A SLEW OF candidates are lining up to oust Massachusetts Republican Party chair Jim Lyons, in a sign of deep unease with the turmoil that has been roiling the state party for years.

Some view the January 31 election for chair as a final opportunity to revive the troubled organization, even as others question whether it is too late.

Janet Leombruno, a Republican State Committeewoman from Framingham and close ally of former Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, expressed surprise when a reporter called her to ask about the chairmanship race. “I’m surprised anybody cares anymore,” Leombruno said.

Lyons, a former state representative, was first elected party chair in January 2019 and won a second term in 2021. He is a fiscal and social conservative who has not shied away from being vocal on social issues that have often split Massachusetts Republicans, like opposing Democratic attempts to expand abortion rights and transgender rights.

Although Baker was an immensely popular moderate Republican governor, particularly among Democrats and independents, Lyons often criticized him for being a RINO, Republican in Name Only. Lyons declined to fully support Baker-backed auditor candidate Anthony Amore, who was widely viewed as the Republicans’ best chance to win a statewide office in 2022. Amore lost. The party has also struggled with internal strife. There have been lawsuits between party officials over control of the party’s finances. The Boston Globe recently reported that the party owes tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, and the party treasurer accused Lyons of illegally coordinating with an independent political action committee.

In the November 2022 elections, Republican candidates were trounced, losing every statewide race and some legislative seats. Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl lost in a landslide to Democrat Maura Healey.

Under normal circumstances, a crowded field might benefit a well-known incumbent. In 2021, Lyons narrowly defeated Norfolk State Rep. Shawn Dooley by three votes in a two-way race, 39 to 36. But there is some indication that Lyons will lose some of the supporters he had two years ago.

Robert Aufiero of Melrose is a conservative-leaning Republican State Committee member who is still deciding whom to back. “I have supported Jim Lyons the first two times, but it’s a broader field, with a lot of changing dynamics,” he said.

While Aufiero is ideologically aligned with Lyons, he worries about the party mismanagement under Lyons. “I think that we definitely need to be able to rebuild our credibility with the broader electorate in the state,” Aufiero said. “And I think that we need to within the party listen equally to both moderates and conservatives so that we can present a professional image to the people in Massachusetts.”

Although Lyons has not made a public statement regarding his future plans, and his spokesperson Evan Lips did not respond to a request for comment, he appears to be seeking another two-year term as chair. Seven candidates have announced plans to challenge Lyons, including Jon Fetherston, Amy Carnevale, Chris Lyon, Elizabeth Childs, Jay Fleitman, Ron Vining, and Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette, although not all of them are running active campaigns, and Sossa-Paquette appears to have dropped out. Several insiders said the candidates with the most support are likely to be Lyons, Carnevale, and Fleitman.

But others are still trying to gin up support. Lyon, a long-time campaign strategist specializing in opposition research, recently tried to convince the Carlisle Republican Town Committee that it was not a two-person race. “If defeating Jim Lyons is your highest priority, you’re probably supporting Amy Carnevale for state GOP chair,” Lyon said, according to his prepared remarks. “If defeating Charlie Baker and running his inner-circle out of the party is your highest priority, you’re probably supporting Jim Lyons for chairman. But, if you really want to defeat Democrats and make electing more Republicans our unambiguous mission, I am your guy.”

The election will be held the evening of January 31 at the Apex Center in Marlborough. Party rules require a majority vote by the members of the Republican State Committee. There are 80 State Committee seats, though only 74 are currently filled. If no one gets a majority on the first round of balloting, the candidate with the fewest votes drops out, and a revote is taken, until someone wins a majority. Campaigning typically involves calling state committee members and asking for their support.

Carnevale, a Republican State committee member from Marblehead who has worked on Capitol Hill and is a federal lobbyist, says she has worked in politics most of her life and wants to use that experience to help the Massachusetts party. “I want to grow the party, communicate more effectively, and help raise money to support candidates across the board regardless of where they may fall on the political spectrum, whether more conservative more liberal,” Carnevale said.

Fleitman, a Northampton pulmonologist who founded a health care organization, is vice chair of the Republican State Committee and has organized Republicans in Western Massachusetts. “There’s been a lot of dysfunction on the committee, a lot of conflict and combativeness, which I know has distracted us from our main purpose, which is to elect our candidates,” Fleitman said in an interview last month.

Fleitman said his political activity has long been about getting “folks to row in the same direction,” and that is what he hopes to do as party chair. “There’s a certain skill set required to bring people at least to a point at which they’re willing to work together for a common end. I think that’s the skill set which the party needs,” he said.

Despite the party turmoil, Lyons still has staunch supporters.

Republican State Committeewoman Kathy Lynch of Westford wrote in an email that Lyons “represents the side of the Republican Party that believes in the Republican platform and wants Republicans to win elections.”

Lynch said Lyons has been traveling around the state rallying Republicans to get involved and run for office. Referring to the intraparty lawsuits, Lynch said Lyons is willing “to take corrupt, establishment Republicans to court for illegal activity.” “These Republicans (frequently called RINOs) want Jim out as Chairman so they can get back to business-as-usual and dismiss his legal battles,” she wrote.

Steven Fruzzetti, a Republican State Committeeman from Milton, said there are two camps in the party, defined by attitudes towards the former governor. “There’s the Baker camp and the non-Baker camp,” Fruzzetti said. Fruzzetti said he will support Lyons because when the party was run by a Baker supporter, former chairwoman Kirsten Hughes, “They tried to get the conservatives out of the party.”

Marty Lamb, a Holliston State Committeeman and former congressional candidate, said he has heard the divide described as the Baker camp versus the Trump camp, but he does not think it is so simple. “I know there’s a middle group that are just sick and tired of the infighting and looking for who can actually take the party and move it forward,” Lamb said.

Lamb, who is conservative-leaning, is not publicly supporting any candidate. “I think we’re at a point where people have to start looking at what’s best for the state, for the party, rather than what’s best for them, their friend, their ally,” he said.

There are also committee members who want to vote for anyone but Lyons, many of whom are backing Carnevale.

State Rep. Paul Frost of Auburn said he hopes Carnevale can stop the infighting. Under her, Frost said, “We can stop having a chairman who goes after Republicans more than he goes after Democrats.” Frost said.

“The current chairman had his opportunity for four years, and it keeps getting worse,” Frost said. “We’ve lost so many seats, he’s put forward really the worst candidate possible to try to hold the governorship… He’s an embattled chairman who’s not done a good job.”

Dooley, who ran against Lyons for the chairmanship unsuccessfully two years ago, said he think that at that time, many people weren’t paying attention to internal party politics. “An additional two years of abysmal failure and losing the corner office has woken up a lot of people,” Dooley said.

