Category: Clamsplainer

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Clamdorsements 2026: Questions, Questions, Questions!

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Greetings, Clam Nation, and welcome to the Clamsplainer 2026 November Election Guide: Hey Kehd Go Vote. 

Let’s get this out of the way: don’t vote for a Republican. Not even Minogue. Why not Minogue? There’s a bevy of reasons why not, but the quick and dirty reason is his fundraiser for JD Vance 2 years ago. We all saw what was coming if Herr Drumpf was elected again, and here we are. He isn’t giving anyone $5,000. He doesn’t even care about the most important members of his cabinet. No one in the President’s orbit is immune to his toxicity, and once Minogue stops being useful to him, we will all suffer. Why would you do that to yourself? Vote Dem down the line. That said, up here we’re ok if you make a single exception to this and just vote for people with the last name “Tarr” for our two State House seats. Because Bruce doesn’t MAGA.

Now for the real meat and potatoes: If you’re a Massachusetts voter, you should have received an 87-page mailer explaining the 9 (NINE) ballot questions for the state election on November 3. And, if you’re anything like us, you go cross-eyed at the thought of reading an 87-page mailer. We don’t even want to do a nostalgic look at an old Sears catalogue. 

Not gonna lie, though, a $1300 DIY house sounds pretty lit

 

Question 1: Expanding the Public Records Law: Vote YES

Voting Yes on Question 1 would make most records held by the Legislature and the Office of the Governor public records under the Massachusetts Public Records Law. Everyone knows how much of a hot-button issue the audit has been, right? This would help to make that point moot and hopefully shut up some of the Facebook bots. Are there some potential downsides? The one concern we can get behind is that constituents should be able to contact their representatives in confidence. And that should be a carve-out. Otherwise, transparency = good.

 

Question 2: Collective Bargaining for CPCS Employees: Vote YES

Voting Yes on Question 2 would specify that the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services employees may form a union to collectively bargain with their employer. Unionize? Yes. Always. Duh. Plus they get screwed pretty badly now. 

 

Question 3: State Primary Elections: Vote NO

This seems like a Yes, but this question would eliminate separate party primaries for state elections and require a single primary in which all candidates appear on one ballot. Voting Yes on this question favors PACs and candidates with more money. As much as the two-party system sucks, we’d be better with RCV than with this nonsense. We want an equitable election from start to finish, so let’s leave it as is, thanks. That doesn’t make us fans of the current state of affairs, it just recognizes that the “all-party primary” is disturbingly easy to game.

This isn’t just a “vote blue” issue, either. If you have a reliably Democratic seat that’s open, a lot of candidates tend to line up for that open seat. Let us remind you of the just-concluded primary for MA-06 that was won by Dan Koh. Koh wound up winning with 42% of the vote as a lot of last-minute consolidation happened, and he made the ballot against Micah Jones who was unopposed on the Republican side. Koh is likely to win the seat, but the GOP can compete for it.

Were there an all-party primary this outcome still could have happened. But given the results, there was also a pretty good chance we would have wound up with Jones off the ballot, and a Koh/Nguyen final between two Democrats could have happened. As Democrats we should like that outcome, but as fans of democracy we don’t.

In any scenario where one party has a number of candidates and the other only one or two, it’s much more likely that the party with most of the candidates split the vote enough to let the other party take both slots.

Give us real election finance reform, get rid of PACs, and allow ranked choice voting and we’d be all for the all-party primary. Without those fixes, it’s not such a good idea.

 

Question 4: Election Day Registration: Vote YES

A Yes vote would permit eligible citizens to register to vote or to update their voter registration address at their polling place on Election Day. If you’ve ever missed the voter registration deadline (it’s October 24, bbs, so get going), you’ve left your vote in everyone else’s hands. For those of us who do everything at the last minute, a Yes on this question eliminates another barrier to register to vote. We stan a no-barrier election for the populace. A lot of states already do this and it works just fine.

 

Question 5: State Revenue Limit and Rebate: Vote NO

This proposed law would change the limit on how much tax revenue the state can collect in a given year. The proposed law would include all revenue from the surtax on incomes over $1 million when calculating the revenue limit and when determining whether state revenue exceeds the limit. Voting Yes would roll back the progress Massachusetts has made since passing the Fair Share Amendment in 2022. Because the White House doesn’t like blue states, we need all the revenue we can get to fund important things like public schools and MassHealth.

We know Massachusetts has a reputation as a high-tax state, but do a little searching and you’ll see the truth: we’re right in the middle of the pack depending on how and what you measure – generally ranked between 21st and 29th. The “Millionaire’s Tax” surcharge puts us higher for some people (and affects our overall ranking when conservative site calculate the burden). But those aren’t the people reading this blog post. Your Clam and virtually all of you don’t pay the surcharge but we all benefit from it. See below.

This is another one of those questions that sounds great – but the people who get this tax money back are the people who need it least, to be blunt. And it’s basically a back-door way to try and repeal the very successful “Millionaire’s Tax” that the voters approved a couple of elections ago. It affects about half a percent of our taxpayers, about 22k households. Don’t fall for it.

 

Question 6: Natural Resource Conservation Fund: Vote ?

If Question 6 passes, money from the state’s General Fund would be allocated to a Natural Resource Conservation Fund. This fund can only be used for conservation purposes. According to Ballotpedia, “Question 6 would require that 50% of the tax revenue from the sale and use of sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses be placed in the fund. After July 1, 2028, 100% of tax revenue from the sale and use of those items would be placed in the fund. Question 6 would also create a 15-person commission that would oversee the use of the revenue fund.” 

We like the idea in principle, but there’s a lot more questions than answers so far. The Clam Editorial Board is pretty split on this question and neither side is too passionate about it. Research and vote the way you want to.

