After six months on the Needham Select Board, Lakshmi Balachandra has stepped off the board after determining that her elected position was in conflict with a new fellowship she had secured with the National Science Foundation.

 

Balachandra was the tenth woman and the first woman of color to serve on the board and quickly developed a reputation as a maverick willing to challenge the status quo.

 

And true to her style, she's not departing quietly.

 

“It’s been a challenge, because people fear change,” Balachandra said of her board tenure in a Globe interview. 

 

“I know I’m letting down my constituents. But I’m sick of carrying this emotional labor. It’s been very emotionally taxing. Anything I say is challenged.”

 

Balachandra's legacy may be that she gave everyone pause to think about why we do things and how it benefits our community.

 

The board can either call a special election or fill the vacancy at the regularly scheduled April election. They will meet tonight (Tues.) to review the options.

 

 

Needham's Select Board will also hold a public hearing tonight at 6 p.m. about proposed zoning changes that would extend outdoor dining.

 

The governor's executive order that allows cities and towns to approve outdoor dining applications without adhering to existing state and local requirements expires April 1. After that, municipalities must adopt new ordinances and/or zoning changes to allow the use of street parklets and other changes to continue.

 

And boy have they become popular.

 

In Needham, 96.8% of 1233 online respondents in a poll conducted by the town said “yes” to continuing outdoor dining.

 

Has there ever been that much consensus about anything related to zoning?

 

Details, including a Power Point presentation, are here.

 

 

 

It looks like the state’s COVID emergency paid leave program will be extended until April 1, according to State House News.

 

The program offers workers up to a week off to quarantine, recover from the illness, get vaccinated, or help a sick family member and was set to expire this week.

 

The extension, which now awaits the governor's signature, would also allow employees take paid leave to help a family member obtain a COVID-19 vaccine or care for them as they recover from an injury, disability, illness, or condition related to a vaccine.

 

 

 

Some of the nation’s top business groups are frustrated as the Biden administration prepares rules for its vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers without seeking their input, according to the Hill.

 

Most big corporations don’t oppose the rule -- which will apply to employers with 100-plus workers -- they say they just want to be at the table as the rules are being written.

 

“From a good government standpoint, you would think they would want to get as much information as they can, particularly from companies that have already done this,” said Ed Egee, a VP at the National Retail Federation.

 

Among other questions, businesses are wondering what they will need to do to verify vaccination status; how to process requests for religious or medical exemptions; and who will pay for weekly testing.

 

Meanwhile, Katherine J. Wu at the Atlantic explores what she calls Biden's "nonsensical loophole" that allows weekly testing is an option.

 

“The United States isn’t set up to handle a sharp rise in diagnostic demand, should a big fraction of affected workers go the testing route," Wu writes.

 

“Vaccines and testing are simply not interchangeable. And the false equivalence that the mandate implies could push us to, once again, play either-or with pandemic mitigation measures, when the best move has always been to use them in combination.

 

 

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s branch in Newton Centre is already one of the lender’s 10 largest Massachusetts branches. 

 

Now the bank has announced plans to open a second Newton branch at Trio in Newtonville, along with its under construction location at the former Peets in Wellesley and another the intersection on Trapelo Road in Waltham.

 

Chase plans to have 50 branches in the Bay State. Greg Ryan at the BBJ has the full list of those announced to date.

 

 

Gov. Charlie Baker’s Oct. 17 vax mandate deadline for state employees doesn’t offer a weekly testing option.

 

Last week, a Superior Court judge denied a request by the State Police Association of Massachusetts to extend the deadline to allow more time for negotiations.

 

It's not known if the administration has reached agreement with other unions, writes Matt Murphy at State House News. However any employee hoping to start a two-dose vaccine vax regimen by Pfizer would have needed to receive their first shot last Sunday.

 

"It's very clear to me that the fastest path back to normalcy, the fastest path back to the life everybody wants, which is the one they had before the pandemic began, is to get more and more people vaccinated and to continue to build on the success we've had here in the commonwealth," Baker said.

 

Baker added that members of the public who interact with state employees, including the State Police, deserve to be confident that the person they are dealing with is vaccinated.

 

 
 

 

Not sure what to make of this one: An employee at a business on Washington Street in Wellesley, tells police their business recently received a suspicious envelope in the mail that contained only a dime in. The letter was mailed from Ohio. 

 

He stated other locations had received the same envelope with a dime originating from Ohio according to the Swellesley Report.

 

 

Nothing says “don’t panic buy” than a limit designed to prevent panic buying.

 

But that’s what Costco is doing in an effort to avoid the frantic run on toilet paper that left store shelves bare across the U.S. at the start of the pandemic, according to the New York Times.

 

The retailer is imposing limits on toilet paper, cleaning products and bottled water, as labor shortages continue to plague the nation’s supply chain.

 

That’s today’s Need to Knows, unless you need to know if you have Asian jumping worms or even what worms look like when they’re jumping.

 

Be back later this week.

 

President

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