The MBTA reports all is now as close to well as it gets on the Blue Line, after a switch problem between Orient Heights and Suffolk Downs that was bad enough to require a little holiday bustititution.

H/t Rob for the headline.

The Rat City Arts Festival, which as its name implies, is in Allston, is sponsoring a program to artists to paint a bunch of empty black rat-bait stations, which will then be spread around the neighborhood for residents, and the more artistically inclined rodents, to enjoy, sort of like the city's utility-box painting program, just lower to the ground:

Yes, let's turn these Rat traps into beautiful pieces of art. Both for neighbors of Allston-Brighton and Rats, we all deserve to see amazing artwork when walking through our neighborhood. These traps, which rarely stop any rats, can become something better, something beautiful.

Selected artists, who have until April 19 to submit proposals, will get $100 a box, but have to supply their own paint.

The group adds that lovers of rat-eating hawks and owls needn't worry: The painted boxes will not be baited with rat poison or anything else, just adorned with a QR code that anybody bending down to take a look can use to get more information about the artist and the program.

To be clear, there are no harmful elements within the box to humans or to rats. These are empty rat trap boxes. No person or rat will be injured in the making or display of our rat traps.

A UHub correspondent reports he was on the outbound Red Line platform at Charles/MGH around 6:15 p.m:

I looked down onto the 1-lane roadway and saw protestors whom I think had abandoned a vehicle in the Cambridge-bound lane (to block traffic behind them -- it's a single-lane road) and then pulled this big chain across the roadway to further prevent access. "Elbit Out" is the sign by the chain.

Elbit is an Israeli defense contractor with an office in Central Square.

Ron Newman reports he was on Newbury Street around 5 p.m., when marchers walked by on their way to Mass. Ave. and the Mass. Ave. Bridge:

Tim West reports kids at the athletic fields at the old West Roxbury High School had 20,000 Easter eggs to choose from at today's annual Parkway In Motion Easter-egg hunt.

An irate citizen with an EV filed a 311 complaint this morning about somebody else with an EV who prematurely unplugged the irate citizen's EV from a charger in the municipal lot behind Centre Street in JP - despite only having been plugged in for an hour.

The Boston Licensing Board yesterday deferred action on a request from South Boston Bites, 94 Shirley St.in Roxbury, to extend its currently licensed hours of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. after hearing some of the food entrepreneurs it was renting kitchens to were already cooking up stuff around the clock in a space where women have expressed fear of being in and neighbors were complaining of noise in the early morning.

Ryan Cupps and Kip Beach, who opened South Boston Bites last July for the Los Angeles-based CloudKitchens as a way to give ghost kitchens and budding food entrepreneurs a place to cook food for delivery, told the board they have hired a local security firm, New England Security, to get things under control - and even called police to evict a couple of their tenants who continued to work after 10 p.m.

They said they are seeking the extra hours because the people who now rent one of their 26 "kitchen suites" are increasingly being asked by their customers for earlier and later service - he pointed to nearby Boston Medical Center as an example - and said the extra revenue from those hours would help support businesses that already have a tough time surviving as it is.

April Edwards of Wingz and Tingz, who was renting one of the kitchens, said she was one of the people kicked out by police last week - but said that Cupps and Beach had assured her last July, when she signed a lease, that they had approval for 24-hour operaitons.

"They never told us that we were 10 to 10," Edwards said. "I come from a brick and mortar ... We've been in business for over 10 years, in several locations. We came there so we could be 24 hours. We sold our brick and mortar and were told by them it was 24 hour access. ... We paid them to do these things and it was all lies."

One man who identified himself in the Zoom meeting as a DoorDash driver said he regularly picks up orders there and has never seen South Boston Bites workers on site after 6 p.m. He added: "I've seen fights in that lobby, I've seen homeless people shack there regularly. I've almost gotten assaulted there two or three times ... I've seen females that are afraid to work there and have asked me to walk them to their cars. I'm just an average DoorDash driver, I can't even imagine what these operators are going through there."

Morgana Oliviera, owner of the Brazilian Taste Kitchen, spoke in support of expanded hours, saying she had, in fact, been cooking and offering food until 2 a.m. until the recent rollback of hours. "There is a really big demand for the later hours, lots of sales," she said.

Sue Sullivan of the Newmarket Square Business Improvement District said she found herself in a conundrum based on such reports, but said she and some business owners nearby have yet to see or hear problems and that, ultimately, she would like to see the board work with South Boston Bites to extend its hours, to help the people who rent its kitchen space take their businesses to the next level and hire more people.

She told the board that New England Security is "the gold standard" of local security firms, that it is the firm her district uses for its own 24-hour security patrols of Newmarket Square, which overlaps Mass and Cass.