 

Question 7: Single Family Homes: Vote YES

Question 7 is another tool in the tool box for aspiring homeowners, developers, and landlords to add to affordable housing stock. Seems like a no-brainer to us. But hey, we know housing is needed in this state, we don’t have enough of it, and that makes it even more expensive. Most of Team Clam has kids, and we’d like them to be able to afford to live here someday, preferably in their own home instead of with us FOREVER.

 

Question 8: Prohibit Retail Sale of Adult Recreational Use Marijuana: Vote NO

Folks, asked and answered. Massachusetts came out strongly in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana 10 years ago. Recreational marijuana is now a huge part of the Massachusetts economy. It isn’t going away. It shouldn’t go away. The feds will hopefully catch up with the rest of us soon. The state makes money, people have jobs, and your neighborhood pot dealer is likely out of business nowadays, and though marijuana isn’t 100% harmless it pales in comparison to alcohol, tobacco, and other legal vices.

 

Question 9: Firearms Regulation: Vote YES

Another no-brainer. We are allowed to own firearms in Massachusetts with reasonable regulations. Keep them in place. This ain’t Texas. Thank goodness. Though if we had all the open space they did we’d have a lot more wind farms.

 

The Brainrot Clamsplainer: Kid Slang for the AIM Generation

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Confession time: Your Clam has an Urban Dictionary tab open again. Not ironically. Not for a bit. We here at The Clam are middle-aged people who genuinely had to look up what “sigma” meant because a 12-year-old said it to us at Market Basket and we panicked and said “you too.”

This is the part of aging nobody warned us about. One day you are the youth, fluent in “da bomb” and “talk to the hand,” recording songs off the radio onto a cassette. The next day a child is calling you a word you have to research like it’s a term paper, and you are hunched over your phone while stuck at the Cut Bridge trying to figure out if you were just complimented or destroyed.

So we did the work. We read the definitions so you don’t have to. Yes, it is, indeed, cringe coming from us. But guess what? EVERYTHING is cringe coming from us now; that’s the deal we signed. But we refuse to be the parents nodding along with no idea what’s happening. We already do that at the doctor.

Here’s the thing that actually helped it click: most of this slang maps perfectly onto the North Shore if you think about it as geography instead of vocabulary. So that’s how we’re gonna teach it. You already know these places in your bones. Now you’ll know the words.

 

67 (say it “six seven,” never “sixty-seven“)

Let’s start with the big one, because your kid has said it 400 times this week. “67” was named Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year for 2025, and here is the beautiful part: it means nothing. On purpose. It came from a rap song, got welded to a tall basketball player (editor’s note: 6’7” isn’t particularly tall for a basketball player), and now kids just yell it, sometimes with a little up-and-down “eh, so-so” hand wobble. The whole joke is that it has no meaning. Grown adults have tried to define it and given up.

Local translation: 67 is Rockport. You ask “how was it?” and the honest answer is a hand wobble. Not good, not bad. It simply is. Fudge was involved. You saw Motif No. 1. Six seven.

One of Clammedia’s youth correspondents assures us this is the original 67 kid meme. Looks like a Rockporter to us.

 

Sigma

A “sigma” is the lone wolf. Supposedly above the whole alpha-and-beta pecking order, too self-sufficient to care about the hierarchy at all. It sounds cooler than it is. It’s mostly just “guy who eats lunch alone and has decided that’s a flex.”

Local translation: Essex is the original sigma. A town so self-contained that they have the most guns per capita across the entire Commonwealth. It’s a fact I heard once and won’t bother looking up but you have chat agents (see? We didn’t say Google it!)

Is Essex a Gigachad? Ask a Gen Alpha.

 

Rizz

Short for charisma. Your ability to charm someone, usually in a flirty way. “He’s got rizz” means he’s smooth. “No rizz” means he is not, and everyone watched it happen. The extension of this is that “rizzed up” is basically the term for flirting – using that charisma on a target (gender-neutral).

Local translation: rizz is the guy at the Gloucester House who has the bartender, the harbormaster, and your aunt all laughing within four minutes. Manchester thinks money is rizz. It is not. Money is money. Rizz is free and Gloucester has always had more of it.

 

Aura

Coolness, measured in points, like an invisible score following you around. Do something smooth, you gain aura. Trip on the sidewalk in front of the whole patio at Latitude 43, you lose aura. There’s a related version, “aura farming,” which is doing cool stuff specifically to rack up points.

Local translation: Manchester-by-the-Sea has enormous aura it did not personally earn. Inherited aura. Trust-fund aura. Gloucester farms every single aura point the hard way, at 4 a.m., in the rain, smelling like bait. Both have aura. Only one of them worked for it.

Evidence? Howard Blackburn.

 

Mid

Mediocre. Aggressively fine. Not bad enough to complain about, not good enough to mention. The most devastating thing a kid can call something, because it’s not an insult, it’s a shrug.

Local translation: we are not going to say which town is mid. We’re just going to say it has a lot of old houses, closes early, and everyone there seems content calling themselves part of Cape Ann, though the rest of us def do not. Draw your own conclusions. (It rhymes with “Ipswich.”)

 

Cooked

Done for. In deep trouble. Beyond saving. “Bro is cooked” means it’s over for him. Can also just mean exhausted, as in “I’m cooked,” which honestly is how most of us feel by Wednesday. We old people used to use “toast” to mean the same thing.

Local translation: trying to drive through downtown Gloucester during Fiesta. You made your choices. You are now cooked. Enjoy your view of the same three feet of Prospect Street for 40 minutes.

 

Delulu

Short for delusional, but affectionate about it. Believing something with zero evidence because it feels nice. “She’s so delulu” about a crush who has never texted back.

