SPRINGFIELD—There is plenty of precedent for police officers to fill the City Council chamber. Usually, it is to oppose or support some substantive policy. This past Monday the room was full, if not packed with cops. Ostensibly, they were there to support Superintendent Lawrence Akers’s body camera financial package.
Cesar Ruiz, the former Springfield School Committee member and current home care magnate, is back. Six months after he dissolved his last SuperPAC in a settlement with the state, Ruiz is forming a new entity to intercede in elections in Massachusetts. This time, however, he is starting out with allies in the Boston area.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) has selected a site for a rail station in Palmer, marking a significant step for the project. The choice may bring some controversy. The agency chose “Site B,” a location on the south side of a CSX railyard half of a mile from downtown Palmer. The state will now proceed to a conceptual design phase.
Donald Trump has launched a trade war with Canada and Mexico. Elon Musk is doing his best to play aviation gremlin to the federal airship midflight. Both ongoing acts of economic and civic vandalism touch the jurisdiction of the Ways & Means Committee and therefore its ranking member Springfield Congressman Richard Neal.
The municipal political season has kicked off in Springfield. On Wednesday, School Committee member Joesiah Gonzalez announced that he would run for the Ward 1 City Council seat Maria Perez now holds.
The race will be a test for Gonzalez as much as for Perez, should she seek reelection.
UPDATED 1/29/25 1:40AM: Voters approved the charter change 572 to 270 per unofficial results the Clerk released Tuesday night. The last time voters in the City of Holyoke had to trudge to the polls in the dead of winter was probably 2010. On January 19
Earlier this month, a state agency with an officious name, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM), held two public hearings about the replacing the Hampden County Courthouse. These were not about where the state might put the now-styled Springfield Regional Justice Center, which would replace the deteriorating, musty and ostensibly unsafe Brutalist incumbent.
BOSTON—In her second State of the Commonwealth address, which solemnly nodded at the coming national change, Governor Maura Healey celebrated legislative accomplishments and restated 2025 goals. Among these were her $8 billion transportation plan. It was a laundry list and a pep rally that, as
The political season in Holyoke formally launched Thursday with Mayor Joshua Garcia’s announcement that he will seek a second full four-year term. Garcia made history in 2021 when he became the city’s first leader of Puerto Rican heritage of the city. Holyoke has one of the largest such communities in the continental United States.
BOSTON—The first sign may have been the duller than usual roar in the hours before legislators took the oath of office—COVID-era ceremonies aside. The galleries in the Senate chamber were busy, but not packed. The schmoozing wrapped up early. Little more than an hour after
