SPRINGFIELD—Emotion and politics ran high at Monday night’s City Council meeting as a labor pact with district fire chiefs failed and the food truck ordinance returned to committee. Both items faced months or even years of anticipation. The rejection of the labor pact with the
SPRINGFIELD—During her visit here Monday, US Senator Elizabeth Warren received a warm introduction from State Senator Eric Lesser. It was hardly their first interaction. Warren campaigned for Lesser in each of his runs for the 1st Hampden & Hampshire district. But the event also offered
SPRINGFIELD—A short agenda sailed through the City Council’s Tuesday meeting here without any banality or vainglorious interrogatories. In addition to the usual financial housekeeping and grant acceptances, the meeting’s focused on a new library and new labor pacts set to last into 2020. The early
SPRINGFIELD—The Community Preservation Act (CPA) came another step closer to realization with passage of first step on an ordinance formally establishing its organizational structure in Springfield. Last November, residents approved a referendum adopting the CPA and with it access to moneys to fund historic preservation,
SPRINGFIELD—Marking a continuation of ward councilors’ hold of the Council presidency, Ward 8 Councilor Orlando Ramos took the oath as President Monday morning. In a modest ceremony before friends, family and City Hall denizens, the Council formally voted to install him to succeed Ward 2
SPRINGFIELD—City councilors called Mayor Domenic Sarno’s bluff and overrode his veto of an ordinance reviving a commission to oversee operations of the city’s police department. The veto had come within hours of the Council’s initial approval of the changes two weeks ago, but Sarno has signaled
SPRINGFIELD—Every schoolchild in America hears about separations of powers and checks and balance. They exist on all levels of government. In Massachusetts’s third largest city, however, another phrase wins out: “Plan A,” often shorthanded as strong-mayor. The city charter and other state laws do endow
UPDATED 8:35PM: The Republican reports that Sarno has vetoed the ordinance. Tells paper on his flip-flop from 2007, “Quite frankly you learn that campaigning is much different than governing.” SPRINGFIELD—Edging closer to its second major rebuke of Mayor Domenic Sarno this year, the City Council
SPRINGFIELD—The City Council set the tax rates for the next year Monday night, rejecting Mayor Domenic Sarno’s recommendation and instead freezing residential rates at the current level. However, because the values of both residential and commercial property have risen, bills on both are likely to
SPRINGFIELD—The City Council inched closer toward another round of complex and fraught legislating as it signaled plans to reform the city’s beleaguered responsible employer ordinance. The law, intended to provide minimum standards of employment for workers employed by city contractors, has been buffeted by weak