Local translation: Anyone who says “the traffic won’t be bad” after ignoring all the horribly worded beach parking signs (residents only excepted!) Delulu, all of you, and we love you.

 

Fanum Tax

This one has an actual origin worth knowing. A streamer named Fanum had a running bit where he’d swipe a bite of his friends’ food. So “fanum tax” now means taking a cut of somebody’s snack. The toll you pay in fries.

Local translation: if you go to the beach and leave your food unattended while you swim, chances are you’ll come back to find it gone. The culprit? Gulls. That’s our Fanum tax, bruh. 

 

Glazing

Excessive, over-the-top praise. Kissing up so hard it gets embarrassing to watch. “Stop glazing him” means you are laying it on way too thick.

Local translation: open “Gloucester Things” during any election. The comment section is 90 percent people glazing their candidate and 10 percent people who “used to sell cigarettes to Sefatia’s second cousin” reporting thirdhand rumors as fact. You already know this genre intimately.

 

Washed

This comes straight from sports, and it’s just short for “washed up” like many of us are. But it mainly refers to being past their prime and visibly so. Usually sudden.

Local translation: “The Mayor started out great but by his second term he was washed.”

Ohio

Used as shorthand for weird, cursed, or broadly wrong. “That’s so Ohio.” No offense to actual Ohio, which never did anything. It just became the internet’s punching bag for “off.”

Local translation: here’s the fun part. Every town on Cape Ann has an Ohio, and it’s always the next town over. To Manchester, everywhere else is Ohio. To Gloucester, Rockport is a little Ohio. To Rockport, honestly, they seem pretty at peace and probably think we’re all Ohio for being this stressed. Six seven.

That’s the starter pack. Enough to survive a car ride with a middle schooler and possibly identify when you’ve been insulted.

 

And look, before we get too smug about “kids these days” and their brainrot: we said “phat.” We said “grody to the max.” We wore JNCO jeans wide enough to smuggle a golden retriever (editor’s note: some of us never had JNCO jeans nor a golden retriever)  and we called things “the bomb” with total sincerity. Every generation invents dumb words that horrify their parents. That’s not the decline of civilization. That’s just civilization, doing the thing it always does, one nonsense syllable at a time.

 

So the next time a kid yells “six seven” at you across the Boulevard, don’t google it. Just wobble your hand and keep walking. You’ve got aura now, unc.

 

Clamsplainer 2025: April 2025 Special Election, Because duh…

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Clamsplainer 2025: Gloucester’s April Special Election and why Tracy O’Neil will cost the City at least $30,000, but if you don’t vote Yes, millions more and it’ll come out of our pockets because do you think for one minute we can rely on the Fed to do anything now?

Editor’s Note: Greeting, Clam Nation. Josh here, retired politician (from elsewhere) and more or less Clam web administrator, bringing you our collective’s latest bit of analysis and snark. This was researched and assembled by our crew because Google Docs are a great way to collaborate. Anyhow, as the token non-Gloucester guy here I get to collect it all, edit slightly, and give you that Clamalysis you’ve all been waiting for.

So there’s a “special election” right now (some of you are already voting early, good for you!) about one thing: Should the plan for modestly increasing “by-right” expansion of multifamily homes in the areas close to MBTA stations that was passed unanimously by the City Council and approved by the Mayor be approved by the voters?

And you’re probably asking “WTF is the point here?” 

Okay, flashback time: In January 2021, the Baker administration and the Legislature (you know, that bastion of socialist tyranny also known as bipartisan government) passed a law called the MBTA Communities Act. It’s intended to make a dent in the chronic housing shortage we have in Massachusetts by relaxing standards for multifamily housing in cities and towns that are in or connected to mass transit. It passed, by the way, unanimously in the State Senate and 143-4 in the House. Not exactly an unpopular law. It’s aimed at helping Massachusetts crawl out of its “nobody can afford to live here” housing crisis by gently nudging 177 cities and towns with transit access—like Gloucester—to allow some multifamily housing near train stations. (our buses don’t count: the CATA system isn’t part of the MBTA). There are some oddities to the map as a result – Only Bourne is included on Cape Cod, a few towns in the Route 2 corridor aren’t part of it, and Avon is in a little donut hole on the South Shore, the only town left out. Boston is a special case within zoning and related laws, so it doesn’t apply to them (they have much more open standards already).

And, simply, the law says that we must establish “at least 1 district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right.” When possible, it must be within half a mile of a public transit terminal (like a commuter rail station or ferry dock).

But how did we get here? Enter: Tracy O’Neil, conspiracy theorist-in-chief and former City Councilor, who spent her term introducing the kind of laws that make InfoWars look moderate. She failed, ran for Mayor, got crushed, and now is spending her time whipping up hatred of government as best she can. She and her merry band of “Just Asking Questions” folks managed to collect enough signatures to force this perfectly rational zoning plan onto the ballot. Because why trust expert planners when you’ve got vibes and a Facebook group?

Speaking of vibes, here’s Tracy’s latest reason why we should vote No: 

The Oracle of Fish Speaketh

 

In an April 14 Gloucester Times article, the main reason we’re all here insists she can foresee the “unintended consequences” of the implementation of this law. Thanks, Tracy, what a relief to have you! Screw all the planning experts, let’s stick with the lady who can totally see what’s coming, everyone, because reasons. If this thing doesn’t pass, Tracy, I am forwarding you my real estate tax bills FOREVER. 

So what happens after this election? Nothing. No, seriously: nothing. Life goes on. People in multifamily zones can finally expand their homes without jumping through flaming hoops at the Zoning Board of Appeals. Zoning sanity is preserved. State compliance is maintained. We don’t lose funding. We don’t pay more in interest. No frogs fall from the sky. The end.

