CommonWealth’s Summer 2018 issue is out!

Our latest – and last – quarterly print magazine comes out today

Our latest – and last – quarterly print magazine comes out today. Yes, that’s right. It will be the last one, as we focus all of our attention and resources on our website. As I said in the editor’s note, I want to thank everyone who shared their thoughts over the last several months about the course we should follow. It was a tough decision, but I want to assure you that our brand of long-form, in-depth journalism is not going away. It’s here to stay.

Our cover story in this issue asks what rental cars have to do with police training? The answer is not much, but Beacon Hill seems to be warming to the idea of tacking a $2 fee on to rental car leases and using the money to pay for police training. We examine this practice of using private funds to pay for public programs and come away skeptical based on the track record of a long-standing legislative assessment on property and casualty insurance companies to pay for firefighter training. That assessment tripled over the last 14 years to $28 million and the tab keeps growing as lawmakers have started looking at the pot of private money as a slush fund that can be used to pay for just about any municipal project that has some connection to fire.

Keri Rodrigues acquired a reputation as Cruella de Vil in 2016 when she broke with labor and helped lead the fight for a 2016 ballot question lifting the cap on charter schools. After suffering a crushing defeat, Rodrigues is back. She’s now the mom-in-chief of Massachusetts Parents United, a nonprofit seeking to empower parents on all sorts of issues, including education reform. But many of her foes from the charter fight are suspicious she’s got some hidden agenda, in part because her new venture is supported by many of the same groups that backed lifting the charter cap in 2016.

Is it possible Sen. Elizabeth Warren is becoming more bipartisan? That’s what new research indicates.

Gateway Cities are learning the power of food to improve health, build community, and spur economic development.

Gregory Jenkins, the executive director of the Somerville Arts Council, is the guy whose job is to make sure Somerville remains edgy and cool.

A tour of a county jail these days is likely to turn up dogs, drumming, and bead work as houses of correction have become the focal point of treatment and rehabilitation programs to help inmates recover from substance abuse, regain their mental health, and develop life and work skills they will need to succeed on the outside and stay out of jail.

Edward M. Murphy crunches the numbers on health care spending and comes away alarmed at the trend lines in pharmaceuticals and insurance. He worries that vertical integration – think CVS buying Aetna – could make matters worse.

The print issue containing these stories is in the mail and all of the articles are currently available online at commonwealthmagazine.org. Check them out. As always, feel free to reach out to me with any comments or concerns.

Thanks,

Bruce Mohl, Editor