Skip to content
Newton, Needham, Watertown, Wellesley
Subscribe to our free e-newsletter
Our Region
Directory
Member Login

Maura Healey's major league moves

Back to Chamber News

Maura Healey's major league moves

Major League Baseball just introduced a series of rule changes designed to make the game more competitive in an era of changed attention spans and attrition to other sports. 
 
And Gov. Maura Healey just introduced a series of tax reforms designed to make Massachusetts more competitive in an era of high costs and attrition to other states.
 
MLB is making the bases bigger, hoping to encourage more stolen bases and give players more room to operate and avoid collisions.
 
Healey's $750 million tax package aims to keep other states from stealing our workers and gives tax credits to parents, renters, seniors, and others who have been fleeing to New Hampshire, Florida, and elsewhere in record numbers.
 
Baseball is also eliminating the defensive shift.
 
Healey’s defensive measures include shifting the estate tax exemption cap from $1 million to $3 million and slashing the short-term capital gains tax rate from 12% to 5%, aligning it with the levy applied to long-term capital gains and most other income.
 
Most notably, baseball is looking to speed up the game through the introduction of a pitch clock.
 
Umm.
 
Unfortunately, governors can’t do much in that department. Healey will file her tax package, along with her first state budget, tomorrow, less than two months after she was handed the keys to the corner office.
 
But it’s now up to our notoriously slow legislators who will no doubt drag deliberations until well past the All-Star Game. 
 
What else is in Healey's plan
 
Here are some of the other items of note in Healey's tax relief package:
 
  • Increase the housing renter deduction cap from $3,000 to $4,000.
 
  • Increase the initial annual cap on housing development tax credits from $10 million to $50 million in the coming fiscal year.
 
  • Expand the number of occupations that qualify for apprenticeship tax credits, and double the statewide cap on those credits to $5 million.
 
  • Promote local live theater with a new credit for a share of payroll, production, and transportation costs for qualifying productions. 
 
  • Promote more locally produced hard cider and still wine by allowing higher-alcohol content ciders and wines to qualify for lower tax rates. 
 
  • Exempt employer assistance with student loan repayment from taxable income.
 
  • Add regional transit passes and bike commuter expenses, such as bike-share memberships, purchases, and storage, to those that qualify for tax deductions, alongside existing expenses like tolls and MBTA passes.  
 
  • Extend the expiring brownfields tax credit for the cleanup of contaminated properties through 2028.
 
The Globe's Dana Gerber breaks down what the package could mean to individual taxpayers. The BBJ's Benjamin Kail highlights the plans business' related features.
 
More pop-up retail shops are on the way
 
Needham, Newton, Wellesley, and Melrose have each received another round of state grants that will allow them to continue an innovative program that helps underwrite the cost of filling vacant storefronts with pop-up merchants in partnership with Project: Pop-Up
 
Wellesley will use the grant to extend its current Project: a Pop-Up location at 91 Central Street. Apply here to be part of the shared space for the next season, spanning mid-March through May. 
 
Newton and Needham will be looking for new spaces to expand their Project: Pop-Up footprints.
 
Economics aside, don't forget about the science
 
Lost amidst all business headlines about the struggles some biotechs are having with stock values, IPOs, and layoffs, it’s easy to overlook that these employers in our communities are developing breakthrough cures, vaccines, and therapies that can -- and have -- change lives.
 
This weekend the Globe magazine had a roundup of 12 medical conditions -- from Alzheimer’s to Lyme -- local biotechs are developing treatments for now.
 
Yesterday Axios Boston wrote about a local mom whose own experience led to the design of an at-home strep test she says will offer a faster, cheaper alternative to going to the doctor.
 
Nathalya Mamane came up with the idea in Wellesley while in grad school at Babson College.
 
Her company RT MicroDx is now developing what she describes as a PCR-quality, at-home kit at Lab Shares in Newton.
 
