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By Bruce Mohl

As of this afternoon, 90 comments had been posted on Boston.com about the Boston Globe’s story about Don Chiofaro’s clash with Mayor Thomas Menino, and they seemed split fairly evenly between opponents of the controversial developer and opponents of the mayor.

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By Bruce Mohl

The reader comments at the end of online newspaper stories are apparently becoming a battle ground in the fight over a proposed high-rise tower along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

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By Bruce Mohl

Paul Hibbard is stepping down as chairman of the state Department of Public Utilities and being replaced by a top aide to Ian Bowles, the secretary of energy and environmental affairs.

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By Bruce Mohl

The House budget plan is not expected to include Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to move the state’s probation service out of the judiciary and into the executive branch, according to a source briefed on the situation.

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By Bruce Mohl

Howie Carr and Jim Braude are about as far apart on the political spectrum as you can get, but both of them are singing the same song about the state’s probation service.

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By Bruce Mohl

No one, it appears, is policing public officials to make sure they comply with the state’s Open Meeting Law.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, in a presentation to Beacon Hill budget officials earlier this week, said the Legislature transferred enforcement of the state’s Open Meeting Law from the 11 district attorneys to her office. But lawmakers provided  no additional funding to do the work.

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By Bruce Mohl

The Wall Street Journal reports that a number of Massachusetts officials, including state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, received campaign contributions from out-of-state law firms in connection with their push for pension fund litigation.

The front-page report says Cahill received $10,000 in $500 donations in 2005 from people associated with Labaton Sucharow LLP, a New York plaintiffs’ law firm. At the time, the firm was vying to become one of several securities litigator for the $40 billion state pension fund, which Cahill chairs. Continue Reading
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By Bruce Mohl

David Guarino, in a blog post on MS&L Boston’s PR Finish Line, praises the Boston Redevelopment Authority for releasing what he calls a pre-buttal to last week’s investigative reports on the agency by CommonWealth magazine and Fox 25 Undercover.

The reports focused on an unusual fee imposed by the agency on certain real estate sales and the overrepresentation of city employees in a BRA affordable housing program. To see our reports, go here and here; to see the Fox 25 reports, go here.

On the day the magazine was being delivered to subscribers but before Fox could air its first broadcast, the BRA issued a press release to its Twitter network laying out its own defense. The BRA press release for the most part stuck to the facts, albeit a one-sided version of them. But it was annoying to me, my colleague Jack Sullivan, and Fox reporter Mike Beaudet that BRA officials went public even before seeing Beaudet’s piece.

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Attorney General Martha Coakley finds herself on both sides of a sensitive legal dispute over the state's competitive auto insurance system.

As the state's top lawyer, Coakley is defending the Patrick administration against a lawsuit that alleges some of the state's auto insurance rules unfairly favor national companies new to the market, such as Geico and Progressive Insurance.

But as a representative of consumers on auto insurance issues, she has been critical of those same regulations. In a scathing report her office released just before Christmas, Coakley said the state's so-called "managed competition" auto insurance system has not saved drivers money. She also accused the Patrick administration of "playing favorites" when it comes to setting insurance rules.

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By Bruce Mohl

To get a sense of why the state is in financial trouble, take a look at your investment portfolio. Most people are watching the value of their stocks and bonds plummet. There aren't many capital gains to report. If anything, there are losses.

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