The City Council today unanimously approved pay raises for themselves - to go into effect after the next election, the mayor and other top appointed officials and said all hard-working city employees should get raises, even if the council can't give them any increases, because that's subject to bargaining between the mayor's office and municipal unions. Read more.
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
City Councilors Ed Flynn and Michael Flaherty will do their part to prod the city - and state and federal - public-works crews to ensure we won't see any repeats of the incident last week when a light pole held only by rusted bolts gave way and fell on a woman walking across the Moakley Bridge. Read more.
The City Council on Wednesday will hear a proposal to make it easier for residents to raise honeybees. Read more.
Boston bans artificial turf in parks due to toxic ‘forever chemicals’ Read more.
The City Council's redistricting committee held a public hearing today that went for three hours. You can watch the whole thing above. The tl;dr version below: Read more.
Scott Van Voorhis reports financing for construction of new apartments and condos seems to be drying up really quickly - and that some developers who have approval to put up new buildings are looking for buyers rather than starting construction themselves.
With apartment rents at all-time highs in the Boston area, any drop off in construction would be bad news.
Covid-19 particles found in sewage at Deer Island (from northern half of MWRA; southern half is similar).
Jon Levy, chair of environmental health at the BU School of Public Health, took a look last night at the latest Covid-19 viral particle numbers from the Deer Island treatment plant and noticed the rather sharp spike - which should mean an increase in actual Covid-19 numbers in another week to ten days. Read more.
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
Mayor Wu today announced she wants to replace 10 of the Zoning Board of Appeal's 14 current full and alternate members, including longtime Chairwoman Christine Araujo, as part of a move to create development oversight that relies more on neighborhood and citywide plans and less on hundreds of requests each year for variances from increasingly creaky zoning codes that sometimes date back decades. Read more.
Who ya gonna believe? The Times or your lying eyes?
The New York Times says the Democratic Party has a choice: Swagger or Michelle Wu. Read more.
The Boston Real Estate Times reports that Brian Golden, who spent eight years as head of the city's overseer of large-scale development before resigning in April, has joined Keegan Werlin as head of its real-estate development and permitting practice. Joining him there is Sean Nehill, the BPDA's former associate general counsel.
BPS alerted parents this morning that "an adult member of our BPS community has been diagnosed with monkeypox." Read more.
A federal judge who ruled in April that Mayor Wu doesn't have to travel to Salem to take questions from a Satanic lawyer ruled again today that Wu still doesn't have to go to Salem to take questions from the lawyer - let alone after first being forced to sit through a Satanic ceremony. Read more.
The city will file a formal challenge to the federal government's conclusion that Boston had a population of 675,647 in 2020 - less than city estimates had put it previously and possibly due in part to local colleges emptying out temporarily due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.
Disclaimer: This is not your usual fact-filled A-level Uhub reporting, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere else, and it's what I've got. Read more.
Live Boston has the scoop: When Bill Forry of the Dorchester Reporter tweeted last night that Kevin Hayden would soon address his supporters as the new permanent DA, somebody at Transit Police responded that Hayden didn't win so the election so much as the Globe, due to its last-minute stories on Ricardo Arroyo. Read more.
The lawyer for the Satanic Temple in Salem provided a "status report" on the group's lawsuit against the City Council over its religious invocations to the judge in the case yesterday. It's pretty easy reading and explains the group's First Amendment claim about how the council starts its meetings and why he wants Michelle Wu to sit for questioning, so have at it at the link below, but some highlights: Read more.
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