Boston Financial News | Boston Finance » Boston Herald

Boston Celtics Finance – Fork over Green for Playoff Security?

Boston Money — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 12:51:09 +0000

C’s loss cost Boston serious green

By Edward Mason | Friday, July 16, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com

Photo by Kelvin Ma

A victory celebration that never happened cost the cash-strapped city nearly $450,000 in police overtime as an army of cops hit the streets to control expected crowds of Boston Celtics [team stats] fans during the NBA Finals.

The Celts failed in their bid to win an 18th title, but a City Hall watchdog says the team should foot their fair share of the police OT bill just the same.

“The economy is down, but with the playoffs, money is coming in for the Celtics,” said Matthew Cahill, executive director of the Boston Finance Commission. “Taxpayers shouldn’t shoulder the complete burden of these things. It would only be just to share the burden of the police overtime.”

But it’s unlikely the Menino administration will go after the Green for the green, seeing it instead as a responsibility for the Police Department’s ranks of blue.

“The Boston Police Department develops safety and security plans, and Boston police will consider all revenue sources (to cover the costs),” said Dot Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

BPD spokesman Eddy Chrispin pointed out that the city, not the sports teams, traditionally pays for overtime following playoff games during title runs.

Cracking down on rowdy rooters outside the TD Garden and the Fenway bars on June 15 and 17 – Games 6 and 7 of the NBA Finals – cost $441,363, according to the Boston Police Department.

Cahill noted there is a history of partnership between the city and its teams to pay for police. The Celtics and local businesses helped pay for cops at championship parades in the past, most notably kicking in $350,000 – half of all noncop costs – when the Green Team hoisted its 17th banner in 2008.

Cahill, the city’s finance watchdog, said there’s nothing wrong with asking.

“It would be even better if the Celtics offered,” Cahill said. “They benefit financially from the playoffs.”

Calls and e-mails to the Celtics were not returned.

The nearly $450,000 paid for a dramatic show of force for the final two games of the 2010 NBA Finals, as Hub police brass sought to tamp down on shenanigans and mayhem that marred earlier sports celebrations.

In all, 3,159 officers over two days were used to keep a lid on violence in North Station and the Fenway. Police shut access to streets and barred patrons from entering taverns after the third quarter.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1268232

Danny Ainge: Celtics to sign C Jermaine O’Neal
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Green machine
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Bradley needs ankle surgery; will miss summer league
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Boston’s Red Scare: Russian Spies Donald Howard Heathfield & Tracey Lee Ann Foley Nabbed in the Peoples Republic of Cambridge

Boston Money — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:30:54 +0000

The Russians next door: A ‘sexy’ spy to ‘great tenants’?

‘Such a nice couple’

AFP – Getty Images used spies next door

This drawing dated June 28, 2010 shows five of the 10 arrested Russian spy suspects in a New York courtroom.

It’s a tabloid editor’s dream come true: Ten people are accused of being undercover Russian spies, and one of them is even photogenic enough to deserve her own slide-show (see The New York Post’s tribute to what they are calling“Sexy Russian Spy Anna Chapman”here).But for the neighbors of the ten people arrested throughout the Northeast, it was more of a nightmare. Who were these people who they had come to trust as a professor, a newspaper columnist, and an architect, among other well-respected professions?Video: FBI arrests 10 in alleged Russian spy ring“They’re such a nice couple,” Susan Coke, a real estate agent who sold a home in Montclair, N.J. to two of the suspects — who called themselves Richard and Cynthia Murphy — told The New Jersey Star-Ledger. “I just hope the FBI got it wrong.”
Scroll down to learn more about the suspects. You can read the the court filing about the alleged spy program here, and the Department of Justice’s court complaint against two of the suspects, Mikhael Semenko and Anna Chapman, here.

