Editorial Roundup: New England
Hearst Connecticut Media. July 26, 2023.
Editorial: A long road to state police accountability
The key is independence. The Connecticut state trooper ticketing scandal, which has attracted national attention, must be investigated thoroughly and independently. Anything less would leave too many questions.
Gov. Ned Lamont, who has consistently asked everyone to refrain from judgment until all the facts are in, announced a handpicked leader this week for the investigation into the apparent falsification of thousands of traffic tickets. The probe will be led by Deirdre Daly, the former federal prosecutor.
It’s true that Daly is now in private practice, having been a U.S. attorney under former President Barack Obama. But considering that previous objections had been raised to the idea of the state police investigating themselves, or to current officials who work closely with state police running the investigation, it’s fair to have questions about a former public safety official doing the questioning.
It will be imperative that all parties cooperate and that the investigation uncover the truth about the ticketing scandal.
What we know already is troubling enough. An audit released last month found about 26,000 instances between 2014 and 2021 where state troopers reported issuing tickets without corresponding records in the Centralized Infractions Bureau. Those discrepancies may have distorted years of racial profiling analysis.
There are a few possible explanations, and none of them are good.
Reporting last year by Hearst Connecticut Media found that four state troopers had fabricated hundreds of traffic stop tickets, with an array of rewards including pay increases and promotions. That led to the wider audit released in June that found the problem was much larger than initially known.
It also brought the issue of racial profiling to the forefront, because the false tickets hopelessly skewed the numbers of who was being pulled over. It hasn’t been proven that this was an intended result or simply happened because the default race for the false stops was chosen. This is why we need more information.
Daly’s is not the only investigation. An ongoing criminal probe is underway of the four officers initially found to have falsified tickets, and the General Assembly is meeting to launch a probe of its own. There will be overlap, but with a scandal this large and multiple, overlapping angles, there is plenty of ground for everyone to cover.
State police officials have vowed their cooperation, saying they have already instituted some reforms in the wake of the initial findings. That’s small comfort. Whatever is uncovered, it took place under the oversight of current leadership, and accountability will be key.
What we already know is bad enough, and it has the potential to get much worse. Simply declaring the problem solved because it was uncovered is not going to be good enough.
All that is in the future. Lamont and state police leadership need to ensure that investigators are free to do their jobs. Transparency at the investigation’s conclusion is essential. The trust of Connecticut in its state police has been damaged, and it will be hard work to rebuild it.
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Portland Press Herald. July 23, 2023.
Editorial: Promising solutions to Maine housing puzzle braid public with private
Long-term structural change will take time; a number of laudable new initiatives around the state acknowledge that reality.
The dramatic shortage of affordable housing in Maine cannot be bridged overnight.
While work on bridging that wide gap continues – ideally with carefully researched and courageous policymaking, new demands for public funding, and zoning and development rule changes that can contribute to a rising tide for the housing market – the shortfall must be addressed, community by community, with an interest in the common good at its core.
Braiding government, nonprofit and charitable efforts can yield valuable near-term results. In this year of immense need, with fall and winter months looming on the horizon, this is – mercifully – a reality that seems to be catching on statewide.
Last week, Maine saw a prime example of such nimble collaboration unfolding in Portland, where the city is working with a number of well-placed partners to create a home-share program for asylum seekers; the city of Portland will pay residents to house people in spare or vacant space starting in August. It is also interested in hearing from people with available space outside the city.
It’s a revival of a successful program from 2019 with the addition of payment (funded by General Assistance in Portland), or payment in kind, as a new element. People interested in participating may offer everything from a spare room to a second home.
Hosts are being asked to commit to a minimum of one year, longer than the three-month minimum in 2019. “The housing crisis is such that we can’t kick off a program that’s only three months long,” explained Victoria Morales, executive director of the Quality Housing Coalition, one of the nonprofits working with the city.
This type of outreach is already going on around Portland and around Maine, most often very quietly. The benefit of formalizing it like this is twofold: There’s the compensation, which rightly recognizes the commitment and makes it feasible for a greater cross-section of residents, but it also highlights the opportunity to those to whom it may not yet have occurred.
Housing First, the model that offers site-based services and supports to residents who were once chronically homeless, is another compelling example of public-private partnership resulting in accommodation tailored to the people who need it. Gov. Mills’ support for the model this year has brought new public awareness, as well as project developers’ confidence in the upcoming availability of state money for new sites.
For any braided solution, community buy-in is a condition for progress.
Not-in-my-backyard, or NIMBY, opposition scuttles any hope of pulling out of this crisis. Some of the administrative back-and-forth over a proposed homeless shelter in downtown Lewiston earlier this year – a three-way collaboration – exemplified the obstacles of moving forward with even short-term solutions. A critical deadline for state funding was ultimately missed.
Indeed, opposition to shelter space has been a feature of almost every proposal for a shelter to come to pass in Maine in recent years. And support for increased shelter space is what is desperately needed.