Dooley said Lyons’ focus on social issues has alienated the liberal-leaning Massachusetts electorate, where many Republicans, like Baker, support gay marriage and abortion rights. “Jim commands the segment who their main issues are anti-immigration, anti-abortion, and anti-homosexuality… which are not winning bases to run a political party in Massachusetts,” Dooley said. “Maybe Alabama, not Massachusetts.”

Leombruno said she would support “anybody but Jim.” She added: “I honestly think this race really isn’t about who’s best, unfortunately it’s who can win.”

Like some other committee members, Leombruno partly blamed Lyons for Healey’s election, citing Lyons’ disdain for Baker. “The chair said all along he’d rather have a Democrat like Maura Healey than a Republican that’s a fake Republican like Charlie Baker, so we knew what we were going to get,” Leombruno said.

Leombruno said she hopes a new chair can make the party relevant again, but she thinks it will take time. “We’re really the laughingstock,” she said. “It’s a nightmare, we’ve become irrelevant. What I call it is a dumpster fire.”

Ed Lyons, a longtime Republican activist and a Baker supporter, said he worries that it is too late and the party has already “become extinct.” He said there is no model for what success looks like, since Republicans have no recent successes. There is little money left in the party and no real statewide network of activists. He worries that the party has become too influenced by national media rather than statewide issues. Lyons said anti-Trump Republicans like himself have stopped being active in the state party.

“Many candidates are simply throwing their hat in the ring thinking there’s no obvious person to choose to lead the MassGOP, so why not?” Lyons said.

Susan Smiley of Lancaster, who has not decided whom to vote for, said she does not know why so many people want to lead the party, citing “the ugliness on both sides.” She adds: “I sure as heck wouldn’t want to get into that beehive. Quite honestly with everything that’s gone on, I’m very embarrassed to be part of the organization.”

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IT WAS A MOMENT when memories were made, beautifully, poignantly, publicly. Brian O’Donovan, celebrating the 20^thyear of his annual live show “A Christmas Celtic Sojourn,” stood onstage at Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theater with his wife and two of his daughters, along with the rest of the cast. As the audience joined in, they sang the traditional English carol, “The Wassail Song,” which concludes, “God bless you and send you a Happy New Year.”

Fans who have followed O’Donovan’s two decades as the face of Celtic music in Boston know the O’Donovan family may not have a happy new year. Brian O’Donovan has been diagnosed with glioblastoma, terminal brain cancer.

Facing that reality, O’Donovan said on this week’s Codcast that those moments of song with his family meant an awful lot. “The fact that they were there on stage singing Christmas songs with the audience, with everybody who was gathered on stage, I don’t take that type of thing for granted,” O’Donovan said. “I take it as a special golden moment. And it came through to me very, very poignantly.”

O’Donovan, the long-time host of GBH’s weekly show “A Celtic Sojourn,” faces his dire prognosis with optimism and grace. O’Donovan says he has no choice. “I can’t go back and take door B,” he said.

When he talks publicly about his diagnosis, O’Donovan focuses on the good. “I’m a people person, and even under such bleak circumstances and prognosis, there are opportunities to see kindness coming through, and I have seen that,” he said. “I’m a big fan of poetry, and I see poetry almost like prayer these days. And people send me poems and send me prayers… ‘I’m Jewish and I’m praying for you. I’m Muslim and I’m praying for you. I have no faith-based beliefs and I’m praying for you.’ And I take those prayers as any sort of positive vibes.”

O’Donovan said on the advice of his medical team, he is taking life one day at a time. “I will continue in my life until I can’t,” he said.

Most of the Codcast focused on O’Donovan’s passion: Celtic music, a folk style that originated in the areas around Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

O’Donovan, a native of Clonakilty West Cork in Ireland, was raised in a musical family, with a father and siblings who would sing as they worked or walked to school. He grew up in the 1970s, at a time when traditional Celtic music was being redefined with different instruments and harmonies.

O’Donovan has since sought out music that takes traditional Celtic music and builds upon it, incorporating artistic styles from diverse cultures. His Christmas show this year included a nod to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah with a performance by singer-songwriter Lily Henley, who sang in Ladino, celebrating the Judeo-Spanish tradition. O’Donovan credits the famous show Riverdance for bringing Irish dance and music into modern culture – and for encouraging the mingling of dance styles, like Irish steps, American tap, and African American dance.

“I keep saying that Celtic music is a living thing,” he said. “It’s not just something to be pulled out of a dusty drawer. It lives and is vital and vibrant in the communities and also seeks to collaborate with other forms of music and has been successful in doing that.”

O’Donovan believes music has a vital role in today’s divided society. “If you talk politics, if you talk history, even if you talk literature, at times they seem to have that division built into them,” he said. “I think that music and songs and dancing seem to eliminate that and invite people in on their own recognizance. And I think that’s a golden opportunity for us to use what we know, in our access to musicians and dancers and singers, to use that access to bring people together.”

While one critique of arts organizations has been that high prices make art the province of the elite, O’Donovan is hopeful that will change with more state and federal government financial support, as policymakers increasingly recognize that arts access is a human rights issue. “In the past, the value of arts to creating community and to community-building has been undervalued. And I think that’s changing,” O’Donovan said. “With the pandemic not allowing us to gather with like-minded people to enjoy the art, I don’t think anybody wants that to happen again, whether it’s to a pandemic, to a virus, or to lack of funding or lack of attention on the arts.”

As he faces his illness, O’Donovan turns to the arts for guidance. He often quotes the epitaph written on Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s grave, a line from one of Heaney’s poems: “Walk on air against your better judgment.”

“I really take that as a kind of a philosophy, almost, at this particular point, that I want to be as optimistic as I possibly can, knowing the bleakness of my situation as a reality, but also to walk on air, meaning, I think, take chances that you might have put off at other times in your life,” O’Donovan said.

“I’m saying this to all of the audience out there, do what you do and do it best and do it with a hunger and a desire for it, because you never know what’s coming down the road,” O’Donovan said. “And that’s certainly true in my case. But I’m going to walk on air. Maybe against my better judgment, but to heck with it. I’m still going to walk on air.”

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THE CANNABIS Control Commission unanimously approved a final license for Greenfield Greenery on Thursday, resolving a months-long delay resulting from questions about whether Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien properly removed herself from ownership of the company.

A commission investigation concluded that O’Brien and Greenfield Greenery both did everything properly in removing O’Brien from her ownership position. Indeed, the investigation found the licensing delay, which officials at Greenfield Greenery said caused them financial hardship, came about in large part due to poor communication between members of the Cannabis Control Commission and commission staff. 

The commission approved the license 3-0, with O’Brien recusing herself, and commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion absent from the meeting for personal reasons. 

O’Brien said after the meeting, “I’m glad now, given the staff’s report, that people can see I acted in an ethical way and I acted in a transparent way.” 

