Political Notebook: Lack of roadmap riles some on transportation task force

MEMBERS OF Gov. Maura Healey’s transportation funding task force, charged with releasing a hotly anticipated report by December 31, gathered this week in downtown Boston. But whether they’ll get to where they’re supposed to go is in the eye of the commuter.

Some remain frustrated, while others, including the chair and the head of an influential business group, are optimistic that they’ll get a substantive report, with recommendations for a long-term transportation finance plan, over to Healey and state lawmakers. The idea behind the task force was to come up with bold ideas for the stabilization of the state’s transportation system, which has seen plenty of reports over the years, but little action to fix its funding structure. The MBTA is facing a $700 million funding gap that could lead to massive service cuts if it isn’t addressed.

But among the frustrated members, the feeling is they could be kicking the can again, and the governor isn’t getting what she asked for. There are concerns the report won’t go far enough, partly sparked by a 60-or-so-page draft that summarized the research and data to date. They viewed the draft as too vague in how the governor and legislature should deal with transportation funding, a potential bad sign for the final product.

But others called any frustration premature, even though the 31-member task force has just weeks to complete its work before disbanding.

“Anytime you put a large group of people together to help solve a complex public policy issue like funding transportation, it’s going to be difficult, especially when the members come at this with a variety of interests,” said Jim Rooney, a task force member and the CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. The interests range from geographically based ones to policy-focused ones, such as climate change.

“The work of this task force and the product that is produced is in many ways the beginning in that the task force will have done its duty, will disband, and then it’s up to the Legislature and governor to take this work and figure out what the next steps are,” Rooney said. “That’s going to be years’ worth of work. Nobody should’ve expected that a report gets filed by this task force on December 31 and on January 1 all our problems are solved. We all know the state of affairs in transportation took decades to get into the situation we’re in and it’s going to take time to get out of it.”

Rooney said he believes that the report will offer Beacon Hill “more than a tool kit.”

Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Healey’s transportation chief and the task force’s chair, echoed Rooney, saying attendees at the meeting discussed what needs to be included in the sections on regional transit authorities and rural communities. She called it the “culmination of all of the deep dives we’ve done,” and said it was “the best meeting” the task force has held since forming in January.

“And now we’re going to work on a draft at our next meeting,” she said while leaving an unrelated event on Wednesday. “After that I will have a much better idea of where we think we’re going to land. But overall, like we’ve said at the beginning, we are looking everywhere, nationally and internationally, to put together the best set of options for the Legislature and the administration, and then from that point it’s in their hands.”

Siding with Boston mayor, police union takes on senator delaying tax shift proposal

All politics is situational. A good example of that is Boston’s property tax proposal, which has scrambled Beacon Hill’s usual alignments.

The state Senate, usually considered the more progressive branch in comparison to the more moderate House, has repeatedly sided with business groups in questioning Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s property tax shift proposal, which she has been pushing as a temporary way to keep residential bills from going up while slowing an expected drop in commercial property tax bills.

The proposal also split some typical allies. A case in point: the conservative Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, which lashed out at state Sen. Nick Collins, a Democrat who became the only Boston lawmaker in either chamber to publicly sound off against the progressive mayor’s proposal. (Meanwhile, Wu recently lunched over a Zoom meeting with Senate Republicans, pitching them on her plan.)

After the first time Collins delayed the bill this week, the police union took to social media and asked why would Collins “choose the needs of big business over the needs of the hardworking residents who stand to bear the burden of a massive residential tax increase?”

When Collins and union leaders ran into each other in the hallway – just after Collins delayed the proposal for the second time and questioned whether it was necessary after seeing the latest property valuation numbers – the senator raised his voice and angrily pointed his finger at the BPPA’s president, Larry Calderone.

Calderone seemed to take the gesticulations in stride. Speaking with a reporter who witnessed the exchange, he noted they’ve long maintained good relations with Collins, who represents many of their members. But that hasn’t stopped the union, which has 1,000 members across the city, from calling him out for a stand that Calderone says will hurt them.

“We read the newspapers like everyone else,” he said. “We see the House pass it quickly and then it stalls in the Senate, and then it’s our Boston senator who unfortunately is here today and has to answer as to why.”