DRUMROLL PLEASE — Maura Healey is popping to Beacon Hill veterans and trusted advisers from the attorney general’s office for her first batch of hires because the governor-elect.
Matthew Gorzkowicz might be Healey’s secretary of administration and finance. He served as assistant secretary for budget after which undersecretary of administration and finance in the course of the Patrick administration and has worked within the state Senate, Department of Mental Health and for the Massachusetts School Constructing Authority. For the past decade-plus he’s been associate vice chairman for administration and finance on the UMass president’s office.
Kate Cook might be Healey’s chief of staff after serving as her first assistant attorney general. Cook was chief legal counsel to former Gov. Deval Patrick in the ultimate two years of his administration. Prior to that, she served as general counsel to the Senate Ways and Means Committee and assistant corporation counsel to town of Boston. She was also a partner at Sugarman Rogers.
Gabrielle Viator, a longtime Healey aide, will function a senior adviser. Viator was an assistant attorney general within the office’s civil rights division when Healey was its chief, and later became her senior policy adviser and chief of staff. She serves as chief deputy attorney general and previously worked within the Legislature and at Ropes & Gray.
With prior stints within the Patrick administration and the Legislature, Healey’s recent hires bring “experience and credibility on Beacon Hill” to the incoming administration, Doug Howgate, the subsequent head of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation who’s worked with Gorzkowicz and Cook, told Playbook.
Gorzkowicz might be answerable for Healey’s first budget, where he’ll must balance the state’s slowing-but-still-exceeding-expectations revenue collections together with his recent boss’s desires to pursue tax reform and keep Massachusetts inexpensive. Mix in the beginning of the millionaires tax and an uncertain economic outlook and it’s a difficult situation for even a seasoned state budget operative.
His former bosses and colleagues say he’s as much as the duty. UMass President Marty Meehan and former A&F Secretary Jay Gonzalez sang Gorzkowicz’s praises in interviews. “He knows exactly what he’s walking into, so he’ll find a way to hit the bottom running,” Gonzalez told Playbook.
And by tapping two of her confidants from the attorney general’s office, Healey is showing “she values those people and people people value her, and in order that loyalty comes through,” former Sen. Mo Cowan, who overlapped with Cook within the Patrick administration, told Playbook.
Healey’s long-awaited announcements will temporarily quell talk of the governor-elect being light on details during her transition. But she continues to lag behind her predecessor in naming key players in her administration. At this point after his 2014 election, Charlie Baker had named 4 Cabinet secretaries and his chief of staff.
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Your Playbook scribe is headed to D.C. for just a few days. In case you see me on the Hill, give me a shout!
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TODAY — Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito highlight their support for vocational and technical education at 9 a.m. in Danvers and rejoice the Massachusetts National Guard’s 386th birthday at 10:30 a.m. on the State House. Polito chairs a Seaport Economic Council Meeting at 1:30 p.m. in Plymouth. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu releases a recent Franklin Park Motion Plan at 10 a.m. in Roxbury, is on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” at 12:30 p.m. and attends the Black Men Lead Boston Program graduation ceremony at 6 p.m. at City Hall Plaza.
— SO LONG, FAREWELL: Outgoing senators and representatives bid adieu to their colleagues on Monday, delivering heartfelt speeches touting their legislative accomplishments and offering advice to those taking their places. State Rep. Tami Gouveia also used her speech to deliver a pointed message to leadership to permit staffers to unionize.
Gouveia is among the many handful of lawmakers departing after largely failed runs for higher office. Former state Sen. Adam Hinds, now the CEO of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, returned to formally say farewell. State Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz, the primary Latina elected to the Senate who gave up her seat to run for governor, spoke about what she does and, more pointedly, doesn’t regret from her decade-plus in office. State Sen. Diana DiZoglio’s speech was more of a see-you-later — she’s moving to the auditor’s office in January.
And state Sen. Eric Lesser used his speech to deliver a warning concerning the state’s regional divides: “Massachusetts is growing increasingly divided on economic and geographic lines. … Left unchecked that divide will bring our whole state down, it is going to make all of us less well-off. Yes, West-East rail goes to assist rather a lot … but so will higher housing, so will more life sciences jobs, so will arts and cultural development, so will manufacturing jobs.”
— “Mass. lawmakers revive proposal requiring state’s chief health worker to review autopsies of young children,” by Matt Stout, Boston Globe: “Months after the measure stalled, the Massachusetts House on Monday passed a proposal that may require the state’s chief health worker to personally review and approve all autopsies of kids younger than 2, reviving its probabilities with just weeks left in Beacon Hill’s legislative session.”
— “Haven’t received your Mass. tax refund? Ensure to file 2021 return,” by Alison Kuznitz, MassLive: “About $150 million stays in state coffers, because the Baker administration awaits more people filing their 2021 tax returns, a Baker administration official told MassLive. But the large push to distribute refunds to all eligible individuals who filed their returns by the tip of October is finished, with Massachusetts issuing $2.75 billion to date to greater than 3.1 million taxpayers, the official said.”
— “Mass. POST Commission Police Officer Database Unveiled,” by Thea DiGiammerino, NBC10 Boston.
— “What is going to it take to diversify the Boston police?” by Ivy Scott, Boston Globe: “As city officials proceed their decades-long push for a more diverse police force, the watchdog agency charged with holding Boston officers accountable has hired two firms to independently review the department’s recruitment and retention of ladies and other people of color.”