A bill sponsored by Brunswick state Rep. Poppy Arford (recently voted off the appropriations table with funding) would allow Maine’s full-time emergency shelters, where people live temporarily, to apply for grants for renovation or expansion by acquisition. Gesturing at the benefit of – and need for – support beyond what can be provided the state alone, for requests above $100,000, the bill was amended to require shelters to find matching funding from a source other than the state.
“The scale of this isn’t going to move the needle a lot right now, but the creation of this channel is important moving ahead,” Andrew Lardie, executive director of Tedford Housing, which runs the Midcoast’s only emergency shelter, said last week.
Moving the needle a lot has proven extremely challenging in a very short space of time. Secure in that knowledge, every Mainer and every municipality can roll up their sleeves, setting aside stigma and fear, with a view to moving it a little. That’s how lasting change for the better comes about.
In an op-ed on housing policy progress published by the Press Herald last week, the co-chairs of the state’s Joint Select Committee on Housing, Sen. Teresa Pierce of Falmouth and Rep. Traci Gere of Kennebunkport, summed it up with the right spirit:
“Finding long-term solutions will require continued collaboration with communities across our great state – we all have a role to play in making sure people can live good lives in Maine.”
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Bangor Daily News. July 23, 2023.
Editorial: Let asylum seekers work
We’ll keep saying it until Congress does it: Let asylum seekers work faster.
The status quo, which prevents asylum seekers in Maine and across the country from working for at least the first six months after they file their asylum petition, is bad both for these people arriving in the U.S. and for the communities they are joining. It prevents them from quickly using their skills to make their way in their new home, all but assures that they will require government and charitable assistance, and arbitrarily cuts local employers off from potential workers amid lingering workforce challenges.
In short, the status quo makes little sense. As the now-retired president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Dana Connors, said last summer, speeding up the process to allow these new arrivals to work faster is a “no-brainer.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has backed this much needed change as well, offering its support for a pair of bills from members of Maine’s congressional delegation.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has introduced the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act in the Senate, and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of the 1st District has introduced a similarly titled bill in the House of Representatives. U.S. Sen. Angus King is also a co-sponsor of Collins’ bill, and collectively members of the Maine delegation have been working on this issue for several years. The U.S. chamber supports both of these similar, but not exactly the same, pieces of legislation.
“We commend the work of members of Congress from both parties that have put forth bipartisan, common-sense solutions,” the chamber said in a recent letter to Congress. “We believe these bills would achieve important progress toward addressing our nation’s immigration and border security challenges.”
This proposed change has been needed for some time, but that need has become even more obvious with more than 1,000 asylum seekers arriving in Maine this year and having to wait months to be able to work. Municipalities, especially Portland, have faced challenges providing housing to these new Mainers, some of whom have raised concerns about those housing conditions and options moving forward.
“My bipartisan bill is a commonsense solution that gives asylum seekers an opportunity to live a safe, fulfilling life while giving our economy the boost it so desperately needs,” Pingree said in a July 20 press release that highlighted the Chamber of Commerce support. “It’s my hope that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s endorsement will spark immediate action among my colleagues to take up this important bill. Our communities, local governments, small businesses, and new neighbors are counting on us.”
Earlier this year, Collins pressed the Biden administration about working together to change current law.
“Why couldn’t we change the law and have a win-win situation here? The asylum seekers are eager to work and support themselves and their families,” Collins asked U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during an appropriations subcommittee hearing in March. “The employers in my state are desperate for more workers. And it would also benefit the municipalities that are under increasing strain as they’re supporting thousands of asylum seekers.”
This point from Collins was spot on in March, and it remains so today. This is why Maine leaders have united across political lines in calling for such a change, why business groups like the Chamber of Commerce and immigration advocates agree it can be good for asylum seekers and employers alike, and why the rest of Congress needs to get its act together and make this update without further delay.
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Boston Globe. July 25, 2023.
Editorial: Free prison calls provide a lifeline for inmates, families
Now a year overdue, ending burdensome costs needs one final push.
Keeping prison inmates in touch with their families is a key element in reducing recidivism and simply part of a humane incarceration policy — and those goals are certainly not mutually exclusive.
It shouldn’t take an academic study to prove the point, although there are any number that do just that. A mother being able to talk to her child or a husband being able to talk to his wife is likely to give that incarcerated parent or spouse a reason to want to get out and stay out of prison.
More than a year ago, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled in a case involving then-Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson that sheriffs had the right to continue to charge often outrageously high rates for inmate phone calls — rates usually charged back to the inmate’s family. Chief Justice Kimberly Budd, writing for the court, ruled, “Had the Legislature intended to put an end to the sheriff’s practice of collecting inmate telephone revenues, it could have done so.”
That was last May, and despite a lot of good intentions on the part of some lawmakers, the situation has not changed.
Oh, Hodgson was defeated in the last election and his replacement is no longer gouging inmates and their families for calls. But still, costs at both the county and the state level remain high.