O’Brien said she was frustrated that after granting some initial interviews, including to CommonWealth, commission staff told her she could not speak further on the topic while the investigation was ongoing. “I hold myself to a high ethical standard, and have always done that in public service,” she said. “I was very disappointed I wasn’t allowed to speak as fully and freely as I would have liked to.” 

As soon as she was sworn in in September, O’Brien disclosed publicly, in a story in CommonWealth, that she had been a partner in Greenfield Greenery and had consulted for another cannabis company but was no longer involved with either one. She also disclosed that information to commission staff, the state treasurer, who appointed her, and other state agencies. 

Several weeks later, the Boston Herald splashed the story on its front page, questioning whether O’Brien had a conflict of interest. That prompted some marijuana activists to protest her appointment; Boston Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld called for her to resign or be fired.   

In October, Greenfield Greenery came before the Cannabis Control Commission for final license approval, but commissioners delayed approval, seeking an investigation into whether O’Brien and the company had properly executed the change of ownership that removed O’Brien’s financial interest.  

The delay was costly for Greenfield Greenery owners Angie and Randy Facey, dairy farmers who said they submitted every piece of paperwork the commission asked for. 

Angie Facey said Thursday that she is “elated” to have gotten the license, and is hopeful the controversy will not scare off investors. “We are frustrated it took so very, very long to get there but hope we can overcome this obstacle and persevere,” she said. 

The investigation by the Cannabis Control Commission, detailed in a public report written by investigations manager Katherine Binkoski, confirmed what O’Brien and the Faceys said: O’Brien left the company nearly a year before her appointment as commission chair, and Greenfield Greenery submitted the paperwork that commission staff required to remove O’Brien from ownership.  

The core of the problem appears to be that the commissioners themselves, at their October meeting, were not aware of the decisions that commission staff had made. The commissioners spent much of that meeting questioning why Greenfield Greenery never submitted a change of ownership form for their approval. But the investigation found that commission staff had determined that Greenfield Greenery was not required to submit a change of ownership form. Greenfield Greenery informed the commission that O’Brien had left the company in other paperwork it submitted when it renewed its license. 

“O’Brien’s removal was appropriately reported to the Commission via the Licensee’s renewal application in December 2021, and this change did not trigger the requirement for a change application,” Binkoski wrote in her report. 

Director of licensing Kyle Potvin clarified at Thursday’s commission meeting that when a company adds a person who has ownership or control, that needs to be approved by the Cannabis Control Commission. But if a company removes a person from ownership or control, as occurred with O’Brien, they must notify the commission, but the change does not require commission approval. So there would be no reason for the paperwork to go before the full commission. 

The investigation also found that O’Brien disclosed her prior work to the state treasurer, the State Ethics Commission, and the Cannabis Control Commission itself. When meeting with the Ethics Commission, she “was advised there was no conflict of interest if she assumed the role of Chair of the Commission,” the report found. 

Potvin said the investigation makes clear that “Shannon O’Brien in her personal capacity does not have an ownership stake over this license any longer.” 

The investigation did find two unrelated problems with Greenfield Greenery’s paperwork, both of which have been corrected. The company did not disclose when it hired Koeju John Song as CEO. Song was being removed from ownership of another company. While that removal process was ongoing, his involvement in both companies gave him control over more marijuana crops than was legally allowed.  

Separately, Greenfield Greenery applied to the commission for permission to hire Elizabeth Stainton as a manger and give her company shares, but then the company hired her before the commission approved its application. In light of the investigation, both Song and Stainton resigned from their positions of control in Greenfield Greenery until the commission approved the necessary paperwork, which was done Thursday.  

Asked after the meeting whether the issue was essentially a miscommunication between staff and commissioners, Commissioner Nurys Camargo disputed that characterization. “It’s not that there’s a miscommunication between staff and us as commissioners, there’s some stuff they just can’t tell us,” Camargo said. “If it’s not fully baked, it’s not coming to us.” Camargo said there were “hard questions” that had to be answered through the investigation, and she is now satisfied that they have been. 

“I’m glad that our team took the time to dig in for the change of ownership, and it takes time,” Camargo said. 

This is not the first time that an apparent disconnect between commission staff and commissioners led to a public flap. After an October public meeting, commissioners said they learned of the death of a marijuana company employee from the media, months after her death. The next day, however, the commission clarified that the company told commission staff immediately about the worker’s death, and an investigation into the company was underway. However, the commissioners themselves had not been notified.  

O’Brien referred to the worker death in comments Thursday when she suggested that there may be room for the commission to act in a more transparent manner. “While I understand the need for the investigative team to do their investigation and maintain a sense of confidentiality, I do believe there are certain things we can be doing to be more transparent about our work without compromising those investigations,” O’Brien said. “I’ve heard from some people saying I’m a former District Attorney, I worked murder cases, I gave more information to the people charged with murder than sometimes we give to some of our applicants or licensees.” 

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TWO BLACK WOMEN from Massachusetts are at the center of what could become a landmark federal case about whether software that screens potential tenants is illegally biased against Black and Hispanic applicants.

Rachael Rollins, the US attorney for Massachusetts, weighed in on the case, Louis vs. SafeRent Solutions, in a court brief this week, arguing that the technology used by tenant screening companies must comply with anti-discrimination rules. “Algorithms are written by people. As such, they are susceptible to all of the biases, implicit or explicit, of the people that create them,” Rollins said in a statement. Rollins said her filing “recognizes that our 20th century civil rights laws apply to 21st century innovations.”

SafeRent Solutions is a company used by landlords to screen potential tenants. SafeRent gives rental applicants a risk score based on their credit history, other credit-related information including non-tenancy debts, and eviction history.

Mary Louis, 54, of Malden, and Monica Douglas, 65, of Canton, both Black women with subsidized housing vouchers, are the plaintiffs, along with the Community Action Agency of Somerville, which helps people with vouchers find housing. They sued SafeRent and Metropolitan Management Group, a Boston-based apartment management company, in August in US District Court in Massachusetts. Both women were denied apartments by Metropolitan because of SafeRent scores. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Greater Boston Legal Services, Washington, DC-based firm Cohen, Milstein, Sellers & Toll, and the Boston-based National Consumer Law Center.

The lawsuit alleges that SafeRent “assigns disproportionately lower SafeRent Scores to Black and Hispanic rental applicants compared to White rental applicants,” partly because it measures credit history, which includes non-tenant-related debt.

“SafeRent Scores cause Black and Hispanic rental applicants to be disproportionately likely to be denied housing,” attorneys for Louis, Douglas, and the housing agency wrote in their court brief. They argue that for tenants who hold housing vouchers, there is no legitimate reason to evaluate their credit scores since payment of much of their rent is guaranteed by the voucher.

The lawsuit argues that credit histories are an incomplete record that do not accurately predict how likely a tenant will be to pay rent on time. Using credit histories hurts Black and Hispanic consumers, who have median credit scores of 612 and 661, respectively, compared to 725 for White consumers.