— “Boston to think about giving voting rights to some immigrants in local elections,” by Saraya Wintersmith, GBH News: “Lower than a month after voting to ask the legislature to expand municipal voting rights to 16- and 17-year olds, the Boston City Council Monday braced for potentially extending voting rights to yet-to-be-determined categories of immigrants with a hearing, organising a political debate that may reverberate beyond Boston for the approaching recent 12 months.”
— RNC SHAKEUP: Ron Kaufman, Massachusetts’ RNC committeeman and a detailed ally of embattled Chair Ronna McDaniel, said Monday he won’t run for reelection because the committee’s treasurer, citing a desire to return to the “front lines” ahead of 2024. “I’m looking forward very much to returning to the battlefield, when you will, from the back office,” Kaufman told Playbook.
Kaufman urged his colleagues to reelect McDaniel, calling her the “proven, outstanding leader we’d like.” McDaniel faces a challenge from Harmeet Dhillon, a committee member from California who co-chaired Lawyers for Trump in 2020, as Republicans attempt to regroup after a midterm underperformance.
Kaufman declined to handle MassGOP Chair Jim Lyons’ campaign to oust him as treasurer. But he’s keeping lively on the RNC — Kaufman spoke to POLITICO Monday night from Miami, where he was visiting as a part of the committee’s site selection for its 2028 convention.
— “Gov.-elect Healey is generally mum on priorities. Experts point to major challenges and low-hanging fruit,” by Katie Lannan, GBH News: “Within the weeks since they were elected, [Maura] Healey and running mate Kim Driscoll have kept fairly quiet about specific post-inauguration plans, working behind the scenes to construct their team and write their agenda. Along the best way Healey has hinted about her agenda: She’s said housing might be a priority, and desires a dedicated Cabinet secretary for that issue. She’s signaled an interest in early motion on tax reform, and proposed an expanded child tax credit on the campaign trail. After which there are the inescapable big-picture efforts like helping schools proceed to bounce back from the pandemic and addressing workforce shortages that hamper the healthcare system.”
— “CVS, Walgreens to pay Massachusetts $230 million for opioid crisis settlement,” by Irene Rotondo, MassLive: “The state of Massachusetts is about to receive $230 million from a nationwide settlement with CVS and Walgreens regarding allegations that the businesses each had a heavy hand in furthering the opioid crisis, in line with Attorney General Maura Healey.”
— “’It’s just an enormous accomplishment’: Green Line Extension opens with fanfare, festivities, some protests,” by Jeremy Siegel, Bob Seay and Gal Tziperman Lotan, GBH News: “Meredith Porter was excited to be on the primary train, but then turned attention to a different issue: Gentrification. Some landlords are using the brand new Green Line stops as an excuse to lift rents, pushing out long-time residents and vulnerable communities the mass transit line was originally intended to serve.”
— “Troy Sargent sentenced for assaulting police during Jan. 6 Capitol attack,” by Tom Matthews, MassLive: “A Pittsfield, Massachusetts, man was sentenced Monday in District of Columbia federal court to 14 months in prison for assaulting law enforcement officials in the course of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Troy Sargent, 38, was sentenced to 14 months in prison for felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, civil disorder, and 4 related misdemeanor offenses, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.”
— “Trapped: Worcester neighborhoods still suffer from the legacy of redlining,” by Kevin Koczwara, Worcester Business Journal: “Worcester has undergone many iterations — including loads of tough times — but its growth, in numerous ways, has been predictable. It’s a city shaped not only by its hills, but additionally by a map. Specifically, a realty area map drawn and looked over by seven white men in 1936 with ties to the federal government, and town’s banking and real estate industries. The map was commissioned by the Home Owners’ Loan Corp. and used problematic — and, in some cases, downright racist — criteria to categorise town into five areas: Best, Still Desirable, Definitely Declining, Hazardous, and Business. And today, town, like so many others where these maps are drawn, remains to be coping with this legacy.”
— “Can Drugs Treat Addiction? Prisons Offer an Answer,” by Julie Wernau, Wall Street Journal: “Sheriff Peter Koutoujian worked for years to get drugs into Middlesex County jail. Operating the power northwest of Boston had come to feel like living in a nasty rerun, he said. Inmates arrived hooked on opioids, went through detox, lived without drugs and were eventually released. Then they began using again, overdosed and died, or landed back in jail. Mr. Koutoujian aimed to interrupt the cycle with a drugs regime that addiction experts say is probably the most effective known technique to curb opioid use. The outcomes to date are promising.”
— “Hate crimes in Massachusetts jump 31%: ‘Hate crimes proceed to have a deep impact across Recent England’,” by Rick Sobey, Boston Herald: “Hate crimes were on the rise across the state last 12 months, in line with recent FBI hate crime data that shows the Bay State recording its most bias-motivated incidents in five years. Massachusetts saw a notable increase in reported hate crimes in 2021 — from 310 hate crimes in 2020, when hate crime reports dropped in the course of the height of the pandemic, to 407 hate crimes last 12 months.”
SPOTTED — on The Recent York Times’ list of the 93 most stylish people of 2022: Rep. Ayanna Pressley.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to Boston state Sen. Lydia Edwards and Nancy Fitzpatrick.
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