Although meetings have become much more fluid since going hybrid last year, the Springfield City Council’s outing hit a snag on Monday. The body trudged through a permit for the Student Prince to close Fort Street during summers.
BOSTON—On the eve of Governor Charlie Baker’s last day as governor—and Attorney General Maura Healey’s first—the Supreme Judicial Court considered an appeal in the waning litigation from the COVID-19 outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. The indictments reflect one of the Baker administration’s darkest hours.
SPRINGFIELD—Two members were absent. Two that were remote dropped out. Two stuck it out virtually. But for the first time since the shroud of the coronavirus fell upon humanity, the City Council of Massachusetts’s third largest city met in person.
Amid a breakdown in vaccine delivery, Massachusetts legislative leaders set up a joint committee to review the commonwealth’s coronavirus response. Over 18 months, members, led by Northampton Senator Jo Comerford and Milton Rep Bill Driscoll, Jr., mined local and state officials for data, feedback and experiences.
Just over two years since the coronavirus ripped its way through Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, the herd of legal action underway has begun to thin. Last week, families of the 76 veterans who contracted COVID-19 during the deadly March 2020 outbreak settled with the commonwealth for $56 million.
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.