SafeRent and Metropolitan Management Group are seeking to have the case dismissed. Attorneys for SafeRent wrote in their brief that credit checks of prospective tenants are routine and well-accepted, and there is no statistical evidence of a disparate impact on Black, Hispanic, or voucher-holding applicants. SafeRent does not know an applicant’s race.

SafeRent says credit checks are relevant, because even tenants with housing vouchers must pay a portion of their rent, and poor credit suggests a tenant may have trouble paying rent on time.

SafeRent says it should not be held liable for decisions made by landlords, who decide what scores they will accept and how they will use scores to make decisions on tenants.

Lawyers for Metropolitan Management Group say a property management group has a responsibility to assess the risks of accepting each tenant “including attempting to determine whether a given tenant is likely to make timely payments, likely to abide by all other terms of the lease, and unlikely to engage in criminal behavior that could compromise the safety of other tenants.”

“Credit history is both a common and legally accepted tool used by housing providers to assist in their decision process, because it provides a window into the potential risk of default associated with an applicant,” Metropolitan Management Group’s attorneys wrote.

The Metropolitan brief says Louis’s claim “is a generalized but understandable grievance with the historical inequities in American society and the consequential results of these inequities,” but does not prove discrimination by Metropolitan. “Put another way, Louis seeks to hold Metropolitan accountable for disparities it didn’t create: longstanding inequities in access to wealth and wealth-building mechanisms that have contributed to racial and income disparities in credit scores and credit histories.”

The US Department of Justice, through the US Attorney’s office, opposes efforts to dismiss the case. The Department of Justice says the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination, does apply to tenant screening companies like SafeRent. Rollins’ office does not weigh in on whether discrimination occurred in this case.

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ON A RECENT DAY, a Brockton customer looking for some marijuana could have bought one-eighth of an ounce of LA Kush Cake flower for just $20 at Commonwealth Alternative Care. Nearby, Legal Greens was advertising one-eighth of an ounce of Jet Fuel flower for $25, according to the marijuana marketing website Leafly.

The prices are way down from the $50 or $60 that a decent strain of marijuana was going for just two years ago. That’s good news for consumers tired of paying some of the highest prices for marijuana in the nation, but it’s bad news for the state’s legal marijuana industry. Just four years after cannabis shops opened, the price decline is destabilizing the industry and threatening to force companies out of business. Policy makers are being urged to consider radical action, including placing a moratorium on the granting of new cultivation licenses.

“Everyone thinks cannabis is the greatest thing and they don’t understand the economics,” said cannabis consultant David Rabinovitz, who is predicting mass business closures over the next two years. “When things tighten up, competitors come into the market. All of a sudden [businesses] have to operate on a realistic revenue level, and a lot of businesses aren’t prepared for that. They didn’t plan for it, they didn’t design their business that way.”

When legal recreational marijuana sales started in 2018, the average retail price of an ounce of marijuana was around $400, or $50 for an eighth of an ounce, according to data compiled by the Cannabis Control Commission. The price stayed above $400 consistently through 2020, other than some price fluctuations when the pandemic first hit and stores were temporarily closed. In mid-2021, prices started dipping below $400 an ounce, and they continued to drop, falling to $350 an ounce in early 2022 and then to below $300. By late 2022, there were a few times when the average monthly price dipped below $200 an ounce, or $25 for one-eighth of an ounce – less than half of what prices were when the first stores opened.

One major reason for the price drop is the saturation of the market. There are now 95 licensed cultivators, approved to grow on 2.8 million square feet of canopy, with more cultivators going through the licensing process. When the legal recreational market first opened in late 2018, the state’s tracking system indicated there were 15,000 plants on a given day, a number that hit 100,000 in early 2020. Now, the tracking system has more than 250,000 plants.

The trend is not unique to Massachusetts. The Washington Post reported in December that a glut of marijuana in several states is depressing the market and driving prices down, hurting businesses.

“The number one reason [for lower prices] is just supply and demand,” said Adam Fine, a partner with law firm Vicente Sederberg who specializes in marijuana law. “We have what I’d suggest is an oversupply of cultivation capacity and canopy.”

Demand, which spiked during COVID-related lockdowns, is also dropping. Some customers that have been shopping in Massachusetts are being lured away to neighboring states that have legalized recreational marijuana. Vermont legalized marijuana in 2020, Connecticut and New York in 2021, and Rhode Island in 2022. The first marijuana stores opened in Rhode Island on December 22, on December 30 in New York, and January 10 in Connecticut. Crossing state lines with marijuana is illegal, but the law is difficult to enforce.

Massachusetts customers have long complained that the legal weed sold here is some of the country’s most expensive. Many, in fact, continued to buy on the illegal black market because of the lower prices. But Fine suggested that if prices drop too low, some cultivators desperate to sell their product could illegally divert it to the black market. “The obvious temptation is if you can’t sell it easily and it starts building up that it’s going to go out the back door,” Fine said.

The lower prices also have a downside for Massachusetts marijuana retailers, who began opening in November 2018.  Several companies have already shuttered. Ethos closed its Lynn dispensary in early 2022. The Source shuttered in Northampton in December, less than a year after opening. JustinCredible Cultivation in Cummington appears to no longer be operating.

Pleasantrees sent a flyer around the industry seeking to literally give away operating retail dispensaries in Amherst and Easthampton. “Lease takeover with no down payment required,” reads the flyer, which says the company is offering “a no-cost acquisition of its assets.”

The Pleasantrees flyer says it is seeking to focus its operations on its home state of Michigan. The  company did not respond to a request for comment, but the flyer gives some indication of why the company is offering the extraordinary business deal. The two dispensaries combined generate revenue of $175,000 to $250,000 a month. The rent on the two properties costs a total of $75,501 a month – an inordinately high rent in Western Massachusetts. Factoring in the costs of buying the product, paying employees, and all the overhead involved in running a business, the high rent likely makes the financials unsustainable.

When the industry first launched, Rabinovitz said, people were desperate to find space to open a dispensary. He said business people saw long lines at a handful of open stores, and failed to account for the fact that once the market matured those customers would be distributed across dozens of stores, so they did “stupid things” like negotiate bad lease terms. “Landlords did a great job maximizing profits,” Rabinovitz said. “The rents charged were outrageous.”

Carl Giannone, co-founder of Trade Roots, a locally owned social equity business in Wareham that does cultivation and retail, has experienced the price drop firsthand. He said the traditional pricing scheme when the industry started was $50 for one-eighth of an ounce of cannabis. Now, the typical eighth goes for $40. The price of bulk flower has dropped precipitously. With the broader economy shifting, people are also buying less marijuana each time they make a purchase and shopping less frequently. Even as sales are slipping, other costs are rising, he said.