She added that South Boston Bites might be unfairly getting tagged for noise complaints that should go to the adjoining City Fresh Foods, which prepares meals for students and seniors in Boston, and which she says operates around the clock.

Edwards, however, said that while City Fresh Foods starts up early in the morning, it is not a 24-hour operation.

Cupps and Beach are scheduled to meet with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative on April 25 to address concerns from nearby residents.

Licensing board members had told them Wednesday they would not get a vote on their application at the board's Thursday meeting, where it normally decides requests.

"Some of the comments are a little bit concerning," board member Keeana Saxon told them. On Thursday, board members said they wanted a detailed written security plan from Cupps and Beach - and that they would schedule another hearing, possibly after the meeting with the neighborhood group.

Watch the Wednesday hearing:

MassDOT reported at the tail end of the morning commute that one driver learned the hard way his rig was too big for the Sumner Tunnel, wedging it in firmly enough to warrant an alert that the tunnel's left lane was shut for awhile.

When the T hired CRRC to build hundreds of new cars despite not having any experience with American subways but at a price that was just too good to pass up, the contract contained penalty clauses in case the company was late. CommonWealth Beacon reports the T will be paying CRRC $148 million more - and will waive up to $131 million in penalties if CRRC delivers all the cars by the end of 2027, four years late. Both sides blame the pandemic and restrictions on Chinese companies by the Trump administration.

The Crimson reports on the uproar at the Gardner Pilot Academy in Allston after BPS removed the principal three months ago after she allegedly failed to report serious problems among students, including "persistent bullying" and "sexual misconduct."

Schoolyard News reports 67 staff members at Boston Latin Academy have asked Superintendent Mary Skipper "name one or more co-heads of school so that Head of School Gavin Smith would no longer have sole decision-making authority."

The Orange Line has a photo of some old Orange Line cars crossing Rte. 9 - on flatbed trucks.

The daughter of man dragged and then crushed by a dump truck at Massachusetts and Huntington avenues in 2022 today filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against both the driver and the New Hampshire company that owned the truck.

The July 13, 2022 crash ended the life of George Clemmer, 71. Clemmer, a Virgnia native, moved to Cambridge to attend MIT, where he earned degrees in naval architecture, electrical engineering and business. At 60, he became a bioinformatician at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he specialized in helping design asthma medications. He and his wife had four children. And he loved to walk and bicycle everywhere.

According to the suit, Clemmer died a particularly violent death when hit by a truck owned by K-Town Disposal of Salem, NH as its driver, identified only as John Doe, tried to make a right turn from Massachusetts Avenue onto Huntington:

As a result of the collision, Mr. Clemmer was dragged down Huntington Avenue, during which time he suffered grievous physical and emotional injuries. ...

After dragging Mr. Clemmer down Huntington Avenue, John Doe stopped the truck. John Doe then backed his truck up, running over Mr. Clemmer.

As a result of the truck backing up over him, Mr. Clemmer suffered further bodily injuries, which led to his death.

The suit formally charges the driver and company with negligence resulting in a wrongful death and seeks punitive damages for gross negligence.

A date for the company and its driver to respond to the lawsuit had not been set as of tonight.

Boston Police report arresting a man for peering into windows on Donnybrook Road and a few blocks away on Beechcroft Street, both in Brighton - and trying to enter one of the residences.

A Brighton Municipal Court judge issued a warrant to arrest Francis Gomez, 36, of Brighton on Tuesday and he was apprehended today, according to court records, which show that one of the incidents was on March 17.

The Globe reports police say they are familiar with Gomez from past incidents and that the March 17 incident involved him peeping and then turning a home's front doorknob to see if he could enter.

Innocent, etc.

Mayor Wu said today she will seek state legislation that would let the city tax owners of commercial and industrial property at a higher rate for four years, should official assessments being conducted this year show a precipitous drop in the assessed value of downtown office space in particular due to work shifts caused by the pandemic.

Wu, who said the city is already seeing some decline in commercial building values downtown, said that should the current re-assessment cycle, to be finished within nine months, show a particularly steep decline, without a change in its taxation structure, the city would be forced to charge residential property owners potentially "significant increases" to make up the difference, an increase nobody wants in a city that already has some of the highest housing prices in the country.

Wu's proposal, if approved by the City Council, the State Legislature and the governor, would likely still mean property-tax increases for owners of residential property, but at far lower amounts than otherwise Wu and her advisors said at a morning press conference. Owners of commercial and industrial buildings with lowered assessments would still see decreases in their quarterly tax bills, but not as great as they would otherwise, they said.

At issue is the way Proposition 2 1/2 works. The measure limits only increases in the total amount of money a city or town can bring in through property taxes each year, not the increases for an individual property's taxes, so short of large cuts to city services, the city would have no choice but to raise residential rates should income from commercial properties decline significantly due to reduced assessments, she said.