Information compiled by msnbc.com’s Elizabeth Chuck and Ryan McCartney.
Anna Chapman, New York, N.Y.:Chapman, 28, said she was the founder of an online real estate company worth $2 million. She said she had a master in economics, was divorced, and lived in Manhattan’s Financial District, The New York Post reported. According to the New York Daily News, Chapman is the one who figured out her alleged spy network was being monitored on Saturday, prompting the FBI to make the arrests Monday.Sources: New York Daily News, New York Post
Richard and Cynthia Murphy, Montclair, N.J.:Richard was an architect, a neighbor told The New Jersey Star-Ledger, and Cynthia had just gotten an MBA. Richard said he was from Philadelphia; Cynthia said she was from New York. She worked as a vice president at a Manhattan firm, Morea Financial Services, Politico reported. The couple lived with two young daughters, Katie and Emily, in a home on Marquette Road in Montclair that they purchased for $481,000 in the fall of 2008. The two had come to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, first living in an apartment in Hoboken, N.J.Sources: Star-Ledger, New York Daily News, Politico
Juan Lazario and Vicky Palaez, Yonkers, N.Y.Neighbors said they knew Juan to be an economics professor at a college in New Jersey, and Vicky to be a columnist for New York’s Spanish-language newspaper, El Diario La Presna. They lived with two sons, according to the New York Daily News.Source: New York Daily News
Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, Arlington, Va.The husband-and-wife pair lived in Seattle before they moved to Arlington, Va. in October 2009. Zottoli, 40, said he was a U.S. citizen who was born in Yonkers, N.Y., and Mills, 31, said she was a Canadian citizen. Records reveal that the two moved around several times between 2002 and 2009.“They were the nicest people,” one former resident manager said of the two, who another neighbor said had a young son and a new baby. “In fact, I wish they had stayed on as tenants. They were really good tenants.”When their Seattle apartment was searched in February 2006, FBI agents reportedly found password-protected computer disks that contained “stenography program employed by the SVR.”Sources: KOMO-TV, Washington Post
Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley, Cambridge, Mass.The “Boston Conspirators,” as the FBI dubbed them, lived with their two teenage boys in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, according to the Boston Herald. He had received a master’s in public administration from Harvard in 2000 and worked as a consultant for a Cambridge-based consulting firm – a job that allegedly enabled him to contact a former high-ranking U.S. government national security official. The two were arrested at their Trowbridge Street apartment.“I’m absolutely floored,” Paul Hesselschwerd, president of Global Partners Inc. where Heathfield worked since 2000, told The Boston Globe. “He’s a good person. He’s lived in the United States for a long time. We’re just completely shocked.’’Craig Sandler, a former classmate of Heathfield, told The Boston Globe the alleged Russian spy was friendly and intelligent.“It never crossed my mind that he might be a spy,” Sandler said Tuesday. “But it’s not completely flabbergasting. He seems like a guy who would make a pretty good spy.”Sources: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Harvard Crimson
Mikhael Semenko, Arlington, Va.Semenko, 28, was a travel specialist at Travel All Russia LLC, according to a spokesman from the company based in Arlington, Va.The alleged spy began working for Travel All Russia in 2009 and was described as a friendly and diligent worker who had a strong command of several languages, including Russian (native), English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese, according to a statement released by the company after the arrest. A LinkedIn profile that says Semenko worked at Travel All Russia indicates he was particularly interested in non-profits, think tanks, public policy and educational institutions. Semenko was based in the Washington, D.C., area at the time of his arrest and attended or was attending Seton Hall University, the LinkedIn profile says.According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, FBI officials apparently met Semenko on Saturday just blocks from the White House, at the intersection of 10^th and H Street. “Could we have met in Beijing in 2004?” the undercover agent asked. “Yes, we might have but I believe it was in Harbin,” Semenko reportedly replied. See below for other code words and phrases the suspects used.Sources: Daily Telegraph, LinkedIn
Code words, phrases suspects used Following are among the phrases used by the alleged agents, their handlers and, deceptively, by U.S. counter-espionage officials in exchanges designed to verify a contact’s identity.”Excuse me, but haven’t we met in California last summer?”"No, I think it was the Hamptons.”"Could we have met in Beijing in 2004?”"Yes, we might have, but I believe it was in Harbin”"Excuse me, did we meet in Bangkok in April last year?.”"I don’t know about April, but I was in Thailand in May of that year.”Source: Reuters

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Russian spies: High-tech gear, plus old Cold War methods

The accused Russian spies arrested this week used a combination of very advanced methods and equipment as well as old-style spycraft like the ‘dead drop.’

FBI agents outside 35B Trowbridge Road in Cambridge, Mass., a residence owned by Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley. Heathfield and Foley were arrested Sunday by the FBI on allegations of being Russian spies.
(Richard Stanley/AP)

By Peter Grier, Staff writer
posted June 29, 2010 at 7:44 pm EDT

Washington —The accused Russian spies arrested by the US on Monday used a wide range of espionage techniques. Some were high tech, such as steganography – communication via encrypted text embedded in web site photos. But many were Cold War-era golden oldies, such as brush-passes, in which agents hand off identical bags in crowded places; radiograms, which involve burst transmissions over shortwave transmitters; and that old favorite, the dead drop.

Why is it called a “dead” drop? Because it involves one person dropping off something at a pre-arranged location, and a second person picking it up after the first has left. If the two meet face-to-face it’s called a live drop.

