records requests made by the Globe during the past year-and-a- half. One request was to get the names, rank, job title, departure and termination date along with discharge status of all employees who left the MSP since 2017.
Another asked the discharge status of the three top MSP officials who retired during 2018 in the midst of the scandal.
The third asked MSP for communications about the conclusions of all Ethics Commission investigations since the start of 2017.

Danny McDonald from the globe wrote about this in today's Globe.

Finally... Beacon Hill looks into the MSP scandals

On Wednesday the Joint Committee on Public Service asked Colonel Mason and Trooper Corey Mackey, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts (SPAM) how the fraud has continued and how long it has been going on. The union's vice president Trooper Patrick McNamara told the committee chair Barry Finegold it's the work of a few bad apples.
Governor Baker is proposing a bill that would allow the department to punish troopers swiftly and would allow the Governor to pick the agencies future leader outside of the ranks.
Union officials back some parts of the bill, but opposes the piece that would make it easier for the colonel to suspend troopers without pay who are accused of wrongdoing.
Two reps also asked why pensions should not be taken away as a means of deterrence.
Another reason why I read the globe very day, Matt Rocheleau, the reporter who is not afraid to get to the bottom of the MSP scandal.

MCI will close it's doors

 

From the Commonwealth Magazine
Sarah Betancourt Feb 25, 2020


GOV. CHARLIE BAKER’S public safety secretary confirmed on Tuesday that MCI-Framingham, the oldest women’s penitentiary in the country, will be shuttered and prisoners eventually relocated to the Bay State Correctional Center in Norfolk.

The disclosure by Thomas Turco, at a hearing of the House Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets, comes after months of questions from advocates, attorneys, and prisoners about plans for the aging facility and where the state would relocate inmates if the prison were closed.

Turco said it would take about $35 million to set up a new women’s prison at Bay State, a former men’s prison that currently houses Department of Correction administrative offices. That figure is significantly less than the $60 to $80 million projected as necessary to repair MCI-Framingham, which Turco described as “crumbling.”

Turco said state Reps. Christine Barber, Kay Khan, and Ruth Balser encouraged the public safety agency to look at Bay State Correctional Center as an alternative to Framingham.

Legislative approval will be needed for any capital spending on a new facility, according to Turco, who was asked about this by committee chair Antonio Cabral of New Bedford.

Built in 1877, the Framingham prison has had to close several sections of the facility in recent years due to aging infrastructure that isn’t up to state standards, according to a June 2019 report filed by a Department of Public Health inspector.

“We spent several million dollars trying to get the cottages up and running, and every time and we found another obstacle which required additional work,“ Turco said of the housing units at Framingham.

The state has already begun the process of selecting a firm to design a new women’s prison. Last month, a state selection board narrowed the field for the $600,000 project to three architecture or design firms, all of which claim expertise in building prisons for women. A group called Families for Justice as Healing, made up of former prisoners and current prisoners’ families, felt the selection process was moving too swiftly, and had interrupted the January board meeting where the decision was made. A public meeting on the topic slated for earlier this month was canceled.

After earlier denying it was vacating the Framingham women’s prison, the Department of Correction acknowledged in December that it was looking to hire design firms to determine whether the Bay State Correction Center and facility adjacent to the Framingham prison, the South Middlesex Correctional Center, could be rebuilt to accommodate the MCI-Framingham inmates.

The Executive Office of Public Safety now says it is focusing only on Bay State as a future facility for female inmates.

Turco said the number of women at the Framingham facility has dropped from about 500 four years ago to between 180 and 200 today. The state has moved some inmates from the prison to county facilities because of deteriorating conditions at Framingham. Over 100 female inmates are currently housed at the South Bay House of Correction in Boston.