Portrait of former Senate President Stan Rosenberg coming to the State House
Sam Doran Ella Adams Keith Regan Eric Convey
Happening Today: 8:00 | Massachusetts Municipal Management Association holds the second day of its fall conference. MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine provides an update, and sessions focus on personal finance and manager contracts | AC Hotel, 125 Front St., Worcester 9:30 | Gov. Healey speaks at the annual Massachusetts National Adoption Day Celebration | Boston […]
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MASSterList
Happening Today:

8:00 | Massachusetts Municipal Management Association holds the second day of its fall conference. MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine provides an update, and sessions focus on personal finance and manager contracts | AC Hotel, 125 Front St., Worcester

9:30 | Gov. Healey speaks at the annual Massachusetts National Adoption Day Celebration | Boston Juvenile Court, Brooke Courthouse, 24 New Chardon St, Boston

2:30 | Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and Secretary Ed Augustus participate in the South Shore Chamber of Commerce’s Housing Forum | The Doubletree by Hilton, 929 Hingham St, Rockland

MASSterList told you last week about former Gov. Charlie Baker’s plans for an official portrait, soon to grace the governor’s lobby. Turns out, there’s another portrait in the works that will take a spot on the State House’s walls of history.

As with Baker, political finance records provided the clue: former Senate President Stan Rosenberg has engaged a local art studio to record his visage for posterity, and his campaign fund paid them an initial $30,000 in June.

There’s no grand unveiling date on the calendar yet, Rosenberg told MASSterList, and the portraiture process “will be a slow-moving train.”

He is the third Senate leader who’s turned to Southborough-based Prosperi Studio. The husband-and-wife team of Warren and Lucia Prosperi painted the portraits of Presidents William Bulger and Therese Murray, which tourists view every day in the Senate Reading Room.

“Not only have I seen (Warren Prosperi’s) portraits, but I’ve seen a lot of other work that he has done, which I really liked,” Rosenberg said, pointing to Prosperi’s murals that capture moments in American history.

The Amherst Democrat served as the Senate’s first Jewish and openly gay president before his 30-year career ended under a cloud in 2018 with an investigation into the activities of his husband and allegations that his husband assaulted multiple men.

Every Senate leader in recent memory (at least since President Maurice Donahue in the 1970s) has commissioned an official portrait, and Rosenberg told MASSterList that he made up his mind to move forward around six months ago after being “encouraged by many” not to leave a gap in the historical timeline that the paintings create.

Artist Warren Prosperi is “self-educated in the tradition of Optical Naturalism,” according to Vose Galleries, and the Prosperis “approach portraiture” by “presenting a moment, which reflects the character and environment of the subject.”

They portraited Bulger sitting on the chamber’s dais, and Murray — the Senate’s first woman president — holding a gavel at the rostrum. As for how Rosenberg will be pictured, he would only say, “Stay tuned.”

Also rumored to be considering portrait artists: Rosenberg’s successor, former President Harriette Chandler. — Sam Doran

Beacon Hill Democrats’ legislative stumbling has wide impact

The failure of state House and Senate Democrats to resolve budget differences and provide $250 million in emergency shelter funding before the formal legislative clock for the year ran out Wednesday night is having broad reverberations, according to various state media outlets.

WBUR reported that 31 Haitian immigrants, more than half of them children, were booted out of Logan International Airport Wednesday night and told they would be brought to South Station for the evening. They ended up being diverted to nine hotel rooms obtained by an advocate. The families are on the emergency shelter waitlist, though there is no “waiting place” for them in the meantime.

The Boston Herald noted that the legislators’ need to gain unanimous consent if they’re to use informal sessions to conduct meaningful business for the rest of the year will give new power to Beacon Hill Republicans, who can stop action on a bill with a single dissenting vote. “We definitely have leverage,” one GOP lawmaker told the Herald.

The stalled budget also means state workers won’t get agreed-upon pay raises and farmers won’t receive promised aid, Axios Boston reports.

Among their differences, House and Senate leaders can’t agree how much leeway to give Gov. Maura Healey in determining how to spend $250 million in emergency shelter assistance.

— WBUR | Boston Herald | Axios Boston

That price can’t be right. $24.5B to fix the T?