Giannone said the number of cultivators has blossomed, and projections for demand based on 2020 levels of consumption proved to be way off. “We didn’t take into account government writing people checks and telling them stay home and smoke weed,” Giannone said. “All of sudden now they go back to work, electric bills are up, food bills are up…people have got to say, ‘Am I going to consume as much?’”

Ed DeSousa, a small grower who owns RiverRun Gardens in Newburyport, said retailers early on were marking up prices considerably compared to the price they paid for the product wholesale. “People were excited they can legally go to a store and purchase cannabis…Retailers were capitalizing off of this newfound freedom and decided to put a price tag on it,” DeSousa said. Now, he said, customers have gotten more discerning at the same time as the market has become oversaturated.

“On the cultivation side, because retail has to drop prices, they’re looking at me to drop prices. That’s sometimes a hard pill to swallow,” DeSousa said. DeSousa said he just about broke even in 2022.

Some in Massachusetts have speculated that multi-state operators can better weather the downturn and force out the small shops. DeSousa said he feels like the biggest operators will “find ways to keep their foot on the throat of the little guy.” For example, larger growers may invest in a retail shop on condition that the retailer carries their products, leaving less shelf space for smaller growers.

But Rabinovitz questions that argument, pointing to a recent analysis by industry publication Green Market Report, which found that 10 publicly traded multi-state cannabis companies owed the federal government more than $500 million in back taxes. Because marijuana remains federally illegal, the federal taxes owed on state-legal cannabis businesses are incredibly high, since companies pay a high rate and cannot deduct business expenses. Rabinovitz said companies that invested in huge, expensive grow facilities may be unable to recoup their costs. “The big guys will fall over. The little guys have a hope of surviving,” he predicted.

There are some policy steps the Cannabis Control Commission could take. There is a provision in state regulations that says if a cultivator does not sell at least 70 percent of their product over a six-month period, regulators renewing their license can reduce the amount that grower is allowed to produce.

The commission has never actually reduced the size of a grower’s allowed canopy.

Commission Executive Director Shawn Collins said at a December meeting that reducing a grower’s canopy size is a regulatory option, but he worried that stepping up enforcement of this regulation might have a particularly harsh impact on smaller growers, who make up nearly 70 percent of all cultivators.

There’s another challenge with reducing canopy sizes: In the short term, the response from cultivators desperate to sell their products could be to drop prices even further, worsening the market glut.

A different option, which some growers are pushing for, would be to impose a temporary moratorium on new cultivation facilities. Oregon imposed a moratorium on all new cannabis business licenses in 2022 to address problems of overproduction, after a years-long pause imposed in 2018 because its licensing agency was overwhelmed. MJBiz Daily reported that some growers in Colorado and Michigan are also pushing for moratoriums to address falling prices.

Fine said he thinks a moratorium may make sense, possibly with a carveout to let more social equity businesses open. “You want to have a healthy marketplace where there’s a lot of competition,” Fine said. “But when you have a highly regulated product, there’s some role for ensuring prices don’t get so low that you’re near the cost of production and the margins aren’t there and it creates a public health and safety concern around diversion.”

If a business does fail, Fine said, there are also ramifications for its creditors and landlord, since marijuana businesses lack access to federal bankruptcy proceedings. A creditor could sue, leading to the court appointment of a receiver, as happened with medical marijuana dispensary Ermont in Quincy. But that is an expensive and complicated process.

But Aaron Goines, who consults for social equity businesses, said Oregon’s moratorium did not alleviate its supply problem, and he is skeptical a moratorium would ease the crunch in Massachusetts. He worries that forcing growers to reduce their canopy size would cause a short-term crash as growers flooded the market. But at least under that scenario, he said, the market would eventually stabilize. “It would be either immediate pain or a prolonged death by 1,000 paper cuts,” Goines said.

Without intervention, Goines said, prices will continue to fall, as more supply comes online in Massachusetts and more legal stores pop up in other states, reducing demand in Massachusetts. “I think we have further to go before we hit the bottom. It’s just a matter of can companies survive,” he said.

Some entrepreneurs say those with a unique niche can still find their place in the market. Ture Turnbull and Wes Ritchie are co-founders and co-CEOs of Tree House Craft Cannabis dispensary, which opened in Dracut in November 2021 and is close to opening a second store in Pepperell. Their LGBT-owned dispensary buys products from craft producers. Ritchie said he thinks the market has simply stabilized and prices have become more competitive as the industry matured.

“It doesn’t feel like a race to the bottom,” Ritchie said. “There are still products that are premium price, which customers seek out. There are small limited batches where prices haven’t dropped very much.”

Turnbull suggested that the lower prices can also draw in new customers, who can try out gummies or edibles for $20. On an average day, 40 percent of the store’s clients are new customers. “I do think having variety, also price point variety, helps people get over the stigma and helps them get over the new customer experience, get in the store, and realize it’s pretty exciting and fun to be there,” Turnbull said.

Ryan Cohen, a veteran who founded Top Shelf Cannaseurs in 2018, launched a joint venture a year ago with Michigan-based Glorious Cannabis, which paid for the business to move from Hudson to Uxbridge. Cohen said prices have compressed significantly in the last year and the new venture has not yet broken even. A pound of wholesale bulk flower might go for $800 to $1,200 a pound compared to $1,500 to $2,000 last year. But Cohen is optimistic that high-quality products will still sell.

“I think the cream rises to the top in the end,” Cohen said. “You can buy a whole lot of okay weed for very cheap right now. But the special stuff – organics, high THC, stuff grown with care – will fetch a premium.”

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THE BOARD that will oversee the state’s new fund to help social equity cannabis businesses will be comprised of a diverse group of individuals, who represent various segments of the industry that they hope to help. 

Appointments to the five-member board were finalized last week by then-Gov. Charlie Baker; then-Attorney General Maura Healey, who is now governor; and treasurer Deb Goldberg. The board will advise the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, which will administer the fund.  Board positions are unpaid. 

The advisory board will be chaired by Baker’s appointee, Keisha Brice of Boston. A brief biography provided by the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development said Brice is “a regulatory and compliance executive with experience in the health care and cannabis industries.” Brice was the first vice president for compliance at Curaleaf, a huge multi-state cannabis company that runs 142 dispensaries and 26 grows in 21 states, including Massachusetts. She previously worked in compliance at the Dimock Center in Boston, which provides health care to underserved communities. Her biography says she is of Cape Verdean and African-American descent. 

Two of the board members have been active in the nascent marijuana delivery industry. Delivery licenses for now are reserved exclusively for social equity entrepreneurs, generally individuals from communities disproportionately affected by prior enforcement of drug laws.  

Aaron Goines of Abington is president of the Massachusetts Cannabis Association for Delivery. Goines, who previously worked in finance, had considered starting a marijuana delivery business but has not moved forward. He advises other social equity businesses. 

