WHEN BOSTON Mayor Michelle Wu went looking for a new police commissioner, the search was extensive. She assembled a five-member search committee headed by former Supreme Judicial Court justice Geraldine Hines. The panel spent three months talking to community leaders, holding listening sessions with the public, and conducting a multilingual survey of Boston residents. The city […]
Colman M. Herman
Posted inPolitics
Galvin starts collecting diversity data on staff – and numbers are high
FOR YEARS, Secretary of State William Galvin ignored requests for diversity data on his staff, saying he didn’t collect the information. But this year, facing a primary challenge from Tanisha Sullivan, the head of the Boston office of the NAACP, he changed course. At a debate on GBH on August 10, where his past refusal […]
Posted inEducation
Boston Public Schools withholds 2d part of Mission Hill School investigation
TWO INDEPENDENT reports commissioned by Boston Public Schools figured prominently in the decision to shut down the Mission Hill K-8 Pilot School in Jamaica Plain this summer, but officials are refusing to release a large amount of the information they gathered as part of those investigations. The first report, produced by an attorney named Joseph […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Boston police captain cleared of most charges
A BOSTON POLICE captain who was on paid leave for 2½ years for violating the rules of conduct returned to work earlier this year and then scored a major victory in June when a hearing officer dismissed most of the violations against him and he received just an oral reprimand for the remaining transgressions. The […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Wellesley gadfly convicted of extortion
A WELLESLEY RESIDENT with a history of hostility with the town was found guilty of extortion last week for threatening to file criminal charges against two Select Board members if they failed to seek the removal of several town officials from their positions. The unusual case centered around Ronald Alexander, a Wellesley resident who has […]
Posted inTransportation
Poftak gets nearly $80,000 in bonus payments
MBTA GENERAL MANAGER Steve Poftak, who is steering the beleaguered transit authority through safety and budgetary challenges, received nearly $80,000 more in his paycheck earlier this year in the form of bonuses for 2020 and 2021. According to payroll records and state officials, Poftak received a bonus of $35,728 for 2020 and a bonus of […]
Posted inGovernment, Public Records
Wu not always living up to transparency promises
BOSTON MAYOR Michelle Wu took office promising greater transparency in her administration, but one barometer of her performance indicates she still has some work to do. Aides say the city has received 3,500 public records requests since Wu took office in November. Of that total, 98 were appealed to the secretary of state’s office because […]
Posted inUncategorized
Golden leaving with $200,000 separation agreement
BRIAN GOLDEN is leaving his job as director of the Boston Planning and Development Agency with a payout of more than $200,000, according to the separation agreement he signed. The agreement, which was signed last Thursday and obtained through a public records request, was not particularly large. Brenda Cassellius received well over $300,000 when she agreed […]
Posted inEconomy
3 Walgreens in Roxbury, Mattapan closed for sanitary violations
THREE WALGREENS stores located in Roxbury and Mattapan were shut down for six days early in March because of extensive and long-running violations of the state sanitary code, but the pharmacies inside the stores were allowed to remain open. Two of the stores were in Roxbury, on Washington Street and Warren Street, and the third […]
Posted inUncategorized
Scientists object to inclusion in Globe’s Philip Morris ads
Editor’s note: The Globe on Monday April 4 shared emails and text messages with the scientists quoted in this story that sharply contradicted their statements about not being told about Philip Morris’s involvement. CommonWealth is reaching out to the scientists for an explanation and plans a follow-up once more information is obtained. Additional editor’s note: […]