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THE BOSTON GLOBE WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/METROB
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To make sense of the
big City Hall corrup-
tion trial unfolding at
the Moakley Court-
house, you need to
know about The Rat.
When the member-
ship of Local 11 —
which represents
stagehands and other behind-the-scenes
concert employees — feels that employers
are stiffing working people on pay or bene-
fits, they threaten to deploy The Rat.
The Rat is a 15-foot-tall toothy inflatable
rodent — menacing, as pieces of rubber go.
As such it is an invaluable feature at a
unionprotest,astheownersoftheWilbur
Theatre discovered around 2009, when The
Rat became the most memorable demon-
strator at a protest outside their doors. It
was such an attention-getter that apparent-
ly the neighbors at the Wang Center were
worried about being tainted by association.
In late 2013, members of Local 11 were
furious about the labor practices of the or-
ganizers of the music festival Boston Call-
ing, as the union’s business manager, Col-
leen Glynn, testified on Tuesday. They
wanted work, and festival organizers
weren’t cooperating. They were angry
enough to protest at the festival. Upset
enough to drop leaflets. Mad enough to
show up with The Rat.
“They wanted to bring that rat?” defense
counsel Sara Silva asked Glynn.
“Yes,” Glynn responded.
Cooler heads prevailed, and now the re-
lationship among the union, the festival,
and the Walsh administration has culmi-
nated in the federal trial of city officials Ken
Brissette and Tim Sullivan, accused of run-
ning afoul of the law by allegedly forcing
organizers to hire union workers or risk
losing city approval to hold the festival on
City Hall Plaza.
The men were indicted with great fan-
fare in 2016. But what jurors were treated
to Tuesday was a lesson in city politics, but
not much of a demonstration of criminality.
The star witness was Joyce Linehan, the
city’s chief of policy and planning, and one
of Walsh’s closest allies from the beginning
of his bid for mayor in 2013. Linehan’s tes-
timony began with a surprising disclosure:
that she had been granted immunity from
prosecution to testify. It’s interesting that
someone so close to Walsh was immunized,
though it isn’t evidence of anything nefari-
ous on Linehan’s part.
Prior to joining the administration,
Linehan had worked for years in the local
music scene as a promoter and manager,
and had relationships with Boston Calling’s
principals. She alerted Walsh that the
union was furious with the promoters,
partly over a sketchy “internship” program
that required concert volunteers to pay a
fee to participate. Her memo to Walsh also
noted that the concert promoters had diffi-
culty working with a couple of city depart-
ments. Linehan suggested that all the par-
ties involved sit down and iron out their
differences, which eventually happened.
Linehan will return to the stand
Wednesday. But her testimony Tuesday
didn’t strike me as remotely explosive. If
she and Glynn were the government’s star
witnesses, this might be the scandal that
wasn’t. What constitutes corruption? That
question lies at the heart of this case and
others like it, indictments that allege public
misconduct with only murky benefits to the
alleged participants. Is pushing contractors
to use union labor a crime? On the part of
the promoters, is agreeing to do so in the
interest of a good working relationship
scandalous?
When, exactly, does practicing politics
become a crime? We know some of how the
story played out. Boston Calling has be-
come so successful that it has outgrown its
original home on City Hall Plaza. For its
last installment, it hired more than 200
workers sent by its new friends in Local 11.
The union was so grateful to Walsh for his
help in 2014 that it campaigned for his
friend Warren Tolman, just weeks before he
lost to Maura Healey in the Democratic pri-
mary for attorney general.
What’s no more clear than the day Bris-
sette and Sullivan were indicted is whether
they crossed a legal line. That’s something
The Rat never has to worry about.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. Email
him at [email protected]. Or
follow him on Twitter @adrian_walker.
Clarityon
corruption
Adrian Walker
Business
PAGESB6-
Forbreakingnews,goto
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business
By David Abel
GLOBE STAFF
Calling on Congress to reduce
toxic chemicals in drinking water,
Attorney General Maura Healey
joined her counterparts in 21 states
Tuesday in urging federal lawmakers
to pass legislation to help states ad-
dress their threat to public health.
The manmade chemicals, known
as PFAS, are widespread and have
been used for decades in products
such as flame retardants, pans, piz-
za boxes, clothing, and furniture.
But research in recent years has
shown that the per- and polyfluoro-
alkyl chemicals are dangerous at
very low concentrations. They havebeen linked to testicular and other
cancers, low-infant birth weight,
and a range of diseases.
In a letter, the attorneys general
urged Congress to help state and lo-
cal governments curb the costs of
cleaning up drinking water supplies
contaminated by PFAS, which are
also known as “forever chemicals”
because they never fully degrade.
“These toxic chemicals are put-
ting the health of our firefighters,
our military personnel, and our
families in Massachusetts and
across the country at serious risk,”
Healey said in a statement. “We
need Congress to act immediately.”
Groundwater wells on militaryinstallations have been shown to
contain high levels of the chemicals,
often as a result of a firefighting
foam used there.
In Massachusetts, the chemicals
have been found in levels that ex-
ceed federal guidelines in public wa-
ter supplies in Ayer, Barnstable,
Mashpee, and Westfield. The chem-
icals have also been found in the
public water supplies in Danvers,
Harvard, and Hudson.
The Environmental Protection
Agency has no legally binding regu-
lations on PFAS chemicals but rec-
ommends that municipalities alert
the public if the two most common
PFAS chemicals reach 70 parts pertrillion. Massachusetts uses the
same limit for five of the chemicals.