Chris Fevry of Stoughton is the CEO and founder of marijuana delivery company Your Green Package, and previously led the delivery trade association. 

“I’m just hoping t to help social equity applicants lower the barriers to entry and overall just have an impact,” Fevry said. 

The other two appointees are Maeka Brown of Mattapan and Phil Smith of Taunton. 

Brown works for Green Check Verified, which builds relationships between US financial institutions and legal cannabis businesses and provides technology services to address the unusual banking needs of cannabis companies. That involves helping banks comply with complex federal rules related to cannabis transactions and connecting cannabis companies with banks that can provide banking, checking, and other services. Brown was a former general manager at Pure Oasis in Boston and manager at Mello Dispensary in Haverhill. Dig Boston said Brown was the first Black woman to manage a cannabis dispensary in Massachusetts when she worked at Pure Oasis in 2020. 

Smith is a disabled combat veteran, who served as a Marine sergeant in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. He has said he used cannabis to help him deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. He is a social equity entrepreneur,  the founder, chairman, and CEO of Freshly Baked Company, which manufactures marijuana-infused products.  

The fund will be seeded with money from the marijuana excise tax and from donations from larger companies, who are required to help improve equity in the industry as a condition of their licenses. 

Goines said the ability to find funding has been the biggest obstacle for social equity entrepreneurs. “This is something that’s long overdue,” he said. 

Goines said he thinks the board will have a vital role in determining how to deploy the money effectively “and make it fair and equitable.”  

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THERE’S ANOTHER major shakeup coming in the already-struggling marijuana delivery industry, with the impending closure of one of the largest marketing websites in Massachusetts.

Lantern, a website where consumers can go to order legal cannabis delivered from a local dispensary, announced Wednesday that it will shut down by the end of January, citing regulatory hurdles in other states.

“While our Boston-area business continued to grow and serve the expanding cannabis community with the best selection, lowest prices, and convenient delivery, it proved difficult for Lantern to expand outside of Massachusetts, due to both the speed of legalization and the challenging regulatory framework that affects all cannabis businesses,” Lantern CEO and co-founder Meredith Mahoney wrote on LinkedIn.

Lantern, a spinoff from alcohol delivery company Drizly, does not touch the marijuana itself but is a technology company that connects consumers with dispensaries that offer home delivery. The site operates in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Michigan.

Some states have restricted the use of companies like Lantern. New York’s regulations prohibit the sale of cannabis through a third party, requiring retailers to create their own delivery applications.

Mahoney, who declined a request for an interview, says Lantern facilitates more than half of cannabis deliveries in Massachusetts. It also offers an incubator program that provided assistance to many of the state’s marijuana delivery companies.

Devin Alexander participated in the incubator program and now has a marijuana delivery company that will be considered by state regulators for a final license next week. “If it wasn’t for Lantern, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now,” Alexander said. “They were the first ones to provide education around cannabis delivery.”

Aaron Goines, who is considering getting into the delivery business, said the closure is another blow for already struggling operators because it eliminates opportunities to reach customers. He said delivery companies already have a harder time marketing to customers than dispensaries do. “Lantern was an aggregator,” Goines said. “Someone could go onto the site, see everything available, and choose a delivery operator.”

Goines said he thinks the problem for a company like Lantern is that many states, including Massachusetts, prevent third party technology companies from owning shares of a delivery company. And the market for delivery has grown more slowly than expected.

In Massachusetts, there are around a dozen licensed marijuana delivery companies. But operators say it is challenging to make a profit, given the expenses inherent in running a business. Delivery operators have been lobbying the Cannabis Control Commission to change a rule that requires two drivers per car. “We’re struggling, we’re just trying to stay afloat,” said Chris Fevry, who owns Your Green Package.

Goines said he is not sure if he will open a business, particularly since inflation has increased costs while decreasing demand. As more retailers open, he said, there is less demand for home delivery. “It’s already a complicated enough industry, which is highly regulated with razor thin margins. You do not want to be starting a business in a time like this when you have such great economic headwinds and unconventional inflation levels,” Goines said.

Budzee in Easthampton opened with a flourish in April. Its owners told the Daily Hampshire Gazette they hoped to become the Amazon of cannabis. In May, the company put itself up for sale, seeking $4 million for its office, warehouse, and five vehicles.

Ezra Parzybok, a cannabis consultant and partner at Budzee, said the company was the first of its kind to open so the founders wanted to see how much money they could get for it. “We thought, well just in case someone wants to come and give us gobs of money, we should list it,” Parzybok said.

No one did.

Parzybok said the delivery market has been “disappointing.” Western Massachusetts is saturated with dispensaries and less populous. Eastern Massachusetts is a more appealing market, but Parzybok believes that after consumers spent five years adjusting to buying legal cannabis in brick-and-mortar shops, many people are not yet comfortable with delivery. Those who buy on the black market already have illegal delivery options. Because delivery services lack storefronts, there is no marketing opportunity for customers to recognize them just by driving by.

Parzybok said the markets where consumers have embraced cannabis delivery are in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, where pot shops have been open for a decade and there are huge population centers in locations where driving is difficult.

One other potential danger for local marijuana delivery operators, though one that is likely a long way off, is federal legalization. “The day Amazon can sell you weed, it’s all over,” Parzybok said. “For everyone.”

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COVID VACCINE MANDATES for customers of private businesses were short-lived. Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration, which had a strict vaccine mandate for executive branch workers, has been quietly hiring back some terminated workers. But litigation over vaccine mandates is still ongoing. 

The Supreme Judicial Court on January 6 will hear oral arguments in a case about the city of Boston’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees. The court will be asked to decide whether vaccine mandates must be bargained with employee unions. The case has attracted attention from local and national police and firefighters’ unions, who have been at the forefront of fighting vaccine mandates.  

Boston announced a vaccine mandate in August 2021, which became effective in October, requiring city employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested weekly. That November, as fears grew about an Omicron surge, the city decided to drop the testing option and impose a full vaccination mandate. The policy was based on science at the time showing that vaccination reduced COVID-19 cases, reduced the viral load, and reduced the chance of serious illness. Requiring vaccination, the city argued, would result in fewer COVID cases among the city workforce and less chance of spread between workers and the public. 

The city began bargaining the vaccine mandate with employee unions, but put it in place before negotiations had concluded. Three city unions – the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, Boston Firefighters Union Local 718, and the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society – sued to overturn the mandate. 

At the time the mandate was imposed, there were 442 union-represented employees who had not been vaccinated. 

An Appeals Court judge in February blocked the mandate from going into effect for union workers and required the city to keep the testing option in place. Boston paused the vaccine mandate for all city employees after that ruling.  