The state Department of Correction charges 12 cents per minute for calls. Most county facilities charge 14 cents per minute (or between $2.40 and $2.80 for a 20-minute call) plus a fee for putting money into a telephone account. Legislative leaders last year estimated the cost to families at some $14 million a year.
Today some 5,419 prisoners are in state custody and another 6,415 are in county facilities — the lion’s share of those are in pre-trial detention, where communication is truly a lifeline for many.
Last year, in the wake of the SJC decision, lawmakers approved a plan for free phone calls in both state and county prisons and set aside $20 million to fund it — to make up for the lost revenue for county facilities in particular. Some sheriffs do indeed use the profits from those costly calls for programming at their facilities. The $20 million appropriation survived, but the actual enabling legislation got hung up when then-Governor Charlie Baker used it as a bargaining chip in an effort to get his bill to change the state’s rules on pre-trial detention approved. Both proposals died in the process.
Governor Maura Healey jump-started the idea again in her budget but limited it to only prisons run by the state Department of Correction and to 1,000 minutes a month per inmate. The House budget extended the free calls to county facilities and removed the time limit. The Senate includes a similar provision but, as so often happens, with some language differences. So presumably if the two branches resolve their differences, including this could be a done deal. But then that’s what everyone thought last year too.
Taking nothing for granted, state Representative Chynah Tyler and state Senator Cynthia Creem have filed their own bills to accomplish the same end, both scheduled for a hearing Tuesday before the Joint Judiciary Committee. Those bills also require the renegotiation of any telecommunications contracts by the state or county sheriffs that “provides for the payment of revenue, financial incentives or commissions” in excess of the actual cost of the service to those using it.
The sad fact is that those who have been paying the cost of keeping in touch with loved ones in prison are largely those who can least afford it. One national survey found that 1 in 3 families of the incarcerated fall into debt to pay for phone calls or prison visits.
That simply shouldn’t be happening — not here and not when the money to remedy the issue has been sitting on the table for a year now.
California already offers free calling to its 90,000 inmates. Connecticut and New York City earlier implemented similar programs.
Keeping those who are incarcerated connected to their families is one of the simplest ways to encourage rehabilitation and, therefore, enhance public safety. This tiny bit of progress is already a year overdue. It shouldn’t have to wait any longer.
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Boston Herald. July 21, 2023.
Editorial: Transportation in Massachusetts needs real fixes, not ‘possibilities’
If you thought that the state’s Department of Transportation needed to tackle the many safety and service issues that have plagued the troubled agency, you’d be wrong.
According to the Healey Administration, what’s needed is an Office of Possibility.
As the State House News reported, this new office is intended to “bring experimentation” and “different ideas” to the DOT.
“Government works in sort of a probability mindset, right? Where you’re taking very little risk, you’re working with experts that are already known to you. So the theory here of a possibility government, is can we take slightly larger risks, knowing that not everything is going to work out? That failure is an outcome. But can we do that on a scale that is small enough where we learn, and we improve the thing until we get it right?” said new Chief of Possibilities Kristopher Carter..
In simpler times, that was called “throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.”
This Office of Possibility is made up of Carter and Deputy Chief Possibility Officer Jaclyn Youngblood.
Coming up with “different ideas” pays well, at least in the Healey administration. Carter will make $160,000 this year, and Youngblood will make $138,633. That’s nearly $300,000 worth of thought.
Those who take public transportation in Massachusetts have lots of thoughts – and they’ll give them to you for free. The “possibilities” they care about are whether the train will show up and get them where they need to be without breaking down, catching fire, derailing or just giving up the ghost along the way.
They also think about the possibility that the escalator will go haywire when they get to the T station, or part of the ceiling will fall on them.
They’re also none too happy about service cuts to bus routes amid a shortage of drivers. Under a new agreement with the Boston Carmen’s Union, the MBTA is allowing new drivers to start at 40 hours per week, thus bumping the annual starting salary to $46,196.
The T could hire six bus drivers for the Office of Possibility’s payroll.
The Office of Possibility hasn’t been idle since starting last month, launching its first “prototype” project.
MassDOT extended what had been a Boston-level program called “Browse, Borrow, Board,” partnering with the Boston Public Library to offer free digital content for public transit riders during the summer-long Sumner Tunnel shutdown.
Carter and Youngblood went out to 18 greater Boston communities to put down sidewalk decals that feature a QR code that riders can scan to access digital library content without a library card. The decals are focused on areas most affected by the tunnel closure.
That’s lovely. Not sure how that affects the safety and/or reliability of the T, but at least as passengers cool their heels on a stalled train, they’ll have something nice to read.
Safety probes, panels, and critiques from transportation experts have given the DOT lots of ideas of what needs to done to get the agency up to speed to best serve the riding public.
What’s the possibility of substantive action being taken to make our transportation system one that passengers feel confident in taking?
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