3A compliance is, whether or not we like it, required. The state passed it (under the Baker administration), the courts have upheld it (which hasn’t prevented more lawsuits that’ll waste money and fail), and here in the reality-based world we understand that it’s not a sacrifice to handle it.  Frankly, most communities that have implemented it have done so in a way that minimizes the additional housing possible. Gloucester included.

 

What Happens If We Say No? Then we go on a three-month, tax-funded quest to re-pass basically the exact same plan, but with a slightly different ribbon on top so it’s legally distinct. If we fail? The state slaps the zoning on us anyway, and we lose access to all kinds of state money. Spoiler alert: The money doesn’t disappear—it just goes to other towns that aren’t throwing zoning tantrums.

Oh, and that sweet discounted interest rate Gloucester scored on a wastewater treatment loan? Gone. Looking to the future, we might even lose our “Housing Choice” designation if we’re still out of compliance in 2026. Then, we’d be on the hook for about $13 million in extra interest over the life of the loan. (But hey, at least we stuck it to… someone?)

One of the turds being flung at the wall by Tracy and the Howler Monkeys (that would be a great name for a bad thrash metal band, by the way) is that the state doesn’t have the right to dictate what communities do. Except that’s completely incorrect.

Communities exist because the state government allows it. Now realistically, nobody’s going to dissolve Gloucester over 3A, but there’s a hierarchy to law and what answers to what – and more importantly there’s a way to resolve those conflicts when they happen. A city or town can pass most any laws they want, but if they want to exceed the parameters set by the state (for instance, regulating condo conversions, rents, or liquor licenses above the state-established cap) they must get the approval of the state government. It’s called a “home rule petition” and a lot of local changes do happen that way. Outside of that, all local laws are subordinate to the state. If you have something on your books in conflict with the state, the state wins and your law is null and void.

For that matter, there’s many places in which the state in turn yields to the federal government (note: this is considered a problem right now by a majority of MA voters who didn’t vote for Herr Trump). Massachusetts does not enforce federal laws, they enforce state laws. We’re unfortunately seeing this right now in the immigration arena – being hopelessly fucked up by Congress, immigration policy has mainly been set by executive orders for the last five or so administrations. And when power shifts, policy is reversed and federal authorities follow that new policy.

Just like federal immigration law doesn’t mean Massachusetts cops go rounding up undocumented immigrants, state law doesn’t mean the Gloucester ZBA can pretend 3A doesn’t exist. Law. Hierarchy. Structure. That’s how it works.

“Thanks, The Clam!” you say. “That’s a perfectly rational explanation, although it’s certainly a lot of words!” 

Well, if you don’t like words or voting Yes or, like, anything, the “Don’t Boston My Cape Ann” Facebook page recently posted what they thought about some Yes for Gloucester supporters by modifying their election mailer. 

Such sophistication.

We’re 17% sure Kathryn Goodick is responsible for these doodles. What an articulate and compelling argument. At least Eileen and Melissa escaped the might of the pen. Whew.

In Conclusion

So, Clam Nation, what we’re saying is: Vote YES for Gloucester, or this $30,000 Special Election is going to cost the City – YOU – untold millions of dollars. The money comes from somewhere, kids, and that somewhere is the taxpayers’ pockets. Those are the foreseen consequences.



Schoolpocalypse Now! Part 1: The Damn Budget

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We’ve had a handful of folks ask for our take on the school strike and asking for us to explain what’s going on, how we got here, and how we can get out of it. And while we’re low on time (because of the kids we gotta watch all day now), we figured everyone has a point. We aren’t getting an easily digestible, truthful breakdown of our current situation. So here we are, in as factual language as possible. First we’ll start with our budget, then how our school committee functions, and finally an analysis on where both sides are. We are definitely having fun and not during this under duress, while screaming into the void. It’s fine, this is fine.  

I have insomnia. Explain how city budgets work so I can get back to sleep.

Like most businesses, the city’s budget runs on an annual basis, from July 1 to June 30. The budget process starts months in advance of that date – taking nearly a year overall from start to finish. The process kicks off with the mayor consulting with department heads on their needs to build the budget. The Mayor then submits this budget to the City Council. There are 9 City Council members, and 3 are on the Budget and Finance Committee. Budget and Finance are tasked with doing the Mayor’s proposed budget review before it is presented to the full Council for a vote, but other councilors should, and do, keep an eye on things at all times. From there, the full city council reviews the proposed budget in a series of public meetings. The city council can only amend the budget by keeping it balanced – they cannot add to a specific department’s budget without taking the same amount of cash from another department. State law requires municipalities run balanced budgets. 

 While the city council can request the mayor take a look at increasing revenue projections to bridge the gap, it’s not often prudent to overestimate as a shortfall can be extremely problematic, and the funds can’t materialize out of thin air.  The final budget is voted on and becomes effective on July 1st.

This year, the difference in what the Superintendent requested from the mayor and what was allocated in the budget was roughly $6M, due to spiraling special education costs (we will get into this later, if we can drink enough to make ourselves). The superintendent’s budget overview is here for reference.  After going back to the drawing board, using non-permanent ARPA funds, and creating a $750k special education stabilization fund, as well as cuts to other parts of the budget to bridge the shortfall, the remaining gap ended up at $2.2M out of the total $165M budget. Despite the efforts of the Budget and Finance committee, there was no way to fund the level services budget that the superintendent had requested.

The UGE is saying we have the free cash available, so why can’t we use it?

