UPDATED May 21: Town Meeting session eight, on Wednesday, May 18, continued its deliberate pace, approving five articles, including 60, which includes a $100,000 appropriation over two years for Bluebikes.

The others are 62 (Community Preservation Act), 65 (development design standards), 71 (free cash) and 72 (appropriation/Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund).

When it adjourned, the meeting was debating Article 17, whether to allow self-service gas stations, and that will continue Monday, May 25.

The town Zoning Board of Appeals is due to meet Tuesday, May 24, at 7:30 p.m., to hold four hearings via this Zoom link >> 

See the agenda here >> 

Hearings

Noose allegedly left at work. / Patch photo

An Arlington man has accused the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) Local 292 of discrimination and harassment in a complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the independent state agency that enforces state antidiscrimination laws, YourArlington partner Patch reports.

Richard S. Summers, 56. an African American who has been a customer representative at NAGE since May 2020, said he began experiencing discrimination and harassment in the workplace in August 2021 and has continued to experience retaliation ever since.

According to the complaint, Summers' supervisor at the time made several racially charged comments directed toward him and later retaliated against Summers for confronting him by stripping him of privileges, moving his office and changing his duties. In addition, an anonymous lynching noose was left where Summers works several months after the comments were made.

Patch has reached out to NAGE for comment on Summers' complaints and plans to update the story when it hears back.

The Arlington Advocate has been the town's paper of record ...."

                                                                                                            -- Town website

The weekly remains valuable as an archived, historical source,
not as a 'paper of record.'

UPDATED May 21: The Arlington Advocate, a storied weekly delivering news here since 1871, is no more. As of Thursday, May 12, it became the Advocate & Star, a newspaper merger of two highly distinct towns, Arlington and Winchester.

The demise began slowly after the Jorgensen family sold the paper in 1986 to Harte-Hanks, the first of many newspaper-chain owners. The Gannett Corp. of McLean, Va., is only the latest.

As editor of The Advocate in 1994-95, I saw the early decline firsthand. Not two months after I began, two men in dark suits arrived at 5 Water St., where the paper then was located, and measured the offices, without comment. Turns out, they were from Fidelity Investments, which included the paper in its many purchases later that fall. After that, the new owner cut the share it paid for employee health benefits.

To be fair, Fidelity supported the weekly. Sometimes the paper was 36 pages deep, had a full-time editor and reporter (Marc Levy, now of CambridgeDay.com) and a full-time sports editor (Walter Moynihan, who died in 2013). 

Sandy Pooler

Sandy Pooler, deputy town manager/finance director, will serve as the interim town manager after current manager Adam Chapdelaine’s last day on June 17, the Select Board unanimously voted Monday, May 16. 

“Mr. Pooler has been identified to serve beginning on June 18, subject to negotiations with him,” said board member Steve DeCourcey.

Section 12(b) of the Town Manager Act states, “When a vacancy occurs in the office of town manager . . . the Select Board shall appoint . . . not later than 90 days after such vacancy occurs . . . a qualified officer of the town as acting manager for the balance of the unexpired term.”