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,…
Posts published by “Martina Jackson”
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…
On Friday, April 21, the Newton Planning and Development Department released its updated Village Center Zoning Redesign plan, Version 2.0, based on comments and concerns voiced at the City Council’s Zoning and Planning meetings. (NewTV’s video of the April 24 meeting) Among the changes from Version 1.0 to 2.0 is…
Eric Turner, newly elected President of Lasell University, has been Lasell University’s Provost since 2020 and has been involved in its management for thirty years, under its two previous Presidents, Tom DeWitt and Michael Alexander. Mr. Turner is the tenth President in the school’s 172-year history and has been engaged…
In 2022, City Council President Susan Albright had appointed a study group — including City Council Vice President Rick Lipof, Finance Committee Chair Becky Grossman, and Councilor Chris Markiewicz — to work with her and with Newton School Committee member Chris Brezski to develop a plan to adjust the rate…
The Newton Retirement Board convened a special meeting on Thursday, April 6 to discuss Mayor Fuller’s proposal that the Board’s Pension Trust payment schedule be completed by 2031-2032 rather than 2030, as originally planned. At the same time, the Mayor proposed that the City increase the base pay on which…
Newton Highlands is one of the Village Centers slated for significant zoning redesign, and this has been a subject of ongoing discussion at the monthly meetings of the Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council (NHNAC). At its April 6 meeting, Area Council President Jeremy Freudberg reported that on March 13, the…