After high concentrations of
PFAS were found last month in bot-
tled water distributed by a Haverhill
WATER,PageBSwimmers at Crystal Lake in Newton staved off the heat as temperatures rose into the 90s again
this week. Many parts of the country, including Massachusetts, saw record-breaking heat earlier
this month. Things are expected to cool down heading into the end of the week. Weather,G9.COOLING-OFFPERIOD
By Dan Adams
GLOBE STAFF
With the state’s marijuana
sector slowly gaining steam,
Massachusetts banks and credit
unions are expanding the ser-
vices they offer to recreational
cannabis companies, testing
just how closely federally regu-
lated financial institutions can
work with an industry that sells
a federally illegal drug.
The GFA Federal Credit
Union in Gardner, which last
August became the first institu-
tion in the state to openly serve
recreational operators, told the
Globe it is preparing to extend
loans as early as this fall to li-
censed companies that grow,
process, and sell marijuana.
While a final decision has not
been made about whether to go
ahead with the effort, GFA chief
executive Tina Sbrega said the
credit union hopes to find a way
forward regardless of whether
Congress acts on bills to remove
much of the legal risk.
If it does decide to launch a
loan program, GFA would be-
come one of just a few — if not
the only — US financial institu-
tions openly lending to mari-
juana companies.
“We are examining it and
working it hard because we un-
derstand these are legitimate
businesses,” Sbrega said. “The
demand is there and the need is
there.”
Meanwhile, Century Bank of
Medford, the first bank to serve
medical marijuana firms in
Massachusetts, has quietly
opened its doors to recreational
operators, too, according to
three people familiar with the
company’s operations. It joins
GFA and Swansea-based Bay-
Coast Bank as the only institu-
tions in the state known to
work with such companies.
The move represents a re-
versal: In December, Century
president and chief executive
Barry Sloane insisted to the
Boston Business Journal that
his bank would not work with
recreational pot companies
“until and unless” federal law
changes. He declined to com-
ment for this story.
MARIJUANA,PageBPot firms’
banking
options
expand
Credit union
set to offer loans
By Alison Kuznitz
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
A spiritual retreat center in Western Massachusetts,
home to 19 acres of bucolic fields and forested trails,
may become a residential treatment facility for young
men who need to detach from technology and overcome
their debilitating addiction to video games.
Odyssey Behavioral Healthcare is awaiting a special
permit approval from the town of Leyden, near the Ver-
mont border,to launch the Greenfield Recovery Center,
intended for people with “gaming disorder.”
The voluntary program could accommodate about 30
patients who are on average between 18 and 25 yearsold, said Dr. David Greenfield, an Odyssey clinical part-
ner and founder of the Center for Internet and Technolo-
gy Addiction in West Hartford, Conn. The new center
would be in his name.
“It will be reintroducing them to real-time living,”
Greenfield, also an assistant clinical professor of psychi-
atry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine,
said in a phone interview Tuesday. “These young men
have forgotten what it’s like to be in nature and without
their screen in front of them.”
Patients would pay up to $600 per day, with an aver-
age stay of 45 to 90 days. There would be therapists on
COMPULSIVE,PageB‘Gaming disorder’ center proposed
Leyden facility would reintroduce young men to ‘real-time living’
By Travis Andersen
and John R. Ellement
GLOBE STAFF
WOBURN — One year later, the
death of 15-year-old Richelle Robin-
son still perplexes and shocks. A
powerful shove from an apparent as-
sailant left the Cambridge Rindge
and Latin School student fatally in-
jured, unconscious, and bleeding on
a busy sidewalk.
On Tuesday, an East Boston man
was arraigned on charges of man-
slaughter and assault and battery
causing serious bodily injury, stem-
ming from the alleged attack. Prose-
cutors said discord among a group
of teenagers led Isaias Santos Plaza
to push Robinson hard onto the
pavement July 22, 2018, along Cam-
bridge Street.
Plaza, 19, remained out of view
during most of his arraignment in
Middlesex Superior Court. A not
guilty plea was entered on behalf of
Plaza, who was indicted by a grand
jury Monday. He was held without
bail at arraignment, and his court-
appointed lawyer had no comment.
As several of Robinson’s relatives
looked on, wearing buttons that dis-
played her photo, Assistant Middle-sex District Attorney Nicole Allain
told the court that Plaza had social-
ized with Robinson and some of her
friends in June and July 2018.
But eventually, Allain said, “dis-
cord” among the group caused Plaza
and his then-girlfriend to split away
from Robinson and two of her
friends.Allain didn’t elaborate on the
conflict, which allegedly came to a
head during the deadly encounter in
front of Portugalia Restaurant.
Police were called to the area
around 6:43 p.m. after receiving 911
calls regarding a young female lying
on the ground, according to prose-
ASSAULT,PageBMan charged in death of 15-year-old girl
PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF
A family member of Richelle Robinson (left) spoke with Assistant
District Attorney Nicole Allain (center) at the arraignment of Isaias
Plaza on Tuesday. Plaza allegedly pushed Robinson fatally in 2018.Healey urges action on tainted water
SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFFERIN CLARK FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
Testing recently found toxic
chemicals in some bottled water.INSIDE
Fire destroys eatery
The owner of the longtime ba-
gel shop in Revere vowed to
rebuild.B4.Contractor cited
A second company near the
North End faced action after
material fell at a worksite.B4.