Anyway, traditional methods were a hallmark of the KGB during the years of the Soviet Union. That appears to have persisted with the SVR, Russia’s intelligence service. Here are some highlights of that long history of tradecraft, as recounted by FBI historians.

IN PICTURES: Top 10 notorious spies

THE HOLLOW NICKEL. In 1953 the FBI obtained a curious artifact – a hollow nickel that contained a microphotograph of ten columns of typewritten numbers. A newsboy had received the nickel in change while collecting from a customer.

The hollow nickel had been made from two coins with a tiny hole drilled through the “R” in the word “Trust.” For four years, US intelligence tried to decipher the numbers, and solve the mystery of the nickel, to no avail.

Finally, in 1957, a key appeared in the person of Reino Hayhanen, a Soviet spy who defected to the US rather than return to the USSR. The KGB had supplied Hayhanen with a hollow Finnish coin for dead drops that was marked by the same tiny hole as the nickel. With this hint the FBI finally decrypted the message, which turned out to be a welcome-to-the-US letter for Hayhanen from his Moscow superiors.

Hayhanen eventually led agents to one of his spy masters in the US, Col. Rudolf Abel. Convicted of espionage, Col. Abel was swapped in 1962 for captured US U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

WALKIE-TALKIES AND FAKE BRICKS. In 1970 a Grumman aircraft engineer who lived in the New York area struck up a friendship with a Russian who introduced himself as Sergey Petrov. Petrov claimed to be a translator of scientific documents at the UN.

Petrov was quite interested in the engineer’s work on the design of the new F-14 Navy fighter. He asked for any documents related to the plane – and said he’d pay the engineer a stipend if things went well.

The engineer went to the FBI. Over the next few months, he and Petrov met at Long Island restaurants for document exchanges. The Soviet spy gave his new friend a special camera, so he could bring pictures instead of actual paper. Eventually he outlined a plan in which the engineer would place microphotos in fake bricks made of plaster of Paris. Then the engineer would contact Petrov on a walkie talkie and tell him when he had dropped the brick at a location near the Tappan Zee Bridge, north of the city. This would eliminate the need for dangerous face-to-face meetings.

The FBI arrested Petrov shortly thereafter. He was indicted on espionage charges in July, 1972. In August of that year, the White House told the courts to drop the charges. Petrov was freed, and he returned to the USSR.

“It was decided by top US officials that this dismissal would best serve the national and foreign policy interests of the United States,” concludes an FBI summary of this case.

RAMON’S HOMEMADE TRADECRAFT. Robert Hanssen was a veteran FBI counterintelligence agent who spied for the Soviet Union, and later Russia, from 1979 to 2001. His acts did dreadful damage to US security, and caused the death of a number of US intelligence assets inside the USSR.

One of the reasons he was able to carry out 22 years of such high-level espionage was that he was careful to conceal his identity and place of work from his Soviet handlers. That way he could not be turned in by any US mole within the KGB.

The Soviets knew him by the code name “Ramon Garcia”.

Hanssen began his career as a turncoat by writing the KGB a letter. He subsequently refused all Soviet offers to meet in a third country, and all Soviet tradecraft. He was an FBI counterintelligence agent, after all, and figured he would survive best by designing his own routines.

Hanssen never showed any outward signs that he was receiving large sums of money, as he knew that might raise FBI suspicions. He set his own dead drop locations, which included a footbridge near Vienna, Virginia, a wooden utility pole near a Vienna bus stop, and the top of a “Foxstone Park” sign in the same area.

An FBI hunt for a suspected internal leaker finally discovered Hanssen after years of pursuing false leads. As then-FBI director Louis Freeh pointed out when the arrest was announced on February 20, 2001, Hanssen’s homemade tradecraft had been so effective that American counterintelligence learned his real name before his Russian spymasters did.

“They are learning of it only now,” said Director Freeh that day.

Hanssen, aka “Ramon,” is now serving a life sentence at the Supermax federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.

IN PICTURES: Top 10 notorious spies

Russian spy case ‘right out of a John le Carré novel’

Russian spies: US case could derail Medvedev, boost Putin

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In spy swap, agents were pawns in a practiced game

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – In the rapid-fire spy swap, the United States and Russia worked together as only old enemies could.

Less than two weeks after the FBI broke the spy ring in a counterintelligence operation cultivated for a decade, 10 Russian secret agents caught in the U.S. are back in Russia, four convicted of spying for the West have been pardoned and released by Moscow, and bilateral relations appear on track again.

