Good morning and happy National Coffee Day. (Please sip locally.)

This weekend's nor'easter dumped more than two months' worth of rain on parts of southern New England.

What did all that water do to our favorite river?

Check the USGS gauges in Dover and Waltham. (You can toggle between 7 days, 30 days and a year.)

Or just look at the pictures: Universal Hub has photos taken yesterday, from the same spot a few weeks ago and during last year's drought.

MIRA to White House: You already took our money

The Trump administration appears to be in a race to roll out new regulations, or more precisely, undo policies and spending approved by Congress or prior administrations.

Yesterday that meant rolling back 50-year-old fuel economy standards for cars and reversing Biden-era Title IX sex discrimination rules for schools.

On Friday, it announced plans to claw back $810 million Congress appropriated for refugees, immigrants and other programs the White House calls "wasteful and harmful."

That included $300K to the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, according to the announcement.

However, MIRA's executive director Liz Sweet says its federal funding "was already frozen, and then eliminated by this administration in March of last year."

"It is unclear to us why we are being named yet again by this administration in Friday's announcement," Sweet said in a statement.

"There is no new threat here, but rather an ongoing and disappointing attempt to perpetuate a false narrative around immigrants and federal funding."

MIRA's discontinued grant was intended to help eligible green card holders apply for citizenship.

As has become pretty standard, many of these actions will likely be contested in the courts, or the administration will back off, especially since they're drawing objections from both sides of the aisle.

School overcrowding myth debunked, again

One of the top reasons opponents habitually cite for blocking new housing in our communities is the fear that it will overcrowd our schools.

But again and again, the numbers show the opposite.

This month, Needham officials reported that kindergarten enrollment plunged more than 8% in a single year, 33 students below projections.

"As kindergarten goes, that's the foundation for building all the future grades," Superintendent Dan Gutekanst told the Future School Needs Committee, reports Kay Matipa at the Needham Observer.

Overall K-12 enrollment is also down 1.4% from last fall, in line with statewide and national trends.

The town's demographer, McKibben Demographic Associates, blames a "perfect storm." Fewer households have children, births are down, households are smaller and single-family home sales are slowing. Births to Needham residents have fallen from about 270 a year to 185.

And what about the MBTA Communities housing that critics warned would overwhelm the schools?

McKibben projects the first 411 new units will add just 55 students over ten years. That's enough to help reverse the decline, but hardly a flood.

Gutekanst expects Needham's enrollment to stay "pretty steady" over the next 15 years. That's steadier than surrounding towns like Newton, Brookline, Framingham and Wellesley, which consolidated from seven elementary schools to six in 2024.

Ooh, that smell

Boston has a new claim to fame: The best-smelling city in the USA.

Three local wins in the state's life sciences awards

The Healey administration just awarded nearly $40 million in tax incentives for 38 life sciences companies that have committed to creating 1,644 jobs. Three of the recipients are in our footprint:

• Kymera Therapeutics, Watertown: $630,000 for 35 jobs
• Verastem Oncology, Needham: $437,000 for 19 jobs
• Triveni Bio, Watertown: $288,000 for 12 jobs

That's about $1.36 million and 66 jobs in our footprint. The awards come through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center's Tax Incentive Program. Companies must meet and maintain their hiring numbers for three years.

We wanted both sides. Only one is participating.

This afternoon (Tuesday) at 2 p.m., we’re hosting what we had hoped would be a robust virtual forum on a proposed debt exclusion override in Needham to fund a new Pollard Middle School.

The problem: despite repeated attempts, we couldn’t get any opponents of the plan to participate.

That’s frustrating and disappointing. And frankly, I don’t understand their strategy. Local businesses are already struggling with inflation, tariffs and soaring health care costs. I suspect many of our members may have been receptive to their arguments about raising taxes further.

Instead, we’ll have a presentation from the Yes side, followed by your Q&A.  Register

Meanwhile, Needham has a property tax calculator to estimate how much commercial and residential taxes would increase if voters approve the measure on Nov. 3

Tuesday grab bag

• Massachusetts' 20 largest cities average 10 city councilors. Newton has 24. The seventh-largest council in the country, it’s bigger than Philadelphia's or Houston's. Now, as happens about once a decade, shrinking it is back on the agenda (BC Heights). I’m not holding my breath.
  
  
• Massachusetts voters approved the "millionaires tax" in 2022 while voters in Washington state will vote this fall on repealing theirs.
  
  
• The website Only In Massachusetts lists “3 Must-See Historic Landmarks” in Brookline. Try to guess what they are before clicking.
  
  
• Olin College of Engineering formally inaugurated its third-ever president, R. May Lee on Friday.  (Needham Local)
  
  
• Great to see that Needham state Sen. Becca Rausch supports ballot Question 7, the starter home initiative.  (Needham Local)
  
  
• Westbound traffic on Beacon Street between Walnut and Chestnut Streets in Newton will be detoured through Friday (Oct. 2). Parts of the Green Line are shut down through Sunday.
  
  
• New Indian/Nepali restaurant Rani Mahal opened in the former Amarin of Thailand space. (Swellesley Report)
  
  
• Grace Duffy at BC Heights explores what Global Partners' move to Newton means for our region.
  
  
• Wellesley-based Pinnacle Group has switched its affiliation from Douglas Elliman to Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty. (Banker & Tradesman)
  
  
• Zoom into We Are ALX’s "The Competitive Case: Massachusetts and the Economic Power of Latinas," a webinar on October 5, 10 a.m. that draws on findings from the report "Data Beyond Demographics: U.S. Latinas' Economic Power, Influence, and Growth."
  
  
• Fig City News has launched a free new Business Events newsletter.  Subscribe here. Newton businesses: contact calendar@figcitynews.com to learn how to post your events.
  
  
• The Friends of the Newton Free Library will host mini golf inside the Newton Free Library: adults-only Saturday night, family day Sunday.
  
  
• A new chamber small networking group, The Great Connectors, is launching with an in-person open house at 93 Worcester Street in Wellesley, 2 p.m. on Monday (Oct. 5). Contact Andrew Mirken to learn more.
  
  
• Go figure: People disagree about bike lanes, in this case on Needham Street in Newton.  (NBC10)

Report: Watertown lab market on the mend

Watertown's battered life science market is showing signs of recovery, reports Jay Fitzgerald at Banker & Tradesman.

Greater Boston's third-largest lab market has seen vacancies drop from 43% to 31%, according to JLL.

That beats many suburban submarkets and even the Seaport (36%), the region's second-largest.  It's also far better than Somerville, at about 51%.

Rents help too: it’s about $66 per square foot in Watertown, versus $81 in the Seaport and $100 in Kendall Square.

"There's momentum in Watertown," said Mark Fallon, director of research and strategy at Hunneman Real Estate. "I like the trend. But the Watertown market is still impaired. It's a big ship that still needs to [fully] turn around."

Every seat everywhere all at once

The Coolidge Corner Theatre has been putting movie lovers’ butts in seats since 1933. 

Now your butt can enjoy the comfort of 426 plush new chairs.

The Brookline nonprofit just celebrated replacing every seat inside the marvelous Moviehouse 1, removing those that had been in the Art Deco gem for two decades.

And if you've ever wanted your name in lights, or at least on an armrest, there’s still time to put your name on one.

That’s what you need to know for today — H.H. Richardson’s birthday — unless you need to know what to do if your coworkers forget it’s your birthday.

In Peyton Tolle we trust.

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

Max Woolf contributed to today’s newsletter.