Following a new transit agency analysis of the T’s trains, tracks, signals and construction, a $24.5 billion price tag has been placed on full repairs to the system. With two-thirds of the MBTA’s assets in poor shape, the new estimate is almost two and a half times more expensive than former Gov. Charlie Baker’s 2019 capital needs assessment. The estimate does not include funding for regular infrastructure maintenance, expansions and electrifications in the future. — State House News Service | Boston Globe

Gun Violence Prevention Unit launches, director named

Attorney General Andrea Campbell launched her office’s Gun Violence Prevention Unit on Thursday, a new unit charged with ensuring that Mass. has the “strongest, most comprehensive commonsense firearm laws in the country.” Campbell hired Mass. native Christine Doktor away from her managing attorney position at Everytown Law to serve as inaugural director. — State House News Service

Incoming Boston city councilor breaks law, pays $5.4K

Former City Hall Official Enrique Pepén broke campaign finance laws by promoting his city council campaign “kickoff” on social media while he was still serving as a city employee. State regulators ruled that Pepén pay $5,400 to resolve the issue with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, as unelected public employees are barred from soliciting political donations. — Boston Globe

Salem Hospital says 450 patients may have been exposed to infection

Salem Hospital is working with state health officials to notify as many as 450 patients who received intravenous medication during a two-year period that there is a small risk they were exposed to infections such as hepatitis and HIV. — Salem News

Boston City Council to weigh letting non-citizens vote

Boston City Councilor Kendra Lara is promoting a measure that would let immigrants who are in the country legally but lack citizenship vote in municipal elections. “It’s not a new idea. It’s important, I think, to give a voice to folks locally, who are providing and are subject to all manner of municipal decisions,” Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, a supporter of the change, said. Councilor Michael Flaherty questioned whether the policy change would be legal and noted that councilors previously were told by an immigration advocate that legal immigrants who voted in non-municipal elections, even if by accident, could jeopardize their ability to one day become citizens. — Boston Herald

Cannabis Control Commission’s inaugural executive director stepping down

After six years of service, Shawn Collins will be stepping down on Dec. 4 from his role as executive director of the Cannabis Control Commission. Although he denied claims in July that he would be stepping down at the end of the year, a statement from Collins read at a public meeting on Thursday announced his resignation. Collins has been on family leave since October and the future of the commission — and his replacement — is still unknown. — State House News Service | Boston Business Journal

Some of state’s high schools struggling with immigrant surge

Some Mass. high schools are struggling to educate an immigrant population that has tripled in the last 15 years, the Boston Globe reports. According to the Globe, more than half of the new arrivals attended 14 of the state’s high schools. The difficulties faced by the schools come as a number of groups push a ballot measure that would do away with the requirement that high schools only graduate students who have passed the state MCAS test. — Boston Globe

With Everett stadium on pause, Wu wonders why Boston was left out of talks

With action aimed at clearing the way for a New England Revolution stadium in Everett now on hold along with the rest of the supplemental budget, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is now asking why her city wasn’t consulted on the project, which a spokesperson said will have traffic and other impacts on Boston, Jon Chesto of the Globe reports. — Boston Globe

Push to get legalizing psychedelics on ballot hits procedural snag

Two weeks after it said it had collected enough signatures to get the question of whether to legalize psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics on the 2024 ballot, Massachusetts for Mental Health Options now faces the prospect of having some signatures disqualified because the sheets used to collect them contained what the Secretary of State’s office said were “disqualifying marks” including a union logo. — WBUR

Street food and beverages popular in other cities could come to Boston

The Boston City Council is set to consider whether to allow non-motorized food carts for purveyors of coffee and other items in certain areas, under a newly proposed measure. Axios Boston, which reported the development, described the current process for obtaining a food cart license as “daunting.” Food carts are popular in New York City for items such as coffee; Axios notes Central Americans in Boston may find non-motorized carts and their cuisine reminiscent of home. A council committee will take up the measure later this month. — Axios Boston

Weekend political talkshows

Keller@Large, Sunday, 8:30 a.m., WBZ-TV. Political analyst Jon Keller’s guest is Northeastern University Professor Dan Kennedy. He discusses recent examples of local governmental obstruction of the free flow of public information and the state of local community journalism.

On The Record, Sunday, 11 a.m., WCVB. Ed Harding and Sharman Sacchetti host MBTA General Manager Phil Eng. Democratic Political Analyst Mary Anne Marsh and Republican Political Analyst Rob Gray join the roundtable discussion.

At Issue, Sunday, 11:30 a.m., NBC10 Boston. Hosts Cory Smith and Sue O’Connell welcome Gov. Maura Healey, who discusses the migrant crisis, the administration’s tax and housing initiatives and her decision to stop disclosing her out-of-state travel.

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