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‘They don’t even pretend to comply’: Mass. agencies, cities, and towns openly flout open record law - The Boston Globe

For nearly two centuries, Massachusetts law has guaranteed government records are open and accessible. But a Boston Globe review has found the state’s public records law has often proved to be a promise written in sand.

Agencies can ignore the law's deadlines, fight the release of records, or not bother to at all. And the authorities entrusted to enforce the law are hamstrung, or disinclined to intervene.
BostonGlobe.com •

Mayor Wu’s goal to make Boston’s schools the best in the nation faces steep challenges, and many skeptics - The Boston Globe

Mayor Michelle Wu declared an ambitious goal for Boston Public Schools on Tuesday: Take a district that was on the verge of a state receivership just over three years ago and transform it into the nation’s best school system.

Wu laid out that vision in her first State of the Schools speech. But many in the school community said the mayor didn’t acknowledge many of the internal failings that have bedeviled the system for years and will be major obstacles to achieving such a lofty goal: a persistent achievement gap between Black and Latino students and their white and Asian peers; more than a third of Boston schools are classified as underperforming by the state; and shortcomings in helping students who are learning English and those with disabilities.
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Independent probe finds BPS bus contractor failed to track safety records before fatal crash, faults BPS for lax oversight - The Boston Globe

Transdev, the longtime contractor for Boston Public Schools’ bus fleet, failed to keep proper track of bus accidents, or whether school bus drivers held proper credentials or completed required training, according to an independent investigator’s report released by the city Thursday.

Boston school administrators also did not regularly follow through and inspect accident and training records until after a Hyde Park kindergartner was struck and killed by his BPS school bus in late April, the report said.
BostonGlobe.com •

At funeral, 5-year-old boy killed in Boston school bus crash remembered as ‘definition of life’ for family - The Boston Globe

Lens Arthur Joseph seemed older than his years. The 5-year-old loved Spider-Man and cars, sure, but he was serious and studious, cleaned his room, and helped around the house wherever he could. He was proud of his schoolwork and excelled in mathematics.

His teachers at UP Academy Dorchester beamed with pride at the prospect the kindergartner would start Grade 1 in the fall, and had planned to give him a certificate marking his achievement in school.

But Lens died late last month after he was struck by his school bus while being dropped off after school. And in a tender moment during his funeral worship service at Mount of Olives Evangelical Baptist Church Saturday morning, his teachers presented Lens’s certificate to his family, which acknowledged the boy’s hard work and accomplishment.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘We have no voice or vote’: Amid BPS’s struggles, a renewed call for an elected Boston School Committee - The Boston Globe

Overcome with emotion, Edna Vazquez paused for a moment to apologize to the few dozen parents and children demonstrating outside Dorchester’s Dever Elementary School, before continuing to urge them to fight the school’s proposed closure.

Boston Public Schools has eyed Dever as part of a slate of closures and mergers as a cost-savings measure. Families at the pre-K to Grade 6 school, where two-thirds of the students are Latino, said they don’t want the district to abandon Dever. Some question whether they’re being heard by the Boston School Committee and wonder whether their school would be on the chopping block if they had elected school board members to represent their interests.

“Unfortunately, we have no voice or vote,” Vazquez said in Spanish through an interpreter. “They make decisions without asking us, and this is one of the consequences of that.”
BostonGlobe.com •

‘We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness’: Advocates blast Brockton, Lowell camping bans - The Boston Globe

Bans on homeless people erecting camps in their communities are growing in Massachusetts, as two of the state’s most populous cities adopted laws this week intended to protect residents and businesses from what officials have termed health and public safety nuisances.

The city councils in Brockton and Lowell each adopted prohibitions on unauthorized camping on public property Tuesday night, joining Boston, Fall River and Salem. Worcester earlier this year declined to relax its existing ban on camping in public parks to provide a temporary respite for homeless people.

With the latest votes, half of the state’s 10 largest cities now have some form of prohibition on such encampments.
BostonGlobe.com •

One year after Lewiston mass shootings, 10 people describe how their lives have been redefined - The Boston Globe

LEWISTON, Maine — For many here, the last year has been shaped by absence. The empty chair at the table, the vacant side of the bed. Faces, voices, laughs that live only in memory.

Seemingly everyone across the Lewiston-Auburn region knows someone who was killed, hurt, or witnessed the shooting at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar & Grille on Oct. 25, 2023.

That night, an Army reservist, believed to be in the throes of psychosis, killed 18, wounded 13 more, and left untold others forever changed.

“Someone said to me recently, it stuck with me: ‘We’ll never get over it, but we will get through it together,’ " said Arthur Barnard, whose adult son Artie Strout was among those killed in the bar.
BostonGlobe.com •

A year after Maine’s worst mass shooting, what happened to gun reform? - The Boston Globe

LEWISTON, Maine — US Representative Jared Golden, his face drawn tight, took to the lectern at Lewiston City Hall and stunned the room. It was less than a day after Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, and one of Congress’s most ardent gun rights supporters said he’d now back a federal assault weapons ban.