In describing how the swap unfolded, U.S. officials made clear that even before the arrests, Washington wanted not only to take down a spy network but to move beyond the provocative moment.

So the U.S. made an offer. Russia was ready to deal.

Channels of communication that once coursed with world-shaking superpower crises were reflexively put into play. Moscow and Washington not only have a history of nuclear-tipped tension but also long experience keeping those tensions in check.

Just imagine if the U.S. had been caught up in a spy flare-up with Iran instead.

“This case has been done with electrifying speed,” said John L. Martin, who oversaw Cold War espionage prosecutions and trades during a 27-year career at the Justice Department. “I’ve never seen so much pressure to do it quickly.”

The detailed case against the network of secret Russian agents was brought to the attention of the White House in February, officials said. On June 11, President Barack Obama was briefed on the matter.

Well before FBI agents moved against the operatives late that month, Washington had in mind that they might become bargaining chips to free Russians imprisoned for betraying Moscow and helping the West.

The U.S. arrests were not made to facilitate a swap, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. Rather, they were precipitated, at least partly, by the plans of several of the Russians to leave this country this summer. He said that as the time approached to take down the ring, the question officials asked each other was, “Once the arrests take place, what do we do?”

CIA and FBI officials decided that because the sleepers had been observed and tracked by U.S. agents for so long, there was nothing to be gained or learned from them, the official said. Once in custody, the operatives “provided an opportunity for us to get something from the Russians.”

The idea of a swap advanced.

The CIA was assigned to make the initial approach, “testing the waters, and following through,” the official said. About a day after the arrests were made, the CIA contacted the Russian service to say, “We had a proposal to resolve the situation.”

The Russians, despite crying foul in public over the arrests, were ready to privately listen.

That set the stage for three phone calls between CIA Director Leon Panetta and Russia’s spy chief, Mikhail Fradkov. Panetta identified the four prisoners being held in Russia that the U.S. wanted to free, several U.S. officials said.

“I think the U.S. government had its end game lined up when it started this process,” said attorney Peter Krupp, who represented Donald Heathfield, one of the U.S. defendants.

“The Justice Department and perhaps the State Department moved mountains that couldn’t be moved by local officials to orchestrate a meeting between my client in Boston on Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend,” said Krupp.

Daniel Lopez, who represented defendant Mikhail Semenko in the case, says he has handled over 1,000 criminal cases “and I’ve never seen one move this quickly.”

On Monday, four days after becoming Semenko’s court-appointed lawyer in Alexandria, Va., Lopez got a phone call from a federal prosecutor telling him that “it would be in your client’s best interests to agree to come to New York as fast as you can because either he is ‘on the bus’ when it’s leaving or he is not.”

“I said ‘Do we have a plea agreement in this case?’ And he said ‘yes,’” Lopez recalled. But Lopez had no idea yet that his client was to become part of a spy swap.

All 10 defendants were assembled in New York from various jails to enter guilty pleas, complete the swap arrangements and be deported.

Once Russian diplomats talked to defendants or their lawyers to lay out what was going on, it became clear from their side as well that the operatives were merely pawns in a chess game controlled by Washington and Moscow.

Lopez said two Russian diplomats approached him Thursday as his client waited to plead.

“I said, ‘What is going to happen to my client’s belongings?’” and one diplomat replied, “It’s not important.”

“I said, ‘Well, what is important is for my client to know when he is going to leave.’ One of them said, ‘He’s leaving today … as soon as this is over, we’re going to the airport, straight to Europe and from there to Russia.’”

“I was amazed,” said Lopez.

Robert Krakow, attorney for Mikhail Anatonoljevich Vasenkov, said he was surprised to learn Russian officials had met his client without his knowledge. “I was not happy about it,” he said. “But the last thing I want to do is have my needs as a lawyer intrude upon events that are unfolding.”

Prosecutors sent Krakow a plea deal letter close to what was eventually agreed upon. When he first told his client, Vasenkov rejected the idea of going to Russia.

“He said, `No, I’m not going. What am I going to do in Russia?’” the lawyer recalled. Vasenkov, 66, went by the name Juan Lazaro, falsely claimed he was South American and lived in a Yonkers, N.Y., home paid for by Russian intelligence.

“It became clear that the choices were limited,” Krakow went on, and his client agreed to go — promised support for himself and his family in their new life. John Rodriguez, lawyer for Vasenkov’s wife Vicky Pelaez, said the couple had 24 hours to accept the “all-or-nothing” deal to go to Moscow or face years behind bars in the U.S.

Krakow said when he met the Russian representatives, one of them told him his “mission was to get this done.”

