How is this allowed?
How is this allowed?
Good morning, friends:
Today is the last day to vote for your favorite Newton restaurant, retailer and new business ahead of our Newton Night celebration Sept. 17 at the West Newton Cinema.
And here’s what else you need to know (a little late due to a technical issue, okay, I forgot to push “send”) and at the end of today’s newsletter, a question that literally kept me up last night.
Wellesley looks to embrace the arts to drive its economy
Recognizing that the arts benefit both the soul and the economy, last year the Wellesley Select Board identified arts and culture as a top priority.
The initiative took shape after board members heard Massachusetts Cultural Council Executive Director Michael Bobbitt speak at our 2024 Spring Business Breakfast, then select board member Lise Olney said at the time.
“He made such a compelling case for this kind of nexus between arts and culture and economic development, and particularly on the local level, and what a huge boon it is to communities to have active arts and culture scenes because it brings people to your community,” Olney said.
This week, the town announced it has been awarded a $10,836 grant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, along with $5,000 from the Community Fund for Wellesley, to develop a strategic plan for arts and culture.
The grants will be used “to create concrete recommendations to expand our offerings in town,” Wellesley Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa said this week.
Also at Monday’s select board meeting, Testa reported that Rep. Alice Peisch secured $25,000 from the state budget for programming and events designed to attract shoppers to Wellesley, along with several other grants.
The Swellesley Report has more.
How is this allowed?
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Trump administration could gut more than $780 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Sixty-three of those grants, worth $126 million, are based in New England, tied to topics like gender identity, health disparities, vaccine hesitancy and DEI efforts.
“To take just one example,” lawyers for the states told the justices, “defendants’ terminations forced the University of Massachusetts’ medical school to lay off or furlough 209 employees and to cut the incoming fall 2025 graduate class by 86 percent, from 70 students to 10,” according to the New York Times.
The court’s order is not the last word. The case will proceed in the lower courts.
But in so many instances, the damage is already done. It’s too late.
“Years-long studies will lose validity,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent.
“Animal subjects will be euthanized. Life-saving medication trials will be abandoned. Countless researchers will lose their jobs. And community health clinics will close.”
Chamber to host Newton and Watertown election forums
We’re planning to host a series of virtual forums with candidates ahead of Newton’s and Watertown’s municipal elections.
We’re still reaching out to candidates, but have already scheduled separate conversations with Newton’s mayoral candidates, Marc Laredo on Sept.3 at 9 a.m. and Al Cecchielli, on Sept.4 at 9 a.m.
Also set is a Newton City Council Ward 5 Debate on Sept.10 at 1 p.m. between newcomers Garry Miller and Julie Irish.
And on Sept.25 at 2 p.m., a candidate conversation with unopposed newcomers to the Newton City Council, Brittany Hume Charm (Ward 5), Brian Golden (Ward 7) and Jacob Silber (Ward 8).
Our focus will be on issues related to economic development, housing, workforce, supporting our non-profits and the environment. General topics may also be discussed. Everything will be recorded and shared afterward.
Do you have anything you’d like us to ask the candidates? Email me.
More events TBA.
Friday grab bag
- Yesterday’s scheduled auction of the Turtle Lane Playhouse site in Auburndale was postponed by 60 days. (Newton Beacon).
- Tim Murray, president and CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber and former lieutenant governor, is calling for an end to remote work for all state employees. Doing so would strengthen the “efficiency and responsiveness of state government,” and “support local restaurants, retailers and transit systems.”
- A new sushi restaurant, Lab13 Handroll Bar, is now open at Chestnut Hill Square. (NBC10)
- Congratulations to Damien Chaviano, winner of the Boston Real Estate Times’ Development Leadership Award. He’ll be honored Sept. 11, at the Burlington Marriott Hotel.
- Dedham Savings’ Chief People Officer Victoria Kane will become the bank’s president on Sept. 1. (Banker& Tradesman)
- Shuttle buses will replace all Green Line D-Branch train service between Riverside and Kenmore stations for track improvement work from Sept. 3-11. Two shuttle routes will operate.
- The MBTA also announced that it will launch a renewed effort to collect subway fares, issuing written warnings and fines of up to $150 starting Sept. 8.
- Watertown High School plans to disable students’ cellphones during class using software that the school will be piloting during the 2025-26 school year. (Watertown News)
- Applications for Newton Community Pride’s fall 2025 community micro-grants, offering $500–$1,000 to support local arts, culture, public art, and beautification projects, are due Aug. 25..
- Needham’s Board of Health has voted to ban the sale of flavored nicotine pouches effective Oct. 1 (Needham Local).
- Yes, the Beer Mobile, recently featured in the Globe, is the chamber-member business that provided the pours at our Summer Celebration at the Allen House. They’re connected with Floria’s Wine Bar in West Newton and will also be providing the bites and beverages at Newton Night.
- Here’s more evidence that congestion pricing is working in New York. Cars, trucks and buses are all moving faster on city streets.
I’d be interested in hearing from you about this
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Sen. Ed Markey and other elected leaders stood defiantly at City Hall Plaza this week, proclaiming, “We will not back down from who we are and what we stand for” regarding federal immigration enforcement.
Wu maintains that Boston’s policies comply with a 2017 Supreme Judicial Court ruling, which prohibits police from engaging in deportation efforts, which are federal and civil matters.
As could be predicted, Wu’s press conference inflamed Trump officials, including ICE Director Todd Lyons who vowed his agents would “flood” Boston in response.
“Now you’re going to see more ICE agents come to Boston,” he said.
Wu’s defiant stance, no doubt, had many cheering in Boston, in our chamber communities, across the state and the country, just as we cheered when she appeared before Congress five months ago.
We want leaders to pound the bully pulpit against unjust, inhumane and economy-wrecking policies. It’s foundational to our decency, our future.
But what about when doing so — especially doing so confrontationally (in, let’s face it, an election year) — places the immigrant men, women and children you’re supposedly protecting at greater risk? When it further endangers their daily lives, makes going to work or school even more terrifying?
These are our neighbors. Our coworkers. Our kids’ schoolmates. Our educators. Our scientists. Our medical professionals. Our police. They’re cooking our meals. Caring for our children and seniors. Building our homes and office buildings. Cleaning up after us. And paying taxes.
These aren’t folks who’ve committed crimes. They’re “collaterals,” our government’s callous term for humans mistakenly swept away by masked men who show no remorse.
How do we rectify the urgency that our leaders speak loudly for those who can’t, knowing that when they do, they’re more likely to get hauled away, more likely to become collateral?
I don’t have an answer. That’s why I’m asking you.
And that’s what you need to know for today, unless you need to know that the golf course voted “worst in America” is right in our chamber’s backyard. (h/t Doug Banks)
See you next week.
President & CEO
Charles River Regional Chamber
617.244.1688
Max Woolf contributed to today’s newsletter.
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