The chamber office will be closed this afternoon so our team can participate in the Charles River Watershed’s Annual Charles River Cleanup.
In fact, if you’re reading this first thing Friday morning and would like to join us at noon today along the river in Needham, we can use a few extra hands. Email me ASAP for details.
Also: Have you completed our 2022 Business Outlook Survey yet? If not, here's your chance.
Business grant program closes one door. Another about to open.
With only a few hours advance notice on Wednesday, the state shut down the portal that allowed businesses and nonprofits to register for Gov. Charlie Baker's HireNow grant program.
Due to "very high demand...no new employer preregistrations are being accepted," reads a notice posted yesterday.
"If additional funding is made available for the program, preregistrations for new employers will reopen at a date to be determined."
While I haven't seen any official announcement, a few businesses groups report that registered employers can begin to claim $4,000 grants for each hire (up to 100) starting Monday April 25.
The $50 million program is first come, first served. So if your business did preregister (and if you’ve made new hires since March 23) review the guidelines and set yourself a calendar reminder now.
And here's hoping we won't see a reprise of the early days of the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program -- and that still exists for the federal Restaurant Revitalization program -- where the funds run out before the requests do. Or that most of the money goes to the largest players.
Also: Godspeed to the IT folks who are managing the servers for the Department of Labor when businesses statewide scramble to enter their new hire data on Monday.
Omicron cousins in town for unwelcomed visit
Omicron variant BA.2 appears to be mutatinginto sleeker and, incredibly, even faster, peskier, versions of itself.
COVID-19 cases in Boston have increased 65% over the prior two weeks, leading the Boston Public Health Commission yesterday to once again recommend indoor masking, including on public transit.
Of course, the opposite just happened. Airports, Amtrak, the MBTA, Uber, Lyft, etc. all just ditched masks mandates in the middle of spring vacation. (Philadelphia too!)
Meanwhile, most Americans (56 %) strongly or somewhat favor requiring people to wear masks on planes, trains and other public transportation, according to a a new poll.
Twenty-four percent were somewhat or strongly opposed.
"That's a really significant number, because there's been so much attention on people wanting to get rid of the masks," Leonard Marcus Harvard's T.H. Chan school told Craig LeMoult at GBH.
"I think that says a lot about the politics of COVID and whether we're doing things based on science and what the population really wants us to be doing, or we're being pulled away in a direction that could be very detrimental because of politics.”
Newton, Healey both looking at BERDO
The Newton City Council passed a resolution Tuesday asking the Fuller administration to draft an ordinance that would ultimately mandate the reduction of the carbon emissions from large commercial and residential buildings
The program is expected to be modeled on Boston’s BERDO law, which requires operators of buildings 20K SF or larger to report building emissions, meet mandatory carbon emissions caps by 2025 and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
But many in Boston’s commercial real estate sector are “still struggling to wrap its head around the regulations,” saying they’re having a difficult time preparing for the new mandates, writes Jon Banister at Bisnow.
Healey’s plan would eliminate the need for each municipally to create its own rules, measurements and enforcements. That sounds like a sane approach to me.
Want to learn more about all of this? Join us Tuesday (April 26) at 10 a.m. for a chamber webinar that will explore BERDO and the strategies architects and builders are successfully using to properties less dependent on carbon emissions. Register
Other need to knows
April 29 is last day for employers to file claims under the state's Employee Sick Leave program. Any new or amended claims can’t be submitted after that date. Log on to MassTaxConnect to submit or amend your claims.
The Watertown News reports on Saracen Properties and BentallGreenOak’s proposal for redeveloping the former Russo’s Site on Pleasant Street. “Paramount Place” would include a four story, life science research and development center as well as a one-story retail building but presumably no one singing opera.
Client visits and deliveries by the Newton Food Pantry have risen almost three-fold; from 3,525 in 2018 to over 10,000 at the end 2021. And now, after decades as a volunteer organization, the Pantry is looking to hire a full-time pantry manager. Details.
RIP stage and screen actor Robert Morse, one of two stars from TV's "Mad Men" who grew up in Newton. Do you know the other?
Baker bill seeks to help re-energize downtowns
Gov. Charlie Baker filed his final economic development bill yesterday.
And it’s “chock-full of specific local projects, a strategy likely aimed at getting the support of individual lawmakers – and getting municipal officials to lobby their lawmakers to pass it” writes Shira Schoenberg at CommonWealth.
The $3.5 billion proposal includes funds for housing and downtown recovery grants (including housing for downtowns).
Almost 250 municipalities would receive downtown recovery grants totaling about $108 million. Each of the commonwealth’s 351 towns and cities would receive at least $250,000 if the legislation passes, adds Benjamin Kail at the BBJ.
There’s also $1.2 billion for climate resiliency projects including $750 million to jumpstart the clean energy industry.
?Today is Earth Day. Tomorrow (April 23) is Record Store Day.
We need both to live fulfilled lives, right?
And this month the chamber welcomed our first record store member, probably since Good Vibrations left Marshall's Plaza.
Want List Records opened about seven months ago at the Echo Bridge Mall in Newton Upper Falls. Owners Dave Belson and Brian Coleman offer a well curate collected of used records and some new titles. Plus, they have over three decades of experience buying and selling records and will offer you fair market value for your collection.
So, here's your chance to find a new home for your prized vinyl or tape collection while supporting a local chamber member business.
That’s today’s Need to Knows, unless you need to know about an app that can guarantee you a parking space this summer at Good Harbor and Wingaersheek this summer.