“We didn’t like him,” Krakow said. “He was very heavy-handed. It was sort of like the imperative: `This is what we will do.’ His manner was: `This is what’s going to happen.’”

And that is what happened with all 10, leaving only one pawn eluding the chess masters, at least for now. He is Christopher Metsos, on the run after posting bail in Cyprus.

Boston Job Market – Don Pinkerton’s Story & Success!

Boston Money — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:45:19 +0000

Aquarium volunteer lands at Revere High

By Christine McConville | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

Photo by Angela Rowlings

Don Pinkerton started his new job as a teacher at Revere High School about a year after he was laid off from a financial services firm.

The 51-year-old Swampscott resident used his time and some well-known local resources to reinvent himself. And today he said he feels fortunate to have weathered a difficult situation.

“I know a lot of people are really struggling, and I have friends who are looking for work, so I know how hard it can be,” he said.

Pinkerton said it was solid support from his family and some money that he had saved up for emergencies that gave him the time to execute a career transition.

There was also a valuable stop at the New England Aquarium.

“It was a great experience,” he said of the days he spent assisting visitors at the bustling Boston institution. “I realized I really like being in a science-oriented environment, and I really enjoyed helping to educate people.”

Pinkerton wasn’t paid for his time, but it was rewarding nonetheless. At the aquarium he realized he could thrive as a science teacher.

Aquarium officials say the past year has brought them a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in new volunteers. In 2009, about 100 more volunteers worked 11,000 more hours than in 2008.

“We have experienced a lot more interest due to the economy,” said Mona Chang, the aquarium’s manager for volunteer programs. “People have more time because many of them have lost their jobs.”

Pinkerton majored in a science in college, then spent 25 years in finance. The December 2008 separation agreement he signed with his former employer prohibits him from speaking about the firm.

“I was happy most days and I was paid well,” he said. “The work was challenging, but it was never really me.”

The layoff was a wake-up call of sorts.

In addition to volunteering at the aquarium, Pinkerton helped out at the Museum of Science, took graduate-level science courses at Salem State College, worked as a substitute teacher and received a state teaching certification.

This past December he landed his dream job, teaching biology at Revere High School.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1231184

Boston Financial – Such a Deal… Cheap Office Space Downtown! Smart…

Boston Money — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:34:13 +0000

Freelancers bag cheap office space

By Christine McConville | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

Photo by Christopher Evans

Three or four days a week, Boston-area entrepreneur Hooman Hodjat stops into a second-floor office just across the street from Boston’s South Station.

One day, he’ll use the conference room to meet with potential investors. The next day, he may be found at a table, working the phone lines, with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.

And for all this, he pays just $100 a month.

He’s a member at WorkBar, a pioneering new business that offers office space, like a gym offers exercise space.

Hodjat and other WorkBar members sign up, pay monthly dues and come in as often as they want to work.

Instead of treadmills and free weights, WorkBar has laptop charging stations, lounges and free coffee.

WorkBar director Bill Jacobson said the concept evolved after he realized that today’s offices don’t reflect today’s workers.

“The people who are working at home say they miss the other people from the office,” he said.

So far, WorkBar, which officially launches next month, offers two types of memberships. Community members pay $100 a month and must sign on for a six-month commitment. They get to use almost all the services, except the private desks, which are set aside for dedicated members, who pay $400 a month.

The 129 South St. shop is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

And at least three days a week, Hodjat is there.

He is one of the founders of Pickup Zone, a new service aimed at offering consumers relief from unattended package deliveries. With PickUp Zone, people can have their packages delivered to a neighborhood retailer, who will hold them until the person can pick them up.

As a result, Hodjat said, he’s often in the city, meeting with retailers and potential clients.

The convenience is great, said Hodjat, who lives in Framingham.

“My target market is in the city, so I get on the commuter rail, get out at South Station, and walk across the street for my meetings,” he said.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1191126

Boston Financial Politics – Christy Mihos Republican Millions =’s Early Advantage

Boston Money — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:11:44 +0000

Christy Mihos aide: ’Financial advantage’ key in 2010 race

By Associated Press | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics

BOSTON — The chief political consultant for Cape Cod businessman Christy Mihos said Tuesday his client lost the 2006 gubernatorial race solely because he ran as an independent.

Conservative commentator and author Dick Morris also predicted that Mihos will beat fellow Republican Charles Baker in the 2010 GOP primary and Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, in the general election because of his opposition to Big Dig spending and the “considerable financial advantage” the multimillionaire brings to the campaign.

