Amid Applegreen affair, lawmakers leave other stones unturned

Two of the nation’s best hospitals—Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital—are uniting as one team to deliver the most powerful kind of cancer care. One team that performs the most surgeries and has the most specialists in New England. One team turning discovery into hope. We’re one against cancer. Discover more.

Irish retailer Applegreen’s Tuesday evening decision to walk away from finalizing a $750 million contract it won from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to redevelop highway service plazas sent shockwaves through Beacon Hill and beyond.

The decision came as a planned State House hearing on the bidding process was hit with a last-minute postponement. The chair of the Senate’s Post Audit and Oversight Committee had flayed MassDOT for a lack of a response and its officials declining to appear before the committee, which holds subpoena power.

“I wish to express our disappointment and surprise that public officials refuse to answer basic questions that have emerged concerning a long-term lease of publicly-owned land,” Sen. Mark Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat, wrote in a letter to Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Gov. Maura Healey’s transportation chief.

The service plaza saga has been in the headlines for months, as Global Partners, the incumbent operator of several plazas and rival contract bidder, pushed to unravel Applegreen’s winning bid, through a lawsuit and in the media.

But Montigny’s bid to intervene also served as a reminder of all the other public controversies that state lawmakers have studiously avoided spotlighting.

In doing so, the legislative branch, dominated by Democrats, has repeatedly ceded ground to the executive, over the course of two administrations and across party lines. The ground ranges from the long-running corruption scandals that have coursed through the State Police barracks to the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund facing money troubles.

The State Police has seen a wide variety of scandals for nearly a decade. Back in 2018, one of Montigny’s predecessors as chair of the Senate oversight committee claimed the panel has a “full plate” when asked why lawmakers didn’t want to investigate the agency the same day three troopers were arrested on embezzlement charges. The mess was left largely to federal prosecutors to clean up.

There have been behind-the-scenes discussions around Beacon Hill about how to handle the trust fund, which is now expected to go in the red in 2027, sooner than earlier projections that had that happening in 2028. But a public accounting through an oversight hearing, like the one promised on the Applegreen affair, has yet to happen.

“To this day we don’t have a clear picture of the level of fraud” in unemployment insurance, said Jon Hurst, the head of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

“There are front-burner issues that deserve transparency,” Hurst added.

Ryan Fattman, the Senate oversight panel’s ranking Republican, said they’ve conducted some serious investigations over the years, including one into the collapse of Mount Ida College as it was acquired by the University of Massachusetts.

The Senate oversight hearing on the Applegreen affair is now scheduled for Oct. 22, and he hopes it still happens as planned, despite the company's abandonment of contract talks. “There’s a lot of smoke, perhaps there’s fire,” Fattman said.

What else should the Legislature’s oversight committees look into? Suggestions welcome: [email protected].

MASSterList Job Board
Chief Executive Officer — NEW!, Berkshire Hills Music Academy
Chief of Projects & Planning — NEW!, City of Cambridge
Senior Transportation Planner — NEW!, Boston Region MPO/ CTPS
Director, Bureau of Program Integrity, Massachusetts Office of the Inspector General
Executive Director, Massachusetts Rivers Alliance

Jobs continue below the fold — post a job

HAPPENING TODAY

10:45 | Gov. Maura Healey celebrates the opening of the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy’s new Class A Burn Building, a training facility to provide live-fire training for firefighters in southeastern Massachusetts. | 911 Conant Street, Bridgewater

11:00 | The Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus hosts "Latino Excellence on The Hill," an event honoring and awarding Latino community leaders who are making a positive difference around the state. Speakers include Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Vargas and Caucus Executive Director Tomás O’Brien. La Colaborativa Executive Director Gladys Vega will give a keynote speech | Great Hall, State House, Boston

11:00 | Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism holds a public comment meeting. Comments limited to 2 minutes per person or 4 minutes per panel (max three people per panel). | Gardner Auditorium, State House, Boston | Agenda and Access Info

11:00 | Senate President Karen Spilka speaks at the Massachusetts Coalition to Build Community and End Loneliness' lobby day, ahead of the organization's observation of "Massachusetts Good Neighbor Day of Action" from Friday through Sunday. | Room 428, State House, Boston

1:00 | The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy holds a hearing on energy efficiency and energy pricing bills. | Hearing Room A-1, State House, Boston | Agenda and Access Info

FROM BEACON HILL

NORFOLK DA RACE: Needham Sen. Rebecca Rausch is weighing a run for Norfolk County district attorney, currently held by former Quincy senator Michael Morrissey, sources told Contrarian Boston. But the senator told MASSterList that she has never considered a DA campaign, and called the Contrarian Boston item “pure conjecture.” – Contrarian Boston

LEVENTHAL OUT: Alan Leventhal, the former U.S. ambassador to Denmark who had talked with political consultant Doug Rubin and public relations magnate George Regan about running for governor in 2026, has decided against a campaign. – Kelly Garrity/Politico

EDUCATION VISION: Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and state education officials toured Attleboro High School as part of a rollout of a “vision” for skills and attributes that high school graduates should have before heading to college or starting a career. The rollout is tied to a group looking to develop a statewide graduation standard after the MCAS ballot question decoupled the test from high school graduation requirements.– State House News Service

NEWS NEXT DOOR

SPRINKLER INSPECTIONS: The process for inspecting fire sprinklers “relies on a haphazard honor system,” a MassLive investigation found, coming after a fatal fire in a Fall River assisted living facility. – MassLive

MASS. CONNECTION IN NY: The overhaul of the Waldorf in New York – the “most complicated and likely the most expensive real estate conversion ever attempted in the U.S.” – has a Massachusetts connection. The main construction firm was Suffolk, run by John Fish. – Wall Street Journal

TAX RECORDS: The Wu administration released tax records for properties showing that it isn’t penalizing landlords who challenge assessments in court. – Boston Business Journal

QUINCY MAYOR COMMENTS: Quincy Mayor Tom Koch, appearing on Dan Rea’s WBZ radio show, angered listeners after saying Catholic Church child sex abuse cases were “mostly homosexual issues.” – Patriot Ledger

COLLEGE COURSES: Metric Media, a national network, has asked public colleges for course materials and the number of enrolled Chinese national students as part of an effort to spotlight “anti-American” classes. – GBH News

D7 IN COURT: A municipal judge ended a harassment prevention order sought by a Healey administration official against a candidate for Boston’s District 7 Council seat, Said Ahmed. – Boston Globe

MORE HEADLINES

Here are the Mass. towns with the highest tax bills

Somerville becomes a focal point for ICE arrests

Former UMass associate provost pays $10,000 for violating conflict of interest law

Boston City Council backs safe injection sites

JOB BOARD

Do you have an open job you'd like to feature here? Click here to place a job board order, or email Dylan Rossiter at [email protected].