Owner puts BeachFire on the market for $1.5M Hull ... - The Hull Times

10 THE HULL TIMES, Thursday, November 17, 2011 www.hulltimes.com
Redistricting
Continued from page 1
Hull is currently represented by
Congressman William Keating. Keating,
who lives in Quincy, will move to his
Cape Cod home in Bourne, from which
he will represent the newly created
District 9, which will include the South
Shore towns of Marshfield and Duxbury,
along with Plymouth, New Bedford, Fall
River, Cape Cod, and the Islands.
One of the primary goals of the redistricting
committee was to create a district
that accurately reflects the numbers of
minority voters in the city of Boston.
In the past, Boston area minority voters
were split up among several different
districts that splintered the city.
State Rep. Garrett Bradley, a Democrat
who represents Hull, Hingham,
Cohasset, and part of Scituate, was on
the Joint Committee on Redistricting.
Bradley said that he is happy with the
partitioning plan. “When you go from
10 seats to nine seats, there are going to
have to be changes,” he said.
“We have been well served by Congressman
Keating and will be well served
by Congressman Lynch,” Bradley said.
He said that the redistricting was based
on numbers, not on “gerrymandering” or
political motivations, as it has been in the
past. Gerrymandering is the practice of
creating voting districts that are based on
partisan politics and designed to protect
incumbent congressmen.
Bradley said that the response to the
new district map has been “generally
positive.” When the state was redistricted
in 2002, he said, “We got sued
by everybody.”
State Sen. Robert Hedlund, a Weymouth
Republican whose district also
includes Hull, has a different point of
view. “I have a lot of constituents that
are not happy,” he said this week.
The redistricting was dictated by
politics and gerrymandering, he said,
describing it as “geographic gymnastics,”
referring to the “crazy lines” of the
sometimes jaggedly defined districts of
the new map.
The redistricting committee, he explained,
had representatives from both
parties, but the Democrats held the majority.
The committee’s map protects incumbents,
he said. “It’s all driven by politics.”
On Tuesday, when the new proposed
district map was debated by the Legislature,
Hedlund and the other members
of the Republican Caucus introduced an
alternative plan designed to keep Hull
and other South Shore towns together,
in the same district as they are now.
“Maritime interests should remain
together,” the senator said.
According to Hedlund, the redistricting
committee’s map splits 10 communities
and, in certain cases, splits precincts
within towns.
“Our plan only splits five communities,”
he said. “Our plan splits zero
precincts.”
The Republican alternative, he said
is compact and “draws communities
together based on common interests.”
He said it would preserve the minority/majority
district in Boston, but “not
at the expense of dividing communities.”
The alternative map was defeated
in the Senate on Wednesday by a vote
of 31-6.
A group called Reunite the Coast
also takes issue with the redistricting. Its
website calls for a district that unites the
South Shore and “connects it to the Cape
and the South Coast. With fishing fleets,
maritime infrastructure like seawalls,
and tourism, these communities share a
lot in common. The South Shore communities
of Weymouth, Hingham, Hull,
Cohasset, and Scituate further benefit by
having a congressman advocating for a
district full of coastal towns instead of a
Congressman too preoccupied by urban
Boston and inland issues to attend to the
four coastal towns in his large district.”
An email from the group said that
“Hull has almost nothing in common
with urban Boston and inland cities and
towns like Brockton and Dedham, but
we share almost everything in common
with Marshfield, Plymouth, Cape Cod,
and the South Coast.”
Keating was elected to Congress in
2010, to succeed William D. Delahunt,
who retired.
Town Manager Philip Lemnios said
this week that Keating, in his short
tenure representing Hull, has been very
attentive to the town’s needs. “His enthusiasm
will be missed,” Lemnios said.
But, he added, “If Rep. Lynch is his
replacement, I don’t think we could do
any better.
“He has proven time and time again
to work very hard for his constituents,”
Lemnios said.
In a telephone interview from Washington,
Keating said he will continue to
work hard for the town and the district
until the current term ends.
He has, he said, an affinity for the
town. “Hull embraced me while I was
running, and I embraced Hull.”
Keating, who said he did not have a
hand in the redistricting decisions, cited
the unique characteristics and coastal
issues of the South Shore towns.
Up to the Minute – The Lewenberg guys enjoyed the Colonial Clash tailgate
with a friend before the recent football game between the UMass Minutemen
and the UNH Wildcats. The Lewenbergs are UMass/Amherst alumni. L to
R: Paul Lewenberg, Roger Lewenberg, Sean Louisdaux, and Peter Lewenberg.
“There is a commonality among the
coastal communities,” he said. “The
South Shore has never been broken in
two.” ∞
State House
Continued from page 3
O’Flaherty [D-Chelsea] and Sen. Cynthia
Creem [D-Newton].
The fate of Senate plans to make
wholesale changes to the state’s criminal
statutes – enhancing authorities’ wiretapping
power, reducing mandatory minimum
sentences for some drug crimes,
reconfiguring drug weights in sentencing,
and restricting parole for third-time
violent offenders – remains murky.
The House voted 142-12 Wednesday
night to pass a sharply pared version of
that plan, limiting it only to the crackdown
on repeat offenders, but the Senate
will insist on its own, more comprehensive
version, likely kicking a resolution
into the new year.
“We look forward to conferencing
this over the next two months so that
when we come back in January we have
a bill we can vote on,” Murray said.
Although it may not appear in any
campaign literature, lawmakers also
agreed to a substantial change to the
state’s alcohol statutes, raising the limit
on alcohol licenses available to chains
and food stores. The bill advanced suddenly
this fall at the urging of package
stores, retailers, and supermarkets who
were threatening to take a more sweeping
proposal to the 2012 ballot.
In addition to healthcare payment
reform, other key pieces of the governor’s
agenda have languished this year,
including his call to implement legislation
to crack down on gun crimes and
youth violence, as well as to support
changes in sentencing laws to deemphasize
mandatory minimum sentences for
nonviolent drug crimes and those that
occur in school zones.
Some of the most substantial policymaking
this year occurred in the
near-constant budgeting by the House
and Senate, which have made it clear
that passing spending plans every one
to two months – often laden with policy
initiatives – is their preferred means of
managing the state’s fiscal condition.
Legislative leaders also held firm on a
pledge to hold the line on taxes, two years
after embracing a sales tax increase.
As they head for their recess, lawmakers
may also receive some welcome
news from Patrick administration budget
officials, who are on track to certify an
automatic reduction in the income tax
for Massachusetts workers next month.
Patrick’s budget chief Jay Gonzalez said
the reduction is likely, thanks to sharply
increasing revenue collections that have
outpaced inflation.
Lawmakers also spent their final
hours passing proposals backed by
labor unions, who earlier in the year
were enraged at efforts to curb collective
bargaining power of some local
employees and who protested pension
system reforms in the past month.
Two bills – one to codify the use of
so-called evergreen clauses in collective
bargaining contracts, the other to
empower MBTA workers to collectively
bargain for supplemental healthcare
benefits – headed to the governor on the
final night of the session. ∞
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