Boston sampler

Citizens Energy boss Joe Kennedy, like his famous uncle Ted, opposes the huge wind farm proposal in Nantucket Sound, his backyard. But the "Call Joe-4-Oil" Kennedy is working hard to also become "Joe-4-Wind" elsewhere.

Kennedy says he opposes the Cape Wind project not because he has a house on the water in Hyannisport, but because it is a "land grab" by private developers.

"This is an asset owned by the people of our country," Kennedy says. The developers "are not going to pay the government one dime."

While Kennedy opposes Cape Wind, he does not oppose wind farms. The entrepreneurial Kennedy has spent the past 18 months or so looking for ways to get into the wind business in New England and around the world.

"We are aggressively trying to find good sites for development," he says. Among the deals he considered: partnering with Cape Wind Associates, the same company that wants to build on the Cape, for a smaller wind farm off Jones Beach in Long Island.

Cape Wind president Jim Gordon calls Kennedy's opposition to the Cape wind farm "ironic," given his interest in the Long Island deal.

While Long Island was a competitive process unlike Nantucket Sound, neither deal would require developers to make payments to the government, he points out.

What's Kennedy working on now? "Nothing I would like to talk about," he says.

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Employees at Candela Corp., the Wayland maker of lasers for hair removal, found presents stacked high at the company Christmas party -- but it wasn't Santa who left them, or even the boss. It was the company's vendors who were encouraged to give in a "confidential" memo from Candela chief executive Gerard Puorro's office.

"Every year about this time," Puorro's assistant, Rhonda Lally, wrote to vendors, "I contact all of the business associates and major vendors with whom Candela has done considerable business over the past year, and ask them if they can help with my holiday drive to collect prizes for our hard-working employees. Each year at Candela's holiday party, all prizes collected are given away to our nonmanagement employees by means of a drawing. Prizes collected in the past have included free trips, weekend getaways, printers, electronic devices, gift certificates to restaurants and stores, and tickets to events. . . . Last year through the generous contributions of our many businesses associates, Candela was able to give away more than $10,000 in prizes to our grateful employees!!"

Says one not-so-grateful vendor: "When I received this solicitation, I just couldn't believe it. I don't even know if it's legal, being a publicly traded corporation."

Is Candela is making a list and checking it twice? The company declined to comment.

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The New England Patriots have won two of the past three Super Bowls and are headed for the playoffs again. The Patriots and their owners, the Kraft family, are winners and no one wants to pick a fight with a winner -- save a few disgruntled fans who lost their season tickets for behaving badly.

But now into the third season at handsome Gillette Stadium, the Krafts and their construction companies are still fighting about the final bill. The general contractors, Beacon Skanska and Barton Malow, have filed suit to enforce a mechanic's lien on Gillette Stadium to protect their interests.

Both sides say they are in mediation and expect to resolve the dispute soon. But in a lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last year the Krafts say Beacon/Barton Malow "grossly mismanaged" the project, and extracted an additional $30 million from the Krafts for subcontractors that was never needed. In a counterclaim, the contractors say they are still owed $16 million on the $305 million stadium, and have filed to enforce their lien in that amount.

Meanwhile, a number of subcontractors, none of whom want to say anything about this, are still waiting to get paid.

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.