Massachusetts State Senator
Under a hard rain, 360 runners hit the pavement for a Mother’s Day 5K for opioid addiction awareness. Proceeds go to Healthy Chelmsford, a local partnership. Here, with Run founders Nancy and Don Patch and Chelmsford Chief of Police James Spinney. Learn more about their efforts.
“In a time of profound public mistrust of both governmental and financial elites, the Committee finds no justification for a regulatory process marked by a no-exceptions rejection of public notice, informational access, and consumer input.”
A report by the State Senate lambasts the process of setting Massachusetts home insurance rates and calls for immediate changes to state law to protect residents.
In 2015 the Massachusetts Division of Insurance considered, and granted, requests by several of the state’s biggest insurers to raise their rates on homeowners coverage by as much as 9%. Yet neither the public, nor state legislators, nor insurance experts in the state Attorney General’s office, were informed of the requests.
Read moreIn 1966 Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb became the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon. The rules restricted the competition to men, but Bobbi jumped in at the starting line to join the male runners. She completed the course in an impressive 3 hours and 21 minutes. To mark the 50th anniversary of her trail-blazing, the State Senate honored her. Here, with Sen. Jehlen, Sen. Lewis, our honoree, and Sen. Lovely.
From Newton to Roslindale to Springfield, people are coming together to call for a price on carbon in Massachusetts, as I’ve proposed.
“These kids are really the heroes of their own education,” Barrett said. “They get up much earlier than their peers at a time when research shows students should be sleeping in. I am blown away by the quiet passion of these students.”
An initiative to reduce health disparities linked to race and ethnicity should be widened to include people with disabilities, according to experts and self-advocates who turned out en masse at the State House.
A proposed new Office of Health Equity is directed explicitly to work in tandem with the existing Massachusetts Health Disparities Council, already tasked with a three-part focus on race, ethnicity and disability. Yet recent legislative action, little noticed, seeks to exclude people with disabilities from the scope of the new Office, de-aligning its mission from that of the Council.
Read moreEach year, Massachusetts residents borrow 6.5 million items that happen to be unavailable at their local libraries. This, thanks to resource sharing among communities. I recently chatted about funding for this initiative and others with Sudbury librarians Megan Statza Warren, Esme Green and Marie Royea.