Today, city policy is that all new employees must be vaccinated, and vaccination and testing rules for longer-time employees vary by collective bargaining agreement. More than 93 percent of the city workforce is vaccinated.

Lawyers for the city appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court. City officials say they have authority at a managerial level to require employees to be vaccinated, and they were within their rights to set a deadline for vaccination before bargaining was completed due to the “exigent circumstances” created by the pandemic. They argue that the Appeals Court judge improperly minimized the benefits of COVID vaccination by ignoring evidence of its benefits brought by the city. “That evidence established that vaccination is far more effective at protecting the health of employees, their co-workers, and the members of the public with whom they must have close contact than is the weekly testing,” attorneys for the city wrote in their court brief. 

The unions say city officials needed to bargain when they changed the mandate until they reached a resolution or an impasse, and they were not allowed to impose the mandate before bargaining concluded. The unions argue that the mandate would cause “irreparable harm” to employees, both those who are fired for being unvaccinated and vaccinated workers stuck working mandatory overtime due to staffing shortages. 

“As shown by the city’s own behavior, vaccination of employees, while undeniably providing benefits, is neither critical nor necessary to provide municipal services, even public safety and emergency care,” the unions argue. They cite prior cases showing that even flu vaccine mandates for hospital nurses are subject to bargaining. If COVID policies are not to be bargained, the unions argue, the result could be policies being implemented without regard to their logic or efficacy – for example, an employer could unilaterally prohibit vaccination. 

The unions’ brief argues that since fully vaccinated employees continue to be infected and to transmit COVID-19 – and the overwhelming majority of workplace absences are of vaccinated employees – keeping the injunction in place that freezes the mandate “will not materially alter the transmission, infection, and impacts of the coronavirus.” 

The National Fraternal Order of Police, the Massachusetts Coalition of Police, and the International Association of Firefighters filed briefs in support of the Boston unions, arguing that city officials had an obligation to bargain the vaccine mandate. 

“The city’s failures in this case have far-reaching implications to union members beyond this COVID-19 vaccination policy,” argued attorneys for the National Fraternal Order of Police. “It is crucial that employees trust that their employer respects their due process rights and will afford them the opportunity to bargain in good faith.” 

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AMID A DAY full of pomp, circumstance, and a nod to history in the making, Maura Healey on Thursday was sworn in as the 73rd governor of Massachusetts and the first woman elected to that role. 

Healey, a Democrat, also made history as one of the first two openly lesbian governors in the United States, alongside Tina Kotek of Oregon who will take office next week. 

Kim Driscoll was sworn in as lieutenant governor, a day after she resigned her job as Salem mayor. She took the oath on a historic Bible from the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, which was made famous by author Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Although the two-hour ceremony was held in the House chamber, which is presided over by Speaker Ron Mariano, it was Senate President Karen Spilka who emceed the event and administered the oaths of office to Healey and Driscoll, in a powerful display of women holding three of the four most influential roles on Beacon Hill. 

Healey wore a white dress, the color choice a symbolic nod to the women’s suffrage movement.  

Even before Healey and Driscoll entered the room, the packed audience of representatives, senators, and dignitaries rose for a standing ovation when Spilka said that, as the third female Senate president, she would be honored to administer the oath of office to the first woman elected governor. Republican Jane Swift, the first female governor, held the role on an acting basis after Gov. Paul Cellucci resigned. 

Healey opened her address by speaking of the “firsts” that occurred in Massachusetts – including, the former Harvard point guard said, the first ever basketball game. “We were the first to guarantee that health care is universal, and 20 years ago now, that love is, too,” Healey said, sparking one of many sustained standing ovations she received during the ceremony. “It is in that spirit of common humanity that I stand before you today, representing another historic first.” 

After a campaign in which she was criticized for a lack of specific policy prescriptions, Healey used her lengthy inaugural remarks to lay out the beginning of her agenda to address housing, higher education, childcare, transportation, and climate. 

Healey, 51, served as Massachusetts attorney general since 2015. Before that, she worked for Attorney General Martha Coakley, leading her office’s civil rights division. Healey was a professional basketball player in Europe after graduating from Harvard.  

Driscoll, 56, has served as Salem’s mayor since 2006. She is a lawyer who spent most of her career in municipal government.  

The ceremony was attended by a who’s who of prominent Massachusetts politicians, including President Biden’s special envoy for climate and former Massachusetts senator John Kerry. Three former governors – Democrats Deval Patrick and Michael Dukakis, and Republican Bill Weld – sat in seats of honor on the House rostrum. Also attending were Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, former Senate president Therese Murray, Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Kimberly Budd, US Sen. Ed Markey, former House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and the incoming and outgoing constitutional officers.  

The last three years of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed in the past amid the packed chamber, with only a few attendees wearing masks.  

Healey has made a point of featuring a diverse slate of participants in her inaugural events. At her inauguration, the national anthem was sung by Lydia Harrell, a Black jazz singer from Boston. “America the Beautiful” was sung by Precious Perez, a blind, Latina singer trained in pop/R&B and Latin music, who sung several words of the song in Spanish. The invocation was delivered by Bishop John Borders of Morningstar Baptist Church in Boston, a Christian radio personality who was the first Black chaplain in the Suffolk County jail before taking his urban pulpit.  

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by the families of five military service members killed in action.  

A basketball-themed inaugural ball at TD Garden Thursday evening will be headlined by Brandi Carlile, a folk-rock singer-songwriter who has been an advocate for LGBTQ rights. 

Healey was sworn in at 12:30 p.m., though she officially took office at noon. 

Although Healey grew up in New Hampshire, her inaugural address stressed her Massachusetts roots. She spoke of her great-great-grandfather in Newburyport, who fought for the Union in the Civil War at age 16. Healey was sworn in on a family Bible that belonged to her great-great-grandmother. She said her grandparents, a nurse and factory worker, met “on the fishing docks in a Gloucester summer.” 

Her address spoke to the challenges facing Massachusetts – the hospital staffing crisis, the many residents moving out of state, the lack of skilled workers, and the high cost of living. “We have untold wealth in Massachusetts. But record public revenue does little good when families can’t pay the rent, or buy a house, or heat their homes, or hire child care,” Healey said. “Our people can’t realize their dreams until we end the nightmare of high costs.” 

Healey said within her first 100 days in office, she will file legislation to create a secretary of housing. She announced plans to inventory unused state-owned land that can be turned into housing within a year. She pledged to assist first-time homebuyers and reduce costs for renters. Major housing reforms have often been stymied on Beacon Hill by opposition from local communities, and Healey asked citizens to support new housing. “That means building more housing next to transit hubs, taking another look at zoning, and preserving the housing we already have,” she said. 

Healey pledged to move forward on tax reform, including expanding the child tax credit, but did not provide additional details of her tax policy proposals, which will need to be negotiated with the House and Senate.  

