Connect with us

Boston, MA

Boston City Council eying charter change to avoid another New Year’s Day inauguration

Published

on

Boston City Council eying charter change to avoid another New Year’s Day inauguration


Boston city councilors unhappy with having to work this past New Year’s Day are seeking a change in the city charter that would prevent mayoral and council inaugurations from being held on a federal holiday.

Councilor Gabriela Coletta, chair of the government operations committee, is recommending that the body vote favorably Wednesday on a home rule petition that would amend the city charter by moving the inauguration date from the first Monday of January to the first weekday after Jan. 2.

If approved, Mayor Michelle Wu would need to sign off on the petition before it could be pitched to state lawmakers on Beacon Hill, who would also have to approve a charter change moving the end of mayoral and council terms in the same way.

“The purpose of this docket is to ensure that City of Boston employees will not be required to work on the federally observed holiday for Jan. 1 New Year’s Day solely to participate in and facilitate city council and mayoral inaugurations (and) the commencement of the municipal year,” Coletta wrote in a committee report.

Advertisement

The docket for the petition, filed by Council Vice President Brian Worrell, drew laughter when it was read into the record by City Clerk Alex Geourntas at a Jan. 24 City Council meeting.

“Lots of snickering, I wonder why,” Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said at the time, perhaps alluding to the late-night celebrations that occurred on New Year’s Eve followed by the quick turnaround of a 10 a.m. inauguration, where the 13 councilors elected in November were required to take the oath of office.

A brief City Council meeting was also held at noon on New Year’s Day, where a vote was taken to select Louijeune as the body’s new president.

Worrell, in a Monday statement to the Herald, spoke to the strain that quick turnaround placed on the city’s public safety employees.

“This year, our first responders had to staff our inauguration 10 hours after First Night and New Year’s Eve,” Worrell said. “That’s too great a strain to put on our public safety officers. Other years, we wait till Jan. 7 to have an inauguration.

Advertisement

“I’d rather get to work earlier,” he added. “This solution solves for both problems, updating a centuries-old document with an easy fix that will ensure inauguration is Jan. 3-5, which is more in line with federal standards and should increase civic engagement.”

In January, he said the home rule petition “follows Congress’ rule for the most part, which has its inauguration Jan. 3 so it would never fall on either New Year’s Day or its observed holiday.”

Louijeune also spoke favorably of the measure in January, saying that many council staff members had to work on the holiday this year as well, and were given the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend off to make up for it.

The tradition of swearing in on New Year’s Day is nothing unique to Boston. Media reports indicate that a number of mayors and city councilors were sworn into office in other Massachusetts municipalities this year on Jan. 1.

Under the city charter, the inauguration date, municipal years, and elected terms can fall from Jan. 1-7 as the “first Monday in January.” The petition seeks to change those dates to between Jan. 3-5, as the first weekday after Jan. 2.

Advertisement

The act, if passed locally and by the state, would take effect starting with the elected terms and the municipal year that begins Jan. 5, 2026.

While 10 councilors signed onto Worrell’s petition after it was introduced in late January, two others didn’t: Ed Flynn, who was absent, and Erin Murphy. Both say they plan to vote ‘no’ if it is brought to a vote on Wednesday.

“As elected officials, I believe we have the obligation to serve the public at all times, even during a holiday,” Flynn said on Monday. “I’m honored to serve as a city councilor, and I will continue to work hard for my constituents day and night.”

Murphy said “winning an election and representing the City Council is an honor,” and that she doesn’t think working on a federal holiday for the inauguration is a “sacrifice.”

In terms of civic engagement, she said, having the ceremony on a federal holiday is “actually more convenient that family and others don’t have to take the day off work to join.”

Advertisement

Murphy said there isn’t a need, in her opinion, to change the city charter, established in 1822, pointing to the lack of frequency with which the inauguration falls on a federal holiday.

It wouldn’t occur again until 2040, when the first Monday of the month is Jan. 2, the observed date. The inauguration would next fall on New Year’s Day, Jan. 1, in 2046.

If the proposed charter change is because an inauguration “falls after people going out on New Year’s Eve,” Murphy said, “then I’m 100% against it.”

City Councilor Brian Worrell (Herald file)



Source link

Advertisement

Boston, MA

New Japanese restaurant brings affordable bentos, hand rolls to Boston

Published

on

New Japanese restaurant brings affordable bentos, hand rolls to Boston


The team behind several popular hand roll spots in Boston has opened its newest concept near a college campus.

NoriNori Test Kitchen, opened at 399 Chestnut Hill Ave., Brookline on Tuesday, Jan. 27.

Located just steps away from Cleveland Circle and Boston College, the Japanese bar and restaurant is the third venture from NoToro Hospitality Group. The group oversees other popular sushi spots including Matsunori Handroll Bar in Fenway and Mai, which opened in Seaport in September 2025.

“Norinori is a salute to the humble bento, bringing their affordability, simplicity, and versatility to Brookline and modernizing their traditional flavors with a boldness that reflects our industrial cyberpunk-inspired space,” the restaurant’s website states. “Bentos fuel Japan. From Tokyo to Hokkaido. Come join us as we welcome them to Brookline.”

Advertisement
Several hand rolls from NoriNori Test Kitchen in Brookline, Massachusetts.David Cifarelli

Keeping NoToro’s focus on affordability, NoriNori’s menu consists of moderately priced hand rolls and bento boxes.

Boxes range from $19-$27 and come with diners’ choice of protein, rice, soup and salad. Standouts include the $24 Gyukatsu, a fried beef sirloin cutlet with homemade tonkatsu sauce, and the Miso Butter Cod (also $24), which features Atlantic white cod marinated for 24 hours in a homemade miso butter mix.

Meanwhile most of NoriNori’s hand rolls are between $5-$6. Diners familiar with NoToro’s other concepts will recognize these rolls, which feature several staple fish including salmon, tuna, yellowtail and eel.

NoriNori is open Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30-9:30 p.m.





Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Boston, MA

David Pastrnak, Bruins earn 3-2 overtime victory over Nashville

Published

on

David Pastrnak, Bruins earn 3-2 overtime victory over Nashville


The Bruins may not liked how they got to the end result on Tuesday night at the Garden, but results are all that matter right now.

For the second night in a row, the B’s could not protect a lead that they held after 40 minutes. But unlike the verdict in Manhattan, the B’s were able to get the full two points on the table in overtime.

It took just 15 seconds into OT.

Mark Kastelic won the opening faceoff and Charlie McAvoy skated with it into the offensive zone. Marat Khusnutdinov jumped on for Kastelic and, after some razzle-dazzle, McAvoy sent a backhand pass toward the top of the crease to David Pastrnak for the redirection goal for the 3-2 win. It was an all’s-well-that-ends-well kind of night for Pastrnak, who took a costly penalty late in the second period that helped Nashville get back in the game.

Advertisement

The day was an interesting one for the B’s.

The schedule gives and it takes away, and Tuesday was a night when the B’s were at a distinct disadvantage. Because of flight issues related to the winter storm, the B’s could not fly out of New York on Monday after their overtime loss to the Rangers and were forced to bus back up to Boston, arriving back home around 1:30 pm on Tuesday.

The Preds on the other hand, last played on Saturday