For advocates who had struggled for years to enact tighter gun laws, Golden’s statement resonated both because of the public plea and its messenger. Golden, a conservative Democrat who represents a rural district that twice voted for former president Donald Trump, was suddenly taking their side on a key gun control issue.

But nearly a year after Robert R. Card II killed 18 and wounded 13 at a Lewiston bowling alley and then a bar, there is no ban on such weapons in Maine or the nation — nor much chance of one — and other steps toward toughened gun control rules have been halting and limited.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘Widespread grief’: Shooting deepens Israel-Hamas war divide in Newton - The Boston Globe

For nearly a year, the Rev. Kenneth F. Baily has grown increasingly worried about his community. Newton has deep, broad connections to the Middle East, and war raging between Israel and Hamas has been pulling the city’s residents apart.

“Anger is usually a reflection of pain, and for me, and my colleagues and companions, there’s just so much pain around this,” said Baily.
BostonGlobe.com •

Cities are razing homeless camps across US. Advocates want New Bedford to build one. - The Boston Globe

So as cities across the country, empowered by a recent Supreme Court decision, move to tear down homeless encampments, the advocates have proposed that New Bedford do the opposite: build one of its own.

“We need to be proactive,” said Carl Alves, who leads a coalition of local nonprofits that support homeless residents. “I’m seeing significant increases in the number of people [who] don’t have places to call home or a place to stay.”
BostonGlobe.com •

A Plymouth tribe asked a town board to acknowledge their legacy. Officials asked for their lawyer instead. - The Boston Globe

Melissa Ferretti grew up in south Plymouth, immersed in her hometown’s legacy as the Pilgrims’ first settlement in America. As chairwoman of the Herring Pond Wampanoag, she was equally immersed in the history and traditions of her tribe.

So she was shocked as she watched members of a town committee late last month balk at her tribe’s request to recognize their legacy with a brief land acknowledgment that would be delivered before meetings.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘We’re still here’: In Shrewsbury, Nipmuc tribe seeks to reclaim, preserve artifacts - The Boston Globe

His massive arms moving in a steady motion, George Bearclaw labored in the twilight to reshape the white pine timber. There was a fire burning within the log, and Bearclaw used a staff to scrape away the char.

Slowly, a mishoon, a canoe large enough to carry four men, was emerging from the wood. Bearclaw was among the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band members working round-the-clock shifts earlier this month to create the mishoon — the first made on the shores of Flint Pond in more than three centuries.

“It’s inspiring,” Bearclaw said, his eyes brightened by light cast from the flames.
The Boston Globe •

Vineyard police reports detail erratic behavior of man accused in stabbing rampage - The Boston Globe

But his seemingly abrupt mental deterioration — and an alleged attack on his father in April — stoked concern among those around him in the months before the chaos on Saturday, in which he is accused of stabbing six people in two separate incidents, and is a suspect in a third, the death of his roommate in Deep River, Conn. Police in West Tisbury said they sought to have him detained on a mental-health hold after the attack, but the local hospital declined.
The Boston Globe •

Across Massachusetts, people are rising up against the arrival of migrants. To some, the backlash seems racist. - The Boston Globe

Across the state, a growing chorus of people are rising up against a wave of migrants arriving in their towns, complaining about the staggering costs of caring for them and warning about crime and too much change. To some, the backlash seems racist and ignores the economic contributions migrants can bring to a state grappling with a shrinking birth rate and an exodus of young people fleeing to cheaper locales.

In recordings of public meetings, people directed outrage and insults at migrants.
The Boston Globe •

‘The Karen Read case lit a match and started a wildfire.’ Canton split over high-profile prosecution. - The Boston Globe

It’s likely Canton has never seen anything quite like the case of Karen Read, who is charged with murdering her boyfriend, a town resident and Boston police officer, after a night of heavy drinking. People on both sides agree that the controversy has deeply divided the town of 24,600 south of Boston. And they also agree on this: The protests reflect broad skepticism, if not an outright repudiation, of the town’s government and Police Department.

CANTON — Protesters march in town and carry signs
The Boston Globe •

In Waltham, families of former patients, workers at Fernald demand role in deciding property’s future - The Boston Globe

Reggie Clark is 70, but memories of his childhood years at the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center during the 1960s are painfully clear.

“I don’t think we were respected,” said Clark, who left Fernald in 1969 and now lives in Leominster. “You didn’t have any choices because the nurses that were there . . . told you that you had to do it, or you were put in isolation if you didn’t.”

A decade after the City of Waltham bought the property from the state, the legacy of the Fernald school is at the center of a fraught debate.
The Boston Globe •

Bitter rift erupts in Dedham over rejected bid to expand meal service for migrant families - The Boston Globe

The Rev. Stephen Josoma can’t understand the uproar that has gripped the town — a bitter, raw debate over the preparation of meals for migrant families and other homeless people staying in state emergency shelters.

“It just saddened me, I try to get my head around it,” Josoma said in an interview. “I’m not even sure where it’s coming from.”
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