 

First off, let’s dig into the concept of “Free Cash.”  Much like a household budget, it’s the bits leftover at the end of the year, after the city has balanced their budget to account for their expected revenue. For example, if a municipality projects $1m in revenue, and has $1m in expenses, the budget is balanced like mentioned above, But, a few months in, Steve at the DPW decides to retire six months earlier than expected, and a few expected capital expenses came in at lower cost than budgeted for. You have an additional $100,000 at the beginning of the next fiscal year. Hooray, free cash! The state says, “Awesome job, you smart, good looking people of Gloucester! You can hang onto it in a special account and choose what to use it for.” A good city budget does not leave too much or too little in the free cash accounts. Some is used for stabilization funds, to cover for future budget instability.

It’s not free real estate.

 

Free cash sounds great, but there are expenses that it’s good for, like one-time purchases that avoid accumulating debt, and expenses that are a very bad idea to use free cash for. Recurring, annual, contracted salary expenses are that bad idea. It’s discretionary and not guaranteed, and each year expenses change. While we have had several years in a row of favorable beach receipts thanks to a post Covid boom and low expenses for winter storm plowing, that is not guaranteed to continue, and those are big variables in our city’s budget. The one exception to the “no deficit” rule we mentioned above is the snow budget. Communities can set a baseline prediction and then if they blow through that they can use free cash to patch it up after the fact. Next year, we could run very short and rely on that money to bridge that gap. In that case if the money’s gone to payroll, more layoffs occur. Relying solely on “free cash” to fund the shortfall as the UGE has called for isn’t sustainable when we’re talking about salaries for the most massive department in the city. However, as we mentioned above, $750k from the free cash was earmarked to stabilize the special education costs, which does alleviate some of the downward pressure on the school budget. 

Why does Free Cash impact anything if it’s leftover money? Doesn’t having extra money mean the mayor can’t budget?

First off, the city’s available free cash has a large impact on bond rating. All cities and towns in MA have interest bond rates. Ours is currently AA. We got there after 13 years of hard work on the part of several city administrations. We could do a whole other article on this topic, but one thing at a time here. 

If we have no free cash, our bond rating will fall. Having no free cash is a signal to those lending us money that we may not be able to make good on our debt obligations. In that event, it becomes more expensive to borrow for capital expenditures. We are fortunate to have a good rating because when the City Council votes to borrow money, we can do so at a lower interest rate. Think of Free Cash and a bond rating like equity and credit. If you don’t have a good credit score or a down payment to buy what you need, you’re going to end up paying much more over the course of a loan. While we’d love to pay everything in cash, it’s not feasible to do so. The city relies on borrowing funds to pay for long-range capital expenses. 

Can’t the city administration just figure out how to get the school budget paid for by finding the money? It’s their job, right?

Let’s talk about how budgets actually get made and how revenues work. The vast majority of the revenue in the city’s budget comes from property taxes, though there’s also state-supplied funding for schools, road repairs, and other areas. There’s services that are paid directly by user fees like water, sewer, and trash called “Enterprise Funds” and are reset each year. Our property taxes are set by a formula established in 1978 with the passing of Proposition 2 ½ – which basically says that the maximum tax revenue is limited to 2.5% of the total taxable property, plus any new growth revenue.

So that new 6-unit condo that went up down the street on an empty lot? That’s new growth, as is the old empty plant that was converted to a restaurant and function hall. 

The total amount of property tax you can assess is called the levy limit. And ideally, you want your community to be well under that limit if possible, in case of unforeseen needs down the road. Like a better teacher’s contract, for instance. Let’s compare to our neighbors up the line. Salem has a total levy capacity of $130,115,164. Beverly has a capacity of $130,560,261 (these are FY2025 numbers from the Mass. DOR). Gloucester’s is $105,847,014.

Now, to look at the actual amount of property tax raised, Salem’s budget projects $122,077,395 raised. Leaving approximately $8 million in excess levy capacity. Without Beverly’s FY2025 numbers, we turn to their 2024 numbers as certified by the state. In FY2024, Beverly had a maximum levy of $125,928,475. They taxed $124,470,712 – so last year they only had $1.45 million in excess capacity. Not nearly as much of a cushion.

Using FY2024 numbers, Gloucester had a total levy capacity $101,671,528. And the taxes that were assessed were $101,622,847.

That leaves us with an excess levy capacity of $48,681. That’s FORTY-EIGHT THOUSAND dollars.  We are a sensible midsized sedan away from disaster. 

When cities bump up against this limit, they have two options. They can either cut line items from department budgets to get down to that limit, or they can ask the voters for permission to raise the tax to a higher level (usually for a time), and that is called a “Prop. 2 ½ Override.” If the city government can persuade the voters that the money ask is for a good reason, a “yes” vote enables that reason to be funded. Usually overrides are asked for things like major capital expenses (new water plant, new high school building, and the like). It all depends on the community and the budget practices. Having excess capacity allows you to raise taxes more to handle these things without having to go to a vote. 

Salem can afford about $8m in increased costs before they’d have to ask for an override. Beverly can afford about $1.5m. Gloucester needs an override to pick up a few scratchies at the corner store.

We have a second, looming problem that is going to cause havoc in our budget: the 3A referendum. Tracy O’Neil garnered enough petition signatures to call the recent 3A MBTA housing initiative to a ballot referendum. Unfortunately, this move means that Gloucester is immediately out of compliance with state law, putting our access to state funds at risk. Right now, the state is not giving anyone a pass on this. Grants we banked on since the city council had approved the 3A zoning district may be pulled out from under us – take the library, for example. The City is on the hook for that project unless the library can raise the funds, which they’ve thankfully been steadily doing. (We can still help with that, and we need a library now more than ever.) 

We’re also on the hook for our secondary wastewater treatment plant. We’ve been kicking this can down the road since the early 80’s. For forty years, we’ve been on a compliance waiver because our sewage plant does not adequately treat outflow to the level requires. It’s important to note that this secondary treatment does not have anything to do with capacity, it’s entirely the type of sanitation our sewage gets. Therefore, adding new housing units is not the cause of this expenditure. 

