NORTHAMPTON—No New England community is complete without an old church-cum-meetinghouse. However, a few years ago, the one at the center of Paradise City, today First Churches, was in trouble. Circa 2007, plaster was caving into the sanctuary.
First Churches turned to Gina-Louise Sciarra.
SPRINGFIELD—Gladys Oyola, the head of the Springfield Election Commission, will be the next City Clerk after the City Council unanimously selected her. Last week, a search committee had slimmed down a field of 72 applicants down to three. On Monday, Oyola, an unsurprising though eminently qualified choice, prevailed.
UPDATED 4:30PM: An earlier version of this post indicated the Springfield City Council will vote to approve the budget this week. That vote will actually be later in June.
Springfield is set to emerge from the pandemic in relatively fiscal good shape as the city’s various organs come together to approve the budget.
LONGMEADOW—Some months ago, a stone-faced Senator Eric Lesser appeared on a split screen with Governor Charlie Baker during a committee hearing on the early vaccine campaign. Lesser laid into Baker, for a botched website rollout among other errors. His Excellency expressed visible frustration.
While Holyoke is set for a wild ride in the open mayoral race, the city’s other executive offices look like a walk in Heritage State Park. In addition to the mayor, the city will also elect the Treasurer and City Clerk.
Barring any signatures challenges, the midterm ballot in Springfield looks ready to go and two prominent open races will want for competition. Moreover, the field will be thin enough to avoid the need for a preliminary. Still, a full complement of contenders will challenge at-large councilors and half of the ward Council seats will have races.
On the heels of a devastating Boston Globe report about Governor Charlie Baker and Health & Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, a legislative panel is weighing in. Like previous investigators, the Special Joint Oversight Committee on the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke COVID-19 Outbreak lays into former Superintendent Bennett Walsh. Beyond him, the target of blame is oblique on an individual level.
It happened.
On Friday, shareholders for Tribune Publishing, which owns the Hartford Courant among other titles, agreed to sell the company to Alden Global Capital. Alden, a hedge fund, has a nasty reputation for tossing newsgathering resources overboard for profit’s sake.
HOLYOKE—Acting Mayor Terence Murphy announced Wednesday he will…not be a candidate for anything. Early this year, Murphy became Holyoke’s acting mayor succeeding former Mayor Alex Morse and Council President Todd McGee who very briefly acted as mayor. That came after Morse’s resignation and a flurry
HARTFORD—The signs of Connecticut’s largest paper still linger around downtown side streets within view of the State Capitol. The name is everywhere. Lights flash on idled shipping docks. Signs denote parking for Hartford Courant employees though nobody from the paper works at the Broad Street