THERE’S A LOT of millionaires at Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots, and apparently a lot of opinions about the state’s millionaire tax.
Robert Kraft, the owner of the team, opposed the tax. One of his companies donated $1 million in 2022 to the unsuccessful effort to defeat the ballot measure that created the 4 percent surtax on income over $1 million.
And Bill Belichick, the former coach of the Pats, acknowledged in August that the tax was often a sticking point in negotiations with free agent players. “That’s Taxachusetts,” Belichick said. “Virtually every player, even the practice squad … even the minimum players are pretty close to $1 million. So once you hit the $1 million threshold, you pay more state tax in Massachusetts.”
At a forum on voting earlier this week at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum, defensive lineman Keion White revealed that players have political conversations and sometimes they get heated. But he said the millionaire tax is generally not a hot topic.
“That’s not really a thing that comes up,” he said after the forum. “Personally, yeah, we pay an extra 4 percent. But Massachusetts does a good job of funding social programs, and we feel our money is going to a good cause.”
White, who reportedly signed a four-year contract with the Patriots totaling $7.8 million, acknowledged his positive feeling about the millionaire tax does not extend to everyone in the locker room. “There’s different levels of understanding of how policy and taxes and things work,” he said. “Some people see it at the surface level, which is not any knock to them, but (that is) why we have those conversations (about) how policies and taxes and politics work.”
The money from the millionaire tax goes toward education and transportation accounts. Advocates say that, so far, it’s paid for universal free school meals, free community college, child care, a low-income MBTA fare, and fare-free bus service around the state.
Walsh: Hockey players are humble
Former Boston mayor Marty Walsh, who visited 44 states as President Joe Biden’s labor secretary, is now the globe-trotting head of the Toronto-based NHL Players’ Association, jetting off to Prague and dealing with Russian members struggling to play due to their home country’s imperial ambitions.
But Walsh, who still keeps his home in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, was back on familiar ground earlier this month when he dropped by a meeting of the Quincy Chamber of Commerce for a fireside-style chat.
“You’re a union leader. You have 750 members,” he said simply, when South Shore Bank CEO Jim Dunphy, playing the role of moderator, asked about his multimillion-dollar job.
Once he became head of the NHL players union, he confided that he ran into problems as a longtime fan of the Boston Bruins. “I kept referring to the Bruins as ‘we’ when I started the job,” he said. “It still occasionally slips out. I do have a picture of Bobby Orr in my office. But I do have to be careful about the ‘we.’”
Pressed on the differences between dealing with Washington politicians and hockey players, Walsh quipped, “Hockey players are humble. Not every member of Congress is humble.”
But Walsh added that press coverage of him now isn’t that different from when he was in politics. “The Canadian press is rabid [about hockey], it’s like the political press here,” he said.
No women, people of color
It’s not certain yet who will be the next executive director of the Cannabis Control Commission but it will not be a woman or a person of color.
The embattled state agency has been without an executive director since Shawn Collins quit the position in November 2023. About 170 people applied for the job, and four finalists remain – two people who have occupied leadership positions at the commission, the town administrator of Holliston, and a senior director at a health care company called Cityblock. All are men and present as white.
The makeup of the finalists is a bit eyebrow-raising, given the agency has social equity in its mandate and the fact that the commission has a track record of turmoil marked by racial and gender politics. Leadership and staff at the commission have flung complaints at each other for racial insensitivity, sexism, and bullying – and some of those complaints played a role in the firing of Shannon O’Brien as chair of the commission.
The commissioners will interview the four finalists on October 28 and will choose one by the end of that day.
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