One great way to celebrate the New Year is to enjoy the outdoors. Join one of the free guided hikes sponsored by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) on January 1 at 11 state parks. Details are in the press release below.
Opioid Plan, Part I — Pain Medication and Addiction
Early next year, the legislature will likely continue efforts to address the rising dysfunction, disability and death from opioid drug abuse. Physicians face powerful conflicting goals and incentives in treating pain; pain is a real problem and addiction is a real problem. Based on what you are seeing and hearing yourself, are doctors getting the balance wrong and making pain medication too readily available?
Waltham woman at front of sex abuse battle
The Waltham News Tribune? reported on the legal victory of Waltham native Rosanne Sliney, who won her “fight against child sex abuse laws last week when the Massachusetts Supreme Court reaffirmed a 2014 law? extending the statute of limitations for lawsuits filed by victims of child sex abuse.” Rosanne shared her story at a press conference held at the office of her attorney Carmen Durso. Anne Johnson Landry, Senator Brownsberger’s Committee Counsel and Policy Advisor, attended and shared, “Rosanne’s story was really compelling and I think spoke to the need for reform in a way that showed that the three year statute of limitation just didn’t make any sense.” Senator Brownsberger was a one of the co-authors of the legislation.
Report on the Consensus Revenue Hearing
Today the financial leadership of the House, the Senate and the Governor’s office held their annual “consensus revenue hearing”. In short, the outlook is fair — a continuing moderate budget squeeze with some warning flags about long-term issues. But those long-term issues — health care, pensions, and financial reserves — mean that the budgetary choices over the next few months won’t be easy.
Leadership — the scarce resource in the transportation system
Leadership is scarce in the transportation system in Massachusetts. By that, I emphatically do not mean that the current leadership is weak. Rather, I mean that every management team has a finite capacity to plan and to solve problems and that the range of challenges facing MassDOT’s management team is very broad.
Ridesharing Legislation
The regulations that exist in different cities and towns across Massachusetts do not contemplate the type of service offered by Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft. Five bills have been filed in this session relative to TNCs. The bills offer different flavors of regulation within a few primary areas: state oversight, insurance and public safety. Here are brief summaries of them.