New England Public Radio

The Short List: Residency Rules, Rogue Judicial Rulings, Rare Rattlesnakes Seek A Home

The Short List: Residency Rules, Rogue Judicial Rulings, Rare Rattlesnakes Seek A Home

  • Springfield’s Mayor, Dominic Sarno and the city council continue to wrangle about residency requirements for city workers. The council wants control, but the mayor says he should have the final say. This has resulted in votes, vetoes and overrides.
  • The highest court in Massachusetts will now consider whether judges can hand down sentences that are shorter than legislatively mandated minimums. This stems from a case where a judge gave a two and a half instead of the minimum three and a half year sentence. The state is fighting the ruling.
  • Massachusetts biologists continue to try to calm fears about a plan that state wildlife officials say will protect endangered rattlesnakes. The hope is to put the snakes on an island at Quabbin Reservoir that’s off limits to visitors. Now state lawmakers are getting in the act.

       New England Public Radio’s Susan Kaplan explores these issues with Matt Szafranski of the Western Mass Politics and Insight Blog and Mike Dobbs from the The Reminder Newspapers.

 

The Short List: Trump, Sanders, Clinton and Polls, Rattlesnakes @ Quabbin?

What made The Short List this week?

  • Super Tuesday’s coming up. A  poll conducted for WBUR shows Republican Donald Trump well ahead of his rivals in Massachusetts. On  the Democratic side, the poll shows Hillary Clinton with a slight lead over Bernie Sanders.
  • Rattlesnakes, the endangered Timber Rattlesnake to be exact, made the news this week. Officials are proposing to put a handful of them on an island in the Quabbin. And there’s been some push back.
  • The producers of a Mark Wahlberg movie about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings have asked for permission to film in the same street where the Watertown shootout took place.

Click the audio player above to hear New England Public Radio’s Susan Kaplan explore these issues with The Reminder Newspaper’s Mike Dobbs and Matt Szafranski of Western Mass Politics and Insight.