Good morning friends,

I’m attending a conference tomorrow, so here’s Friday’s Charles River Regional Chamber newsletter one day early.

Also a reminder: Our advocacy in support of the economic and cultural vitality of our communities (including this newsletter) is only possible through the financial support of our members and partners.

If your business or nonprofit is not yet a chamber member, please make today the day you join.

We also have a special citizen membership for individuals who are not directly affiliated with a business or nonprofit organization but share our mission.

Needham bounces back

The second act by the group responsible for the repeal of Needham’s MBTA Communities Act in January didn’t go very well for them this week.

Every candidate for a town-wide seat endorsed by the Needham Residents for Thoughtful Zoning PAC was defeated in Tuesday’s town election.

That included NRTZ’s top target: Select Board member Heidi Frail, who opponents sought to vilify for taking the lead in promoting the Neighborhood Housing Plan, even though Frail is hardly a one-issue public servant.

Frail was reelected by a 2 to 1 margin. She’s now expected to be elected board chair by her colleagues.

Newcomer Eric Greenberg won a seat on the Planning Board by a 16-point margin over Ken Buckley, the leader of NRTZ’s anti-growth referendum.

Another NRTZ leader, Barbara McDonald, narrowly lost to housing advocate Geoff Engler for a Housing Authority seat.

“All nine of the Town Meeting incumbents endorsed by the NRTZ PAC earned re-election,” reported Peter O’Neil at the Needham Observer. “But among the 33 challengers endorsed by NRTZ, just three were victorious.”

Needham’s results this week are a reversal of sorts from contests in some other communities where voters turned out incumbents who’ve supported efforts to make housing more affordable by increasing supply.

Our Main Streets need help. This isn’t it.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that, while the past four decades were spent helping Wall Street grow richer, the administration’s goal for the next four years is “focused on Main Street.”

“It’s Main Street’s turn. It’s Main Street’s turn to hire workers. It’s Main Street’s turn to drive investment. And it’s Main Street’s turn to restore the American Dream,” Bessent said.

Sounds great to me!

Except (unless, perhaps, you own a chiropractic practice), you’d be hard pressed to find any Main Street business that benefits from all this tariff whiplash.

Supply chain chaos isn’t good for Main Street. Neither is gutting the Small Business Administration, eroding international tourism, or making our immigrant business owners, their workers and their customers afraid to leave their homes.

And how does Main Street win when its customers who are employed in the bludgeoned life sciences, technology, higher ed and other sectors have less expendable income?

Gov. Maura Healey said yesterday that despite a 90-day reciprocal tariff pause, consumers and employers still face economic "chaos and uncertainty.”

"This is why people cannot deploy capital. They can't invest in their workforce."

Even the Wall Street Journal’s editors called Bessent’s Main Street comment “nonsense.”

I value your feedback.

Photographer steps up for laid-off fed workers

Troubled by the massive layoffs of federal workers, including many across Greater Boston, photographer (and chamber member) Barry Braunstein is offering complimentary headshots for laid-off federal workers at his Wellesley studio.

“If you're a federal employee who has been laid off here in Boston, I want to help with a complementary headshot session for your resume/LinkedIn profile,” he writes.

It’s “my way of giving back to those hard-working people who decided to work for the government because they wanted to help others.”

Friday grab bag (on a Thursday)

• Comments made by Congressman Jake Auchincloss at our chamber event last week about overhauling 40B is the subject of a Boston.com readers poll.
• After 30 years, Cafe St. Petersburg in Newton Centre has new owners, a new look and a new name: Zodiac. (Newton Beacon)
• The owner of Needham Florist received an email from a Canadian customer who sends a loved one in the area flowers from her shop. “I love your shop but I restraint (sic) my purchases in U.S. until your president wakes up.”
• Shoppers will not be able to use their EBT cards to access their benefits between 11 p.m. on April 26 and midday on April 27 as the state transitions to a new platform.  Find materials here to post in customer and employee areas.  Updates here.
• Brookline is planning on narrowing travel lanes in both directions to a roughly mile-long stretch along Chestnut Hill Ave. between Cleveland Circle and Route 9 to accommodate bike lanes. Yes, not everyone is happy about that.  (Brookline News)
• The Fuller administration has posted a job opening to oversee and implement Newton's BERDO Ordinance.
• Green Needham has decided not to move forward with a Town Meeting Citizens’ Petition to ban gas-powered leaf blowers during the summer.
• If you find yourself stuck at the Watertown Mall RMV waiting to get a Real ID before the May 7 deadline (or even if you don’t), check out the Watertown Public School’s art show over by the Target entrance.
• The Asian Business Empowerment Council is launching “Ignite,” a free multilingual webinar and coaching program to support Asian-owned restaurants. The initiative includes two expert-led virtual sessions, April 14 and 23 and a six-week 1:1 coaching program
• If your eight-day work trip was unexpectedly extended by nine months, you might expect to rack up some overtime pay, right? It didn’t happen for this Needham native.

A few Spring Seasonings follow-ups

• Want to learn more about Three Squares New England, a beneficiary of a portion of the revenue from Spring Seasonings on Wednesday? Read Amanda Birbara’s Fig City News story.
• I also appreciated this quote from the same article by Bettina Scemama, owner of Bettina’s Bakery, one of our first-time exhibitors:  “We’re going into a very uncertain, hard time, and it was nice to have a community event that cleared my head from the endless worries that I have right now about the economy.”
• Whoops: In my thanks to our sponsors in Tuesday’s newsletter, I misidentified Centre Realty Group.

Do you have some time to help our small shops?

Finally today, can you spare an hour and a little shoe leather to help our independent retailers and your chamber?

We’re looking for volunteers to visit local merchants to tell them about Small Shops, our program that allows independently owned, single-location, brick-and-mortar retailers in Newton, Needham, Watertown or Wellesley to become chamber members for free.

We’ll assign you a downtown or village center and provide you with handouts explaining this new program.

There’s no sales pitch. No other requirement. Because, well, it’s free.

We created Small Shops because we believe it’s critical to support these businesses at a time when they’re facing so much economic uncertainty. These independent businesses bring vibrancy to our downtowns and village centers. They’re part of what makes our communities desirable places to work and live. (Boston Globe story here.)

Our goal is to add at least 100 small shops to our growing list of retailers before Small Business Month begins in May and ahead of the Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation shopping seasons.

Use our volunteer sign-up form to spread the word about Small Shops, or to help with future chamber initiatives or events.  

And thanks!

And that’s what you need to know for today, unless you need to know how color can increase productivity in your office.

Be back next week.

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

Max Woolf contributed to today’s newsletter.