Construction Industry Continues To Influence Braintree Politics

The dust of the 2023 election has settled.

• Each group of voters is either elated or dejected.
• Hard feelings have had a chance to cool.

But why did Braintree residents vote or not vote for any one political leader?

For many people who have to work at the core, people are busy, they have jobs, if parents, they have kids. All of their time and money is spent working to pay for their house, if parents their kids and life. Those big issues featured in the election.

• Housing was a big issue, if a political leader suggested we should have some development, one perception was they are in the pocket of the construction industry, that meant the leader was for development, and damn the consequences for single family homes, transportation and extra costs for education.
• If the political leader was against development, they defended Braintree against more traffic, more development, and more new students in the schools.

The schools were the next big issue because of the teachers’ contract negotiations for a living wage in the face of the cost-of-living crisis due to inflation had not been settled between 2022 and 2023. And the contract was only finalized in 2023. Months before the 2023 Mayoral election.

Lastly, fiscal responsibility was a big issue. Except, during 2023, all school committee members, all councilors and the mayor voted for a new budget that increased the school budget by $10 million. So, everyone in the political community understood we were going into the 2023 election with a budget shortfall.

That question of why voters voted the way the way they did? Answers might be found in the campaign contributions of the people who gave contributions to Mayor Kokoros, now Mayor Joyce and even in former Mayor Sullivan’s campaign contributions.

Initially let’s remind ourselves of the numbers for Mayor Sullivan’s 2015 political contributions.

15% of Mayor Sullivan’s contributors were women and 85% of contributors were men. 13% of dollars given were from women for Mayor Sullivan 87% of dollars given with men.

For Braintree residents vs. Non-residents of Braintree, 36% of contributors for Mayor Sullivan were Braintree residents in 2015 political contributors, while 64% were non-residents. And for dollars given, 29% for Braintree residents compared to 71% of dollars given were non-residents for Mayor Sullivan.

What do those numbers mean? Well, if someone is going to invest in Braintree, it’s more likely that an outside non-resident would be in the construction or development industry. The construction industry always requires planning permission, and permits, so folks in that industry understand the connection between the politics of a town and development. So, many non-residents could be an indicator that folks who don’t live in the town are supporting town political leaders in Braintree.

For Mayor Sullivan's 2015 campaign, 25% of contributors worked in the real estate industry, and 5% out of the 25% were unions mainly in the construction industry, so around 25% of contributors were in development. While 32% of the contributions came from the construction and development industry for Mayor Sullivan.

Comparing Erin Joyce and Charles Kokoros Political Contributions

61% of Erin Joyce’s political contributions were in majority who were women, in comparison, for Mayor Kokoros’ 2023 political contributions in the same year 59% of contributors were men. And for dollars given, 50% of women represented the percentage of dollars given for Erin Joyce’s 2023 political contributions. Whereas for Mayor Kokoros 58% of dollars given were for men in 2023.

And Mayor Kokoros' campaign.

For Braintree residents vs. nonresidents for Braintree for the contributions for Candidate Erin Joyce and Mayor Charles Kokoros. Erin Joyce had 77% of Braintree residents were contributors, whereas for Charles Kokoros the number was 70% of contributors for 2023. However, Erin Joyce’s percentage of dollars given was 68% of Braintree residents, compared to 52% of Braintree residents for dollar given as a percentage for Mayor Kokoros' 2023 campaign.

All the locations of contributors and dollars given percentage looked extremely healthy to me compared to Mayor Sullivan’s numbers in 2015, where Mayor Sullivan had majorities for non-residents of Braintree at 64% and 71% for contributors and dollars given.

Lastly, to see how Braintree compares to the big city, I ran the numbers for Boston for Mayor Michelle Wu 2023 campaign contributions. The dollar numbers are bigger, however for Mayor Wu 38% of residents represented the percentage of dollars given, while 62% of dollars given by contributors were non-residents and the percentage of dollars given. So, Braintree beat Boston on local political contributions speech from residents!

Braintree voters were very vocal about local issues, and if ever there was an issue, it was that voters didn’t want outside residents dominating the future of Braintree. Both Braintree candidates had a high percentage of contributors who were residents, but Mayor Joyce had a higher percentage of contributions from local residents compared to Mayor Kokoros. Ironic in the sense that a lot of the discussion was about that very issue of outside residents influencing politics. Looking across the Mayor electoral in the Commonwealth, Mayor Joyce stands out as being one of the highest $ volume contributions given from residents. As does Mayor Kokoros, both beating Mayor Wu in Boston.

Here are a few more examples of Mayors across Massachusetts, and their dollar contributions given by Resident vs. Non-resident.

Industry Numbers

The industry numbers haven’t been compiled yet for Mayor Kokoros or Candidate Joyce. The numbers of contributors from each industry. Instead, I've done some partial research and reviewed Candidate Erin Joyce and Mayor Charles Kokoros contributors who gave $1,000. Those top paying folks usually must give their title and company, or role in life, so it’s a lot easier to determine industry.

Of those $1,000 2023 political contributions for Erin Joyce’s and Charles Kokoros’ campaigns, for Joyce’s campaign 37% of the large contributions came from the construction and real estate industry, while 23% of contributions for Mayor Kokoros were from the construction and real estate industry. So, for the 3 mayors we have Kokoros on 23%, and Joyce on 37% for top $1,000 contributors. Interesting to compare to Mayor Sullivan’s 2015 overall numbers at 32%!

If you’d like to conduct a more detailed analysis, you are welcome to review the data hosted on the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Fascinating to see who and which businesses are supporting what candidates. www.ocpf.us

Braintree School Building Assessment

Why am I doing this? It comes from a general frustration with the state of Braintree School infrastructure. We’ve had a series of disasters. Roofs falling off, boilers at the high school not working, other issues, and culminating in the failure to open the High School in 2021.

• In 2018 2 roofs fell off at Ross and South Middle schools in Braintree.
• In 2018, 2 of the 3 boilers failed at Braintree High School causing indoor temperatures to drop to the low 50s.
• In 2021 a water leak in an upstairs room flooded an electrical room, blowing the circuits out at Braintree high school.

Braintree is no different from many other Massachusetts towns, we haven’t maintained our infrastructure.

At the state level, we see the lack of funding in the MBTA, how many of us have had their commute lengthened by a failure to maintain track and infrastructure on the Redline?

Don’t get me wrong, the situation with the schools is moving forward. The debt exclusion passed by 71-77% and we’ve built the new South Middle School and fixed several school roofs.

It’s just that there’s a critical question, is there really the political will to solve Braintree’s problems with school infrastructure and maintenance at a pace that keeps Braintree’s head above water?

How do political contributions impact the decisions about school buildings? It’s tough to tell what influence donors have, but transparency I believe will help keep voters informed.

Lessons From the Political Contribution Analysis for 2023

From the analysis we can see Braintree citizens are passionate about the town, we are beating out major cities like Boston on local contributions. Doesn’t that statistic put things in perspective, all the passion, from both sides, is really putting neighbor against neighbor when I suspect we all want the same thing, a better Braintree.

Real estate and construction give to every Braintree Mayoral candidate. We shouldn’t be surprised.

And, we are nearing gender parity on contributions.

And lastly, a call to the mayor, council, and school board, please put a Braintree School Assessment together, as the election indicates, and the contributions do as well, Braintree residents are engaged, more so than many other towns in the Commonwealth. Make that right decision understanding what we need to do next, and build a plan for Braintree schools.