She pledged to support legislation to make child care more affordable, in line with a framework proposed by the “Common Start Coalition.” That proposal would vastly increase public spending on child care, through direct subsidies to providers and to low and middle-income families. 

Healey said her first budget will include a new initiative, dubbed MassReconnect, that will provide community college for free to anyone over 25 who lacks a college degree. Healey’s budget must be approved by the Legislature, and her focus on free college jibes with Spilka’s announcement Wednesday that the Senate will seek to advance free community college. 

On transportation, Healey pledged to appoint a safety chief within 60 days to inspect the MBTA, and to appoint a general manager for the T “with deep experience and a laser focus on making our transit safe and reliable.” She said her budget proposal will include funding to hire 1,000 new workers at the MBTA within the administration’s first year.  

On climate, Healey pledged to double offshore wind and solar energy targets, quadruple energy storage deployment, electrify the public fleet, and put a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. She said her first executive order, which she will issue Friday, will create the country’s first cabinet-level climate chief. She pledged to dedicate at least 1 percent of the state budget to environmental and energy agencies, triple the Clean Energy Center’s budget, and create a “green bank” to spur investment in climate-related projects. 

“Let’s commit to making climate innovation our next big investment, our next first, our next frontier,” Healey said.  

Driscoll, in her own shorter remarks, praised former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito’s bipartisan approach to governing, and pledged to be a leader “from the get stuff done branch of government.”  

Unlike Healey’s speech, Driscoll’s speech stuck to broad commitments to address areas like transportation, education, the economy, and clean energy. She concluded, to applause: “Let’s go get to work!”  

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MISMANAGEMENT AT THE Holyoke Soldiers’ Home undoubtedly contributed to the high COVID-19 death toll there in the first days of the pandemic. The question before the state’s highest court is whether the actions of the home’s former leaders may have constituted criminal behavior. During oral arguments on Wednesday, Supreme Judicial Court justices asked pointed questions about what options state officials had given the extraordinary circumstances, and what the actual impact was of their decisions. 

At least 76 veterans died at the facility as the result of a COVID outbreak there in March of 2020. Attorney General Maura Healey filed criminal charges against the home’s superintendent at the time, Bennett Walsh, and its medical director, David Clinton, alleging that their negligence caused harm to the residents. The criminal case centered on a decision to consolidate two dementia units due to low staffing as the pandemic was spreading, which Healey said resulted in overcrowded rooms and greater exposure to COVID.  

Coincidentally, the SJC heard the case on the last full day of Gov. Charlie Baker’s tenure. The deaths at the Holyoke veterans’ facility stand as one of the biggest failures of his eight years in office. Independent reports criticized Baker and his administration for hiring Walsh, who had political connections but no background in health care administration, and for failing to properly oversee him.  

Healey will be sworn in as governor on Thursday, and attorney general-elect Andrea Campbell will take over the office’s cases when she is sworn in January 18. 

Unusual for such a high-profile case, all the court briefs are impounded, so the public cannot read them. The attorney general’s office asked that the briefs be impounded because they include references to grand jury testimony, which is confidential under state law. Healey’s office similarly had all the briefs impounded when the case was in Superior Court. Asked about the impoundment, Healey’s office pointed to a state law establishing the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings.  

But legal experts say impounding all briefs is unusual in criminal cases, even when grand jury testimony is quoted.  

“There’s a historic tradition of openness of our courts to the public, so impoundment of any court records is always the exception to the rule,” said criminal defense attorney Peter Elikann, speaking for the Massachusetts Bar Association. 

During oral arguments, the justices challenged attorneys from both sides. Justice David Lowy questioned attorneys from Healey’s office about whether the conduct of Walsh and Clinton in combining the two units was really reckless, given the circumstances. Staff did try to separate symptomatic veterans in one space from asymptomatic veterans in a different space. “Is ‘wanton or reckless’ satisfied in the context of the early days of a pandemic, significant staff shortages, and the issue of what do we do to try to separate people who do have COVID and who don’t have COVID?” Lowy asked. 

Assistant Attorney General Anna Lumelsky argued in court that there was evidence to show that their conduct was “wanton and reckless.” “The record’s full of evidence of witnesses at the time recognizing how reckless this conduct was, how poor and dangerous a decision this was,” Lumelsky said. For example, she pointed to a social worker who testified that she was worried about asymptomatic veterans being exposed to COVID due to the consolidation. “She was told it didn’t matter, they’d all been exposed anyway,” Lumelsky said. By doubling the density of the unit and creating a cramped space, Lumelsky said, the unit “was basically an incubator for COVID.” 

Lumelsky said witnesses testified to “bodies on top of bodies, a war zone situation,” and one family member “felt like they were being treated like a barnful of animals.”  

“It was a death trap, mayhem, disarray, confusion,” she said. 

Justice Scott Kafker questioned Lumelsky on whether staff had other options during a crisis where nurses and doctors were staying home and Walsh requested help from the National Guard but was ignored. Kafker said a key point to him was an offer by Holyoke Medical Center to accept some veterans from the home. “I don’t find what they did is reckless if they don’t have any other choices. It’s reckless because they have the choice of Holyoke Medical Center,” Kafker said. 

William Bennett, Walsh’s attorney, later zeroed in on Kafker’s questions and suggested that Holyoke Medical Center never offered to house veterans who were not in need of treatment at the time Walsh was in charge. (Veterans were ultimately moved there once new leadership took over at the home.) Bennett said the hospital contacted the home only to ask for more information when two residents were sent to their emergency room with COVID, and one of residents who was sent there was sent back because he had a do not resuscitate order, and the hospital felt it could not treat him. 

“The idea the Holyoke Medical Center was an option is not real,” Bennett said. 

Justices also sharply quizzed attorneys for Clinton and Walsh. 

Jeffrey Pyle, Clinton’s lawyer, argued that because each of the five veterans was a roommate of someone with COVID, the five had already been exposed, so merging the units did not create a substantial likelihood of harm. 

“It seems odd that because they’ve been exposed, you can do anything to them,” Kafker said. “I’m not a scientist, but continued exposure seems like it’s got to increase the likelihood of harm.” 

When Pyle tried to argued that the Legislature had in mind more severe types of neglect when they crafted the negligence law, Justice Dalila Wendlandt responded that he was waging an “uphill battle” in a situation where there were “bodies upon bodies all cramped up in a unit supposed to hold 20 some-odd people, where there are 40 some-odd people and people are dehydrated, people are starving.” 

Although a key contention of Healey’s lawsuit is that the decision to merge two units, which had both symptomatic and asymptomatic veterans, led to more veterans becoming exposed to COVID-19, Bennett argued that without the merger of the units, the five veterans who were named in the case would have been kept in rooms with COVID-infected roommates. “One of the reasons for the merger was to give staff the opportunity to try to save those asymptomatic veterans from additional exposure,” he said.   

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