At the same time, the law limits the maximum amount of tax revenue that can come from a particular type of property. Wu's proposed measure would let the city temporarily change the percentage of the overall property-tax levy that comes from commercial/industrial properties from the current maximum of 175% of what it would be if the city didn't have two tax rates - one for residential, one for commercial/industrial property - to 200%.

She said it's too early to say whether the measure would be needed, because that will depend on the current reassessment effort by city assessors, but she that it's better to have authorization to make the tax changes now should reassessment show a dramatic decrease in commercial property value, then wait until right before the city might have to set new tax rates and send out bills.

If the city gets authorization and does enact the new plan, it would run for four years, with the maximum amount of taxes from commercial and industrial properties decreasing each years.

She noted that Boston has done this sort of temporary commercial increase before, in 2003, under Tom Menino.

Among the supporters of the proposal: Tom O'Brien, CEO of HYM Investment Group, which is constructing the commercial and residential Bulfinch Crossing complex downtown and working to build out the giant Suffolk Downs project on the East Boston/Revere line.

O'Brien called the proposal "a really important tool" that would mean "a lesser burden on residents" in Boston. However, he also called for work on "potential new growth and new projects." Over the past 20 years, massive new development in Boston has helped keep municipal services afloat, since the value of each new building, and its resulting property-tax income, is added to the city's overall assessment and yearly income.

Adam Chapdelaine, of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents the state's 351 cities and towns, praised the proposal as a way to give Boston a way to handle property taxes in way that minimizes the impact on its residents.

The Boston Licensing Board voted today to set a revocation hearing in six months for the liquor license John Tyler holds for a space at 154 Maverick St., but said they are more hopeful this time than the last time they threatened him with revocation, last August, because he has letters of intent from two possible operators that could, finally, keep the place open longer than a couple months.

Last August, Tyler won another reprieve when he told the board he and a local restaurant operator would soon be re-opening the space in the former city welfare building Tyler and his then wife bought from the city years ago. The new 154 Station opened in October - and then shut permanently just three months later.

Tyler's LLC, which owns the building won a restricted "neighborhood" license in 2015, which lets him do everything a regular old liquor license would, except that should he go out of business for good, or the board finally revoke the license, it would have to be returned to the board to grant to somebody in one of the city's Main Street districts or in Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester, rather than sold on the open market.

Liquor licenses are in short supply in Boston because the state legislature in recent years has largely refused to grant Boston the right to issue more - to the point where a full-alcohol license now goes for more than $600,000 on the open market.

Tyler and his now ex-wife have been feuding for years, both at the restaurant site itself and in court, over operation of the space, which has led to long stretches in which the restaurant has been shut, the license unused.

At a hearing Tuesday, Tyler's attorney, Andrew Upton, said one of the proposed operators is "a strong and experienced operator" of restaurants in Boston. He declined to discuss specifics of the proposed bids in public, but agreed to give the board copies of the letters of intent for its private perusal.

"He's he's looking forward to putting this license to use," Updton Said. "He's looking forward to more good years."

He added that Tyler is looking at a re-opening possibly by the end of the summer, "depending on scope of any remodeling for any new operator," which means the space could be operating again before the board's revocation hearing, which based on today's vote would be at the end of September.

"I am really concerned by how little this license has been used," board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said Tuesday.

Should Tyler actually re-open the space before then, "great, if not, we will cancel the license," she said today.

The Boston Licensing Board voted today for a three-day license suspension at the Silhouette Lounge, 200 Brighton Ave. in Allston, but to hold that in abeyance for six months, after BPD licensing cops found five people under 21 drinking - three of them just 19.

The vote means that should the bar get nabbed for something else over the next six months, it will have to shut for three days.

At a hearing Tuesday, police said that one of the five presented an older person's valid license to get a drink. The other four used fake IDs with their names and photos on them, a detective said.

Board members agreed that while the current ownership, which took over the watering hole in 2021, had not previously had any problems, but said the number of people caught and the fact that, as board member Liam Curran said, they were not just a few weeks away from their 21st birthdays, but were "well under age" merited a sterner possible punishment than the written warning the bar might otherwise have gotten.

The Boston Licensing Board today granted a food-serving license to Cacao, 570 Columbus Ave. in the South End.

Cacao, which will be open between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., will serve all sorts of chocolate offerings, including hot chocolate. It will have both indoor and, in nice weather, outdoor seating.

Its owners have a similar shop in Newton. They also used to have a Cacao on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, but closed that in 2022.

Nobody spoke against the proposal at a hearing on Wednesday. A liaison from the city Office of Neighborhood Services summed up community reaction by quoting one person who had attended an earlier neighborhood meeting: "Who would be against chocolate?