So we’re in a real pickle on how to pay for the school budget as it is, let alone our educators’ new contract. 

 

We can’t just take funds from other departments, months ago B&F went through the budget to find anything that could be re-allocated. We still need other departments funded adequately as well. Other departments like the police and fire have union contracts too, so we can’t claw back salary we’ve already promised. And salary is the big spend – roughly 85% of the budget. We can’t save enough reams of paper to solve the problem. 

So where are we now?

The most likely outcome is that if we hammer out an agreement near what the teachers want, there will be cuts to staffing to balance the budget, unless we can find more budget.  A Prop 2 ½ override has been our only option and we have failed to do it for so long. In reality, most cities we are looking towards as the beacon of how we want our schools to be funded rely on overrides. Looking locally, Boxford has voted for six overrides in ten years, all to fund schools. Groveland, Ipswich, Manchester, Merrimac, Salisbury, Melrose, Georgetown and Rockport have all voted for one or more overrides to funds schools in the past few years.  

 

Gloucester has not put forth an override question since 1991, to fund firefighter salaries. It did not pass. 

 

 

2024 Election Clamsplainer – Antifa (the side we were on in WW2) Edition

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You know who we are (even though you haven’t seen much of us on this website for quite a while). You know how we vote. And you know how we feel about Cheeto Mussolini. The TL;DR is: vote for Democrats.

You may not believe us, but we are really getting tired of saying that. The editorial staff at the Clam ranges ideologically from “Kim Driscoll’s Get Stuff Done Wing of the Democratic Party” to “Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism,” so while none of us are particularly conservative, we do manage to have some healthy debates over how exactly we think society should be run and who is best to do that. But at the end of the day, most of us will go for the option that isn’t frequently in bed with Nazis. So…

Our pick for President: Kamala Harris

Period.

Look, we would have voted for Joe over Donald Trump. We would have voted for a houseplant over Trump, even if it was that one from Little Shop of Horrors. Biden has clearly lost his fastball and the toughest job in the world has taken a lot out of him. Just driving through Tally’s Corner from Angle Street takes a lot out of us, so we get it. A diminished Biden was still a better choice than a shambling mound of fast food, grievance, and rage that already bungled the levers of power once and who wants to literally jail his enemies (of which he has quite a few). Trump has shown us clearly that he’s incapable of leading a one-man parade, let alone the United States. This past weekend’s Trump rally – where the campaign paraded a line of supporters who went on racist tirades against Puerto Rico, Hispanic-Americans, and African-Americans, lobbed anti-Asian and misogynistic insults against Kamala Harris, and culminated with Trump’s usual inflammatory and fascist rhetoric about the “crooked, radical left machine” and “the enemy from within” – is just the latest example. Someday in the future, history will look back at this era, see the people who supported Trump – whether fervently or passively – and judge them harshly. And Hulk Hogan is dead to us now.

We were ok with hoping for another four years under Biden like the last four, ready to vote for Kamala Harris to be the successor. Biden stepping aside just moved it up a bit. Do we like Kamala Harris? Absolutely. Does she have the intellect and temperament to be President? Absolutely. Is she more likely to preserve America’s standing in the world? Absolutely. In a Harris presidency, Ukraine will be supported, NATO will be a powerful tool to neutralize Russian expansion, Taiwan will be protected from an invasion from the mainland, and we’ll continue to be the only major global economy that didn’t have a full-on recession from COVID and the aftermath. And yes – despite what your cousin yelled at you at the Labor Day barbeque – she DOES actually have her own agenda of plans to make life for Americans better. It’s all on her website and social media. Tell your cousin to loosen that MAGA hat, and go read all about it instead of embarrassing himself in front of his kids.

Joe, thanks for the memories. Kamala, let’s make some new ones. Donald, we told you to stop calling us.

We are really going to miss the “Dark Brandon” memes, though.

Our pick for US Senate: Elizabeth Warren

You don’t need us to tell you about Elizabeth Warren. Or maybe you do, if you are one of those types that thinks she is a raging socialist because she has the audacity to say that a society where all the wealth sits with a handful of people (note: this is not you and never will be) isn’t the best way to run things. She may go a bit hard for some people, but honestly, we probably need that. If you are the type who seriously doubts her bona fides, indulge yourself on one of her 13 books (the majority of which were written before she was a senator, so just cool your jets before you go off) or her sizable library of academic publications. In terms of policy, she has been on the right side of almost everything we care about: health care, child care, making sure the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, et cetera et cetera. We would probably pick Warren over a lot of people on those alone.

We’ll admit, John Deaton is doing his damndest to make himself seem electable, if for no other reason than to avoid Warren crushing him more handily than she did Geoff Diehl in 2018. Deaton has said that he’d break with his party and vote to make a woman’s right to choose the law of the land, as well as a couple of other things that are unusual to hear from a Republican who is running at the federal level. This is Massachusetts, after all. But merely not being a crazy person isn’t a particularly compelling reason to elect someone to be a US Senator. In any case, we’ve seen what happens to seemingly reasonable Republicans when they get to Washington and have to get along with the rest of their party, which has vacated any facade of a desire to govern responsibly. We don’t know if you remember Scott Brown, but we do.

How could we forget?