“I don’t think Baker is going to be a serious problem,” Morris told The Associated Press in an interview. “I think he’s subject to many of the same negatives that Patrick is. Patrick raised our taxes; Baker raised our tolls.”

The criticism harkened back to Baker’s work in the Weld and Cellucci administrations, when he served as the top finance official in the Cabinet from 1994 to 1998. During that time, the state sought to finance the $15 billion Central Artery tunnel project, which has triggered toll increases.

More recently, Patrick signed a 25-percent sales tax hike into law.

Yet Morris didn’t limit his attack there. He criticized Baker, who went on to become president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, for helping negotiate a state receivership for the troubled insurer and then taking a $1.5 million salary package from the now-profitable company until he resigned in July to run for governor.

“I wonder how popular health insurance companies are,” Morris said. “Let’s put it this way: I’d rather run a hedge fund.”

A Baker spokesman dismissed the complaints.

“Looks like Christy Mihos is back negatively attacking Republicans again,” Baker spokesman Andrew Goodrich said. “Christy’s negative campaign is one reason elected Republican officials from across the state are flocking to support Charlie Baker and see Charlie as our only hope to defeat Deval Patrick.”

Mihos garnered only 7 percent of the vote in 2006, when he squared off against Patrick and Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. The Christy’s convenience store magnate is running as a Republican this time around.

Mihos has hired Morris to develop strategy. He is a newspaper columnist and Fox News analyst who once served as Democrat Bill Clinton’s political adviser.

His work with Mihos is not the New Yorker’s first venture into Massachusetts politics. He previously ran Ed King’s successful campaign against Democrat Michael Dukakis, and also worked on state campaigns to limit property tax increases and elect William F. Weld as governor in 1990 and 1994.

Morris said Mihos’s candidacy will resonate with voters because he fought against cost escalation in the Big Dig project while a member of the Massachusetts Turnpike board of directors. The consultant also said Mihos knows how to cut government spending but won’t be afraid to spend his own money promoting his candidacy — perhaps as early as this fall.

He said Mihos lost 2 1/2 years ago only because he ran as an independent.

“It was a basic mistake to think that as an independent in a highly polarized, partisan year,” Morris said. “I think that people were not in the mood for a third choice.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1191857

Boston Finance News – Latino Accounting & Finance Convention

Boston Money — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:50:29 +0000

Boston hosting 1st Latino professional convention

By Christine McConville | Saturday, August 8, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

As the nation’s first Latino Supreme Court justice is set to be sworn in today, Boston will welcome its first-ever convention of Latino professionals.

Some 2,000 members of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting are expected to gather here starting today for their national convention.

A Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau official said this will be the biggest gathering of Latino professionals ever in the Hub.

The association’s Boston chapter – which has more than 1,500 members – is the nation’s largest, said Romina Wilmot, vice president of marketing and public relations for the Hub chapter.

She attributed the Boston chapter’s success to its leadership and the region’s growing number of Latino professionals. In the past decade, Boston’s Latino population has grown 21 percent, to 103,000, according to city data.

“We have had very strong and active leaders, who are very passionate about this group,” said Wilmot, a former advertising specialist for Marshall’s who relocated from Honduras to Boston as a young girl.

The conference runs through Wednesday and association members will be gathering in three different hotels in the Copley Square area.

As attendees gather for their first day of meetings, many will be celebrating Sonia Sotomayor’s swearing in as Supreme Court associate justice.

“I’m sure everyone will be discussing that,” Wilmot said.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1189894

Food, Finance & Boston Restaurants – Hell’s Kitchen Roasts Boston Chefs

Boston Money — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:37:53 +0000

Boston chefs scalded in ‘Hell’s Kitchen’

By Donna Goodison / Turning the Tables | Friday, July 24, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

It was a rough night for the two Massachusetts chefs competing in “Hell’s Kitchen,” which premiered Tuesday on Fox TV.

Fitchburg diner owner David “Louie” Cordio was booted in the middle of dinner service by chef Gordon Ramsay – the only contestant in six seasons to be kicked off the reality TV show even before the first elimination ceremony.

The two-hour show ended with a cliffhanger. Fans of Boston chef Andy Husbands, nominated by his team for elimination in the second round, will have to tune in next Tuesday to see if he’s dispatched.

It was a memorable, if short, run for Cordio, who in one scene doffed his shirt to do a champagne-fueled cannonball into a hot tub.

Now he wants to go mano-a-mano with Ramsay outside the kitchen. “Put all the spatulas and spoons aside,” Cordio, 45, said. “I just want a cage match.”

