This is nice: The Red Sox have gotten $13.6 million in state tax credits to refurbish Fenway Park and surrounding buildings and plan to ask for $26 million more.

Bruce Mohl reports the news in a CommonWealth article (free registration required) on the Prince of Darkness himself, Secretary of State Bill Galvin.

Seems Galvin - the man who is supposed to help citizens gain access to public records - does his best to keep secret the recipients of a $50-million annual historic-preservation tax-credit fund he oversees:

It took nearly two months to obtain a complete list of the tax credit awards, and then only after filing a public records request for the information. Although Galvin's office urges government officials to waive any fees associated with providing access to public records, Galvin's staff charged CommonWealth close to $300 just to look at four tax credit applications.

Via Rick Holmes.

OK, so Secretary of State Bill Galvin vows to take over the Boston elections department because of that ballot-shortage issue the other night. Andy at Mass. Revolution Now wonders where the Dark Prince was before the election - when Boston was already under federal investigation on various election issues:

... Bill Galvin has been in charge of voting supervision in this state for something like 12 years and only now is he going to get serious about looking out for voters?

So what does anyone think we can expect from Billy? Well his latest idea has been bringing in the electronic disaster machines manufactured by Diebold. I feel so safe having Billy on the job now. ...

Actually, this isn't the first time Galvin has yelled at Boston elections officials, and Tuesday's ballot shortage might just be the proverbial straw.

The Globe's Political Intelligence reports that Galvin "issued a scathing report" on the city's election performance back in 2003. And you'll recall the whole Dianne Wilkerson/Sonia Chang-Diaz mess, in which the city elections department failed to even count any votes in several precincts this past September.

After watching the debatelet between Secretary of State Bill Galvin and Green challenger Jill Stein (held at a Cheneyesque undisclosed location at Galvin's insistence), Bob concludes he cannot support the Democratic incumbent and so will vote for Stein:

Galvin is not fit to hold the Secretary of State's office. He doesn't appear to respect the fundamental premise of our system of government: the people are sovereign. ...

Well, not counting the infamous "You called me a lizard!" debate between Ray Flynn and David Finnegan back in the day, that is. So set aside 16 minutes to watch the debate between Secretary of State Bill Galvin and Green opponent Jill Stein.

Secretary of State seems like another one of those colonial-era holdovers that has no business being an elective office, but whoever holds it does oversee elections (as in: play with electronic voting machines) and has some say over corporate governance in Massachusetts.

In: Hoyer and Cherington as joint Sox GMs.

Out: Bill Galvin as candidate for governor.

That's Sco's reaction to possible Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Galvin after seeing Galvin speak recently:

... He was much better speaking off the cuff in a small group than I've seen him on television or in front of larger audiences giving prepared remarks. ...

Sco also reports on a Deval Patrick speech he took in.