Scotty 2 Hotty won a special election to take Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate in 2010. His appearance on the scene killed any prospect that the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) would be anything more than the landmark-though-slightly-underwhelming legislation that it ended up being. It was also quite a lift to get Brown to listen to his constituents and break ranks to vote for some sensible banking regulations after the worst Wall Street-induced financial crisis since the Great Depression. (Sensible regulations, we will note, which included the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of a pre-Senate Elizabeth Warren.) We aren’t willing to take that gamble now that the Republican Party has flipped from “corporations are people” to “dictator on day one.” It isn’t just about good policy anymore. It isn’t even about passable policy. The woman, trans folks, people of color, and others that regularly come under attack from both elected Republicans and their base can’t take that risk. Fascism is pretty bad for the economy as well. It’s Warren all the way.

Also, a crypto bro with an endorsement from Elon Musk? Really? Nope.

Our pick for State Representative: Ann-Margaret Ferrante

Ferrante has been the state rep for Gloucester, Rockport, and Essex since 2009, with Manchester getting thrown in during redistricting to give her the full Cape Ann set since 2022. As the daughter of a fisherman who has lived in downtown Gloucester her whole life, Ferrante knows the community and the people in it. She’s also got a pretty hefty educational background: a double-major bachelor’s degree including economics, a law degree, and a master’s in public administration. She has proven to be effective and actually pretty visionary, having helped to spearhead the creation of the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute and Gloucester Biotechnology Academy, bringing science to Gloucester’s waterfront and giving students a new path to actual careers in the life sciences without needing a college degree. GMGI even named a fellowship after her in recognition of her pretty relentless support.

More than all that, Ferrante has played the State House game well. Politics is fundamentally about working with people, after all. She worked her way up, serving as chair of a number of committees and a stint in House leadership. Now she’s earned a spot as Vice Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. For those of you who had friends in high school and aren’t government nerds, the Ways and Means Committee is the last stop for every budget and piece of legislation that goes through the Massachusetts House of Representatives before it gets a vote on the floor. That means that every bill, every dollar appropriated, and every amendment filed comes across Ferrante’s desk and gives her the opportunity to press her finger on the scale in favor of her constituents (that’s us). With something like 5000 bills filed every legislative session, that’s a lot of paper.

Ann-Margaret Ferrante’s desk, probably.

It’s also a pretty big deal, if we say so ourselves. Combine that with the fact that Bruce Tarr is the minority leader in the Senate and Cape Ann gets two very big influencers at a scale that rank and file reps and senators can’t match. Year after year, they have worked together to bring the funding to Cape Ann necessary to do things like grow GMGI, vastly expand The Open Door to meet growing food insecurity, support the formalization of the Grace Center to help the unhoused, reopen the UMass Marine Station for fisheries and environmental research, and a lot more. Heck, we are such fans of the tag team that we might even tell you to make sure you vote for Bruce too, even if he is a Republican and doesn’t have an opponent this year. As Jim Dowd told his kids at every election cycle, Bruce Tarr is “The one Republican daddy votes for.” We miss that guy. 

We aren’t going to waste much time talking to you about Ferrante’s opponent, if for no other reason than the fact that he hasn’t given us much to talk about. Former Ward 3 City Councilor and City Council President Steve LeBlanc pulled papers to run as an independent. He has said in the one interview he has done as of this writing that he likes to help people and do things and that the parties don’t do enough bipartisan work. It would be a wonderful message if not for the paragraph immediately previous to this one where we talked about LITERALLY ALL THE BIPARTISANSHIP between Bruce Tarr and Ann-Margaret Ferrante. It also lacks any actual reasoning to throw out Ferrante in favor of him, which would be a pretty uphill argument anyway, given the results she produces and her position in the House. We heard that he wouldn’t even accept an invitation from the local League of Women Voters to have a debate. If you can’t manage to debate one person, how can voters be even remotely confident that you can joust with the 159 other reps who are gunning for the same resources for their districts that you are for yours? We’ve been positive on LeBlanc in the past during his tenure on the City Council, but there isn’t even a case to make here.

Our pick for Register of Deeds: Eileen Duff

Eileen Duff is a North Shore powerhouse who has served on the Governor’s Council for 12 years. Southern Essex County needs a competent leader to fill the shoes of retired Register of Deeds John L. O’Brien, Jr., who occupied that office for an impressive 48 years and worked to make the massive number of historical records in this institution accessible to all. Duff has taken up that call. A lot of people level criticisms at politicians running for offices for which they don’t seem to have any relevant experience, but nothing could be further from the truth in this case. Duff not only brings her experience with the judiciary from her time on the Governor’s Council, but also a ton of real life interactions with the registry from her time as a real estate agent. Especially in forward-facing roles like the registry, having a broad range of experience from the customer’s perspective is extremely valuable. We have no doubt Duff will use this experience to continue serving as O’Brien did while bringing her own fresh ideas and flair to the office. Come on Eileen! (Sorry, kinda.)

Now, we’re not one to get on too much of a high horse when it comes to how one dresses, but we’ve always firmly held to the idea that you should dress for the job you want. That is why half of us here at the Clam dress like elves and the other half dress like space elves. With this in mind, we aren’t quite sure what Duff’s opponent, perennial Republican candidate Jonathan Ring, thinks he is running for.

He seems to take this seriously.

The answer could be, “Basically anything.” By our count, Ring has run for Rockport School Committee, Rockport Town Clerk, Register of Deeds (the current run marks his second), and Rockport Housing Authority, the latter of which being the only office he succeeded in holding. Even that was a bit much for us, with what we know about his views on gay, trans, and women’s reproductive rights, for a start. Given the results of all those other elections, we are willing to bet that a lot of people agree with us on that. Now, what harm could those views bring with Ring in the registrar’s office? Who knows, but we aren’t willing to give him that chance. We would much rather see Duff bring her experience to bear in that office to continue moving it forward.