So is Cordio bitter about his early exit and Ramsay’s criticism of his signature dish? “It’s TV, what can you do?” he said. “Somebody has to go out first. I just think chef Ramsay is a clown, if you ask me.”

The 16 “Hell’s Kitchen” contestants had 45 minutes to prepare their signature dishes for the series’ first challenge, and Cordio made sausage gravy over biscuits.

“Ah, (expletive) me, what is it?” was Ramsay’s first reaction.

Cordio asked Ramsay what was wrong with the dish, noting he sells “5 gallons” of it a week at his 50/50 Diner in Fitchburg. “It tastes like gunk!” Ramsay replied after spitting out a mouthful.

The final straw for Ramsay was Cordio’s performance on the meat station on opening night of the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant. After reaming Cordio for putting the rack of lamb in the oven without searing and seasoning it – and wasting a heaping plate of it – Ramsay ordered him to get out of the kitchen and pack his bags.

But Cordio had a parting shot for Ramsay in his final closeup: “He can kiss my (expletive) ass!”

Tremont 647 chef Husbands, who also failed to win a point for his signature dish, had problems with allegedly undercooked chicken during the second night of dinner. “It was tough, and I definitely goofed some stuff up,” said Husbands, who was hit with one of Ramsay’s “you (expletive) donkey” insults.

Husbands was sweating it in the hours prior to the show’s airing, as evidenced by his Twitter tweets. He went from a “little” nervous to “losing my mind” and “head about to explode” a few hours before.

***

More Boston Restaurant News

A new jazz lounge and eatery is headed to Columbus Avenue in Boston’s South End.

The Stork Club Boston is drawing its inspiration from speakeasies and its name from the former Stork Club that operated in New York City from 1929 to 1965 and drew the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, J. Edgar Hoover and the Kennedys.

It’s taking the place of Circle Plates and Lounge, an upscale French restaurant that opened last October in the former Bob’s Southern Bistro space and closed six weeks later.

Managing partner Ziad Chamoun, previously director of operations for the Barking Crab restaurants in Boston and Newport, is buying out the current owner.

“The goal is to bring back a place where there’s conversation and music, and artists and people from different groups within Boston can come in and enjoy,” spokesman Marc Deley said. “There will be weekly live jazz music, but it will be more atmospheric jazz.”

The 88-seat Stork Club Boston is slated to open Aug. 11.

***

Executive chef Jeff Poliseno’s menu of comfort food “with a twist” that’s meant to be shared will be served until 1 a.m., an hour before closing, with prices of $7 to $17. Poliseno formerly worked at American Seasons on Nantucket and as executive chef at Boston’s Vox Populi.

***

A little bit of news on the restaurant replacing Excelsior at Boston’s Heritage on the Garden.

London’s Marlon Abela Restaurant Corp., which Himmel Hospitality is partnering with to run the restaurant, has posted a help-wanted ad for a “Provencal-style bistro.”

The Turning the Tables column runs every other Friday. Send restaurant tips to

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1186780

Boston Globe – Will You Pay for Globe Website?

Boston Money — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:30:28 +0000

Globe says readers to pay for Web site

By Christine McConville | Friday, August 7, 2009
http://www.bostonherald.com | Media & Marketing

Photo by boston.com

The Boston Globe will soon begin charging for its Web site, publisher P. Steven Ainsley told the paper’s union bosses yesterday as the Globe’s parent New York Times [NYT] Co. confirmed in a regulatory filing that the money-losing Hub broadsheet is for sale.

News of the Globe’s intention to charge for Boston.com came a day after News Corp. [NWS] Chairman Rupert Murdoch announced his company would start charging for content at all of its news Web sites, including the New York Post, The Times of London and The Sun, a popular British tabloid. News Corp. already charges for some access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site.

Globe spokesman Bob Powers said charging for Boston.com appears inevitable.

“It’s going to happen one way or another,” Powers said. “We are looking at several different options, and the goal would be to generate revenue.”

Ainsley also told Globe union bosses the combination of price increases and labor cost reductions, including $20 million in union concessions, have put the paper on better financial footing.

He said union concessions, plus $8 million in Globe management givebacks and the $18 million the company expects to save by closing its Billerica printing plant, have all helped, sources said.

The Times’ quarterly report filed yesterday shows the company spent $30 million to close its Billerica printing plant. Sources have told the Herald that at least one outside party was interested in the plant, but was rebuffed.

