The Massachusetts Office of the Inspector General released its long-awaited report on Bennett Walsh’s Superintendency of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. Unlike prior government reports, this review did not focus on the events during the Home’s coronavirus outbreak early in the pandemic.
LONGMEADOW—In the beginning there was the Athens. Then came New England. New England stuck to tradition. Not even a once-in-a-century pandemic that complicated gathering itself could consign it to history’s wastebin.
This week Springfield City Council President Marcus Williams released his committee assignments for the municipal legislature. It comes days after beginning his second year atop the Council and his fourth term as the Ward 5 Councilor.
In the end, for Springfield, 2021 may have come to define the city’s limits. Some of those limits were long overdue. Courts ruled twice on the limits of Mayor Domenic Sarno’s power and the coronavirus revealed the limits of his influence. But those limits also
The saga at the Holyoke Soldier’s Home took another sharp turn Monday after the indictment against the facility’s former superintendent and medical director disintegrated. Hampden County Superior Court Judge Edward McDonough, Jr. granted former Soldiers’ Home super Bennett Walsh and Dr. David Clinton’s motions to dismiss the indictments against them.
Two weeks ago, US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s town halls returned to Western Mass. However, catching up in person has value for her, too. That helps her put Washington’s impact into context back home.
Springfield instituted an indoor mask mandate Thursday, effective September 13, amid high case rates and hospitalizations.
SPRINGFIELD—This week the City Council revisited a troubled revision to a drive-through special permit that had hit the skids earlier this year amid an abutter’s complaints. The item has still not achieved passage amid a sluggish review. Frustratingly, the once-complaining neighbor has been MIA, leaving councilors to straighten things out alone with the applicant.
SPRINGFIELD—At its June 7 meeting last Monday, the City Council cut itself off. After some members had spent a third of their day in Council Zoom meetings—the body remains virtual for now—councilors agreed to execute the 10pm drop-dead rule.
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.