Our pick for Governor’s Council: Eunice Zeigler

Eileen Duff’s departure from the Governor’s Council leaves a larger-than-Eileen-Duff sized hole in the Council. Duff’s pick to be her successor is Methuen City Councilor Eunice Zeigler. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Governor’s Council, it is the body of eight elected councilors in Massachusetts that confirms judicial appointments and reviews pardons and commutations. We agree with Duff that Zeigler, a first generation Haitian-American with a master’s degree in economic and social development, seems right for the role. Her background and work in the community – giving individuals and families the help they need to be self-sufficient – has put her in contact with exactly the types of people who need the justice system to understand them the most. She has proven herself on the Methuen City Council and she’s ready to dive into this important yet not-well-known position. While we aren’t crazy about losing our friendly neighborhood Governor’s Councilor seat to the opposite end of the district, we will trust that Zeigler is a fan of the beach and that we will be seeing her often.

Zeigler’s Republican opponent, Peabody City Councilor Anne Manning-Martin, describes herself as “a strong independent voice.” Her pretty stock, right-wing opinions on the justice system indicate otherwise. Now, we think there are roles for all sides of the justice system to play in deliberations about how to get the best justice possible. We endorsed former cops Kevin Coppinger and Paul Tucker in their races for Essex County Sheriff and District Attorney, respectively, against opponents that were arguably more liberal, and we did it exactly for their experience in the field. We also sometimes think that one side of things already has pretty good representation in the system. A current corrections official running on her determination to make sure Massachusetts judges collaborate with ICE ain’t it for us. Anyway, given how Republicans at the federal level are handling the courts, we aren’t hot to give the same thing a chance to happen to Massachusetts.

Our pick for Essex County Clerk of Courts: Tom Driscoll

The various clerks and registers around Massachusetts may be the only elected offices that have even lower profiles than the Governor’s Council, other than Electors Under the Will of Oliver Smith (this is a real thing in nine municipalities in western Mass). We’re not even sure that we would remember that Register of Deeds existed if Jon Ring wasn’t running for it all the time. The Clerk of Courts is responsible for keeping the court’s records, running court sessions, and acting as a liaison between judges and lawyers. In Essex Country, our clerk of courts is Tom Driscoll, and we think it should stay that way. He’s been doing this job effectively since 2001. We don’t think a long incumbency should be anything but a benefit in a job that is almost solely administrative. We say Driscoll is a steady hand at the wheel, and we need that more than ever these days. 

Driscoll has two opponents for the first time… ever? They are two unenrolled (AKA “independent”) candidates named Todd Angilly and Doris Rodriguez. The fact that the Republicans don’t even seem to want to contest the seat should say a decent amount on its own. We are sure they are fine people (Angilly’s the guy who replaced Rene Rancourt as the Bruins’ anthem singer), but we just don’t see the logic here.

And: Ballot questions. 

Question 1: The Clam is a bit divided on this issue, though a majority of us will be voting yes. We all agree government transparency is of the utmost importance in order to uphold our democracy. What isn’t clear is if this will be successful in moving that goal forward. Currently, the Legislature is periodically audited by an outside accounting firm. If question 1 passes, the measure states that the Auditor would have the authority to audit the state legislature, something that was a significant campaign issue for current Auditor Diana DiZoglio. However, it isn’t likely to go without some pushback from the House and Senate, who say it would violate the constitutional separation of powers. We are waiting to see how this unfolds either way.

Question 2: MCAS or Nah? 

The Clam is a resounding Yes on this one. 

MCAS = teaching to the test, highlighting economic disparities among students. MA teachers and students are already stressed out enough these days without worrying about this huge test. At the same time, voting Yes doesn’t eliminate the MCAS, and that’s probably good. Standardized testing is a useful way to see where disparities lie between demographic groups and different districts. But tying graduation to a single test (or series of tests, in the case of MCAS) has never been a good idea. Let teachers teach.

Question 3: Yes. Unionize ride-share drivers, like Uber and Lyft drivers, who always seem to get the booty end of the stick thanks to their VC-backed employers. Slam dunk. 

Question 4: Yes. As we learn more about mental health care and how much we all differ as humans, why not regulate the use of psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) and other hallucinogens derived from plants as another option for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD? Responsible providers will prescribe it and monitor its effects. A commission would be formed to regulate the sale and services of psychedelics. A tax would be imposed on any psychedelic treatment facilities and sales. It would also allow anyone age 21 or older to grow, possess, and use the substances in Massachusetts. (Sauce: https://www.wcvb.com/article/question-4-legalize-psychedelics-massachusetts/62600006) This seems like the most trivial of causes and, like the recreational cannabis ballot initiative a few years ago, it’s scary to opponents. Fact is, like pot, magic mushrooms are already out there. Until the Feds set up a way to do this nationally, we might as well lead the way on regulating use and distribution. 

Question 5: Your The Clam are about an 80-20 split internally on this question about raising the minimum wage for tipped workers. We know and love so many people in the restaurant industry who are a No on this question, and that is about where we’re at, too. In theory, we’d like to protect those waitstaff who are in vulnerable positions at quieter, less expensive restaurants. The ones who know if they tell their boss to abide by the “minimum wage if tips dont add up” they’ll get taken off the schedule in retribution. However, this bill’s pooling of tips didn’t make sense and implementation was overly onerous. As consumers, we’d like to make sure our waitstaff aren’t hampered financially by people who chew and screw, or just leave no tip and rely on the rest of us to make it up. In reality, a more prevalent autograt on a tab for ALL would help even the playing field if this doesn’t pass. 

Question 6: Yes. 

Question 6 is a non-binding ballot referendum question which is only on ballots in 11 districts around the state. It is asking our opinion on whether we would like single-payer health insurance for everyone in Massachusetts. It will give our lawmakers a good idea of where we stand. More info here: https://masscare.org/ballot-question-2024/