“I thought about what was my biggest pain point as a mom, and it's always been going to the doctor," Mamane tells Axios. “My vision has been to make this affordable and accessible.”
 
If the test works, she wants to develop a similar one to detect mono or other illnesses.
 
Needham looks to ban plastic bags, expand ADUs
 
In May Needham Town Meeting will consider the citizens’ petition warrant article that would ban plastic bags ( page 34 here).
 
Similar to rules already familiar in other communities, the bylaw will end the use of single-use plastic checkout bags distributed by retailers and restaurants. Needham businesses are urged to complete this survey about their plastic bag use.
 
Also on the docket, Town Meeting will consider expanding its now very limited accessory dwelling units (ADUs) rules. The zoning change would drop current residency restrictions and allow attached ADUs by right rather than by special permit. There are also new rules that would also allow ADUs that are detached from the main residence.  
 
Watertown seeking cultural district designation
 
Watertown is pursuing a plan to designate part of the city – most likely Watertown Square and the Main Street Corridor area -- as a cultural district.
 
The designation would allow arts and culture groups, restaurants, and other businesses to apply for grants and be promoted as a destination.
 
“The money allocated to a cultural district can be used for marketing purposes: making a website, creating a brochure, materials that might be distributed to visitors so we can engage visitors,” Liz Helfer, the city’s Public Arts & Culture Planner tells the Watertown News.
 
128 Biz Council taps new leader
Lisa Stiglich 128 BC
Now that former 128 Business Council Executive Director, Monica Tibbits-Nutt has begun her new role as the Undersecretary of Transportation at MassDOT, longtime operations director Lisa Stiglich is behind the wheel as 128BC's new executive director.
 
“I’m leaving 128 Business Council in the best possible hands,” Tibbits-Nutt said in a statement. “It is also reassuring to know that I am not actually leaving the work of the Council behind, but rather taking our whole team’s priorities to a new, statewide platform."
 
 
More need to knows
 
  • Tickets are available for the 2023 Taste of Wellesley on May 4 at Elm Bank. Proceeds benefit the Rotary Club of Wellesley’s efforts to alleviate food insecurity.
 
 
 
  • CyberArk’s founder and CEO Udi Mokady will become the Newton-based company’s executive chairman. COO Matthew Cohen moves up to CEO. The Wells Ave-based cybersecurity company has about 2,750 employees, including 300 in Newton. (Boston Globe)
 
  • Congressman Jake Auchincloss will host a Needham Virtual Roundtable March 7 at 5:30 p.m. RSVP
 
Once busted for pot, now he owns a Newton pot business
Devin Alexander
Back in 2011, 17-year-old Devin Alexander was arrested and jailed for possessing 1.5 grams of marijuana.
 
Nearly one dozen years to the day later, Alexander just received approval from the Cannabis Control Commission to open Rolling Releaf.
 
It’s Newton’s first cannabis delivery service and the city's first Black-owned cannabis business, reports Cassie McGrath at the BBJ.
 
Alexander was part of the first cohort of the CCC's social equity program, which provides support to incoming cannabis entrepreneurs who are people of color, or who were harmed by the war on drugs.
 
Reminder: Love Local Clothing Drive ends today
 
Finally, one last reminder that our Love Local Clothing Drive ends today.
 
Here's a list of the nearly 30 local restaurants collecting new sweatshirts, sweatpants, t-shirts, socks, and other items for homeless children, women, and men at 25 local shelters and health clinics.
 
Or you can make an online donation here and let our friends at Circle of Hope purchase their most-needed items on your behalf.
 
Thanks to everyone who has already contributed!
?
 
That’s your Need to Knows for today –--National Public Sleeping Day -- unless you need to know what happens to Amazon drivers if they're caught drinking – coffee -- while driving.
 
 
Be back in you inbox on Friday.
 
Greg Reibman (he, him)
President
617.244.1688
 
P.S. This newsletter is only possible because of the financial support from our members. If you find our communications helpful or interesting, please join us today.
Powered By GrowthZone