State Senator Cynthia Creem just announced that the Senate’s FY24 Budget is complete and shared a number of budget items that will benefit Newton programs and services. As Majority Leader in the Massachusetts Senate, with thirty-seven Democrats and three Republicans, Senator Creem achieved a wide range of budget goals for…
Posts published by “Martina Jackson”
In the wake of the Operational Override failure on March 14th and after nearly two months of negotiations between the Newton City Council and the Newton Retirement Board, the City Council voted 23-0* to accept the Retirement Board’s proposal to increase funding for the Pension Trust at the rate of…
Susan Albright, in her second term as President of Newton’s City Council, has been an at-large member from Ward 2 for almost twenty years. She is the fourth woman to serve as President. In fact, the City Council now has fourteen women and ten men. While Massachusetts made history last…
In her May 12th newsletter, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced that the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) will not include the former Hotel Indigo as part of its Temporary Emergency Assistance Family Housing due to the high cost of transforming the property. The property, owned by Mark Development,…
On its May 15th agenda, the City Council discussed a requesti by Mayor Fuller to appropriate $10 million from Free Cash to pay down that amount of the $50 million bonds for construction of the new Lincoln-Eliot school. The Mayor indicated that the annual debt service saved from this allocation…
Beginning in the first week in May, candidates for City Council and School Committee may take out nomination papers and begin collecting signatures for the November 7th election. Nomination papers are due at Newton City Hall on Tuesday, July 25. All 16 incumbent At-Large members of the Newton City Council…
The Newton Highlands Area Council has been following the handling of development at Levingston Cove and Crystal Lake by the Department of Parks, Recreation & Culture. Members of the Area Council have expressed frustration at the pace of the project and raised concerns that the community has not been sufficiently…
On the rainy final day of April, the League of Women Voters of Newton (LWVN) held its second Civics Challenge. The first was in March, 2020, and then the pandemic struck, delaying a sequel until last Sunday’s match in the Cabot Elementary School cafeteria. Four “teams” — a total of…
At a recent meeting of the Newton City Council’s Programs and Services Committee, City Councilor Vicki Danberg offered an amendment to Newton’s Sustainable Food Containers and Packaging Ordinance to ban the use of additional single-use plastic items — including stirrers, utensils, water bottles — by food service and retail establishments…
That is the subtext of the proposed ban on single-use plastic water bottles in Newton currently under consideration by the City Council’s Programs and Services Committee. The proposed ordinance, offered by Councilor Vicki Danberg (Ward 6, at-large) would expand upon Newton’s ban on the commercial use plastic bags to other…