Ainsley refused to answer questions about the potential sale of the Globe at yesterday’s meeting, saying his Times Co. overlords had ordered him to keep mum.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1189673

News Corp. plans fees for newspaper Web sites
/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1189759

Nonprofit Globe no easy fix
/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1188720

Boston Finance & Fear Mongering – George Regan

Boston Money — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:16:54 +0000

Questions raised about George Regan award Hub PR exec denies using ethnic slur

By Jessica Heslam / MediaBiz | Thursday, July 30, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Media & Marketing

An ex-Boston magazine scribe insists Boston PR man George Regan called him an ethnic slur, and now there’s a call to block one of the country’s biggest civil rights organizations from honoring the Hub spinmeister.

Regan denies calling John Gonzalez a “wetback,” but the writer is sticking by his story.

“It’s 100 percent true,” Gonzalez told MediaBiz yesterday.

Gonzalez said he was working on a piece about the Herald’s Inside Track reporters in 2006 when he called Regan for a comment. Regan represented both the Herald and Boston magazine at the time. (The Herald is no longer a Regan client.)

“I call him for a comment, and he freaks out and he starts screaming at me. We’re going back and forth, and it just escalated out of nowhere and he said, ‘You listen to me, you (expletive) wetback,’ ” Gonzalez said.

Regan said he never called Gonzalez a wetback. “I told him he was very wet behind the ears and I know I’m right,” he said yesterday.

Gonzalez said Boston magazine brought Regan in for a sitdown and the PR king said, “if I said what you think I said and that offended you then I’m sorry.”

Regan said yesterday that he never apologized. “I never apologized because I did nothing wrong. I apologized for losing my temper,” he said.

“I know my business very well,” Regan added. “I know how words can hurt. You don’t have to say anything discriminatory to make your point. And if you have to resort to name-calling, you probably don’t belong in the business.”

The Anti-Defamation League of New England – a Regan client – plans to bestow the media bigshot with its top honor Sept. 9, when Regan will be feted by hundreds at its annual leadership dinner at the John F. Kennedy Library.

The event co-chairs include a bevy of Regan clients, including Legal Sea Foods czar Roger Berkowitz, Suffolk Construction honcho John Fish and Entercom radio exec Julie Kahn.

Berkowitz said he’s known Regan for over 20 years and said he’s never made any derogatory or inflammatory comments about anyone. “It would be completely out of character,” Berkowitz said. “It sounds like someone wants a vendetta.”

Earlier this month, the ADL received an anonymous letter detailing the Gonzalez-Regan exchange.

ADL exec Derrek Shulman said they plan to go ahead and honor Regan because he’s been a tremendous community leader for 25 years. “Apparently, George said no such word or words and there was some kind of misunderstanding,” Shulman said.

Gonzalez says Regan shouldn’t be honored.

“He’s achieved a certain status in Boston through fear-mongering, basically, and somebody needs to stand up to him and call him what he is. He’s a bully,” he said.

Financial System – President Obama

Boston Money — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:54:56 +0000

Prez targets finance system

Seeks to prevent Wall St. abuses

By Jay Fitzgerald | Thursday, June 18, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

Photo by AP

President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s financial regulatory system received support yesterday from key Massachusetts congressional members who said changes are long overdue.

Saying America had allowed a “culture of irresponsibility” to grow within the financial industry, Obama proposed giving the Federal Reserve more regulatory powers and creating a new consumer watchdog agency to review new financial products peddled by firms.

“This was a failure of the entire system,” Obama said at a White House event, referring to last fall’s near collapse of the nation’s financial system. “An absence of oversight engendered systematic, and systemic, abuse.”

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the influential House Financial Services Committee, said the plan is an important step toward overhauling the regulatory system. He predicted Congress will have a bill on Obama’s desk before the end of the year.

Frank, who has parted with the administration over some issues, said there will be changes to Obama’s plan, but he said Democrats agree with the “fundamental” thrust of the package.

U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. William Delahunt (D-Quincy) won a major victory when Obama agreed to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, something the two Bay State pols have pushed for in recent months.

“The plan announced by the president today will protect consumers and investors by restoring much of the regulatory oversight of our financial system that has been systematically dismantled in recent years,” said Delahunt.

But business leaders and Republicans didn’t like most of the proposals.

David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s capital markets center, said the president’s plan adds an extra layer of red tape without really fixing the problems that led to last year’s Wall Street meltdown.

“We can’t simply insert new regulatory agencies and hope that we’ve covered our bases,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) said the president’s plan could create a cycle of more bank bailouts.

“It perpetuates what we’ve had in the past, said Garrett,” a member of Frank’s Financial Services committee.

The financial industry, including some of Boston’s most powerful mutual-fund companies, have been wary of too much government intervention in the sector, fearing their interests might be hurt.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1179683

US push to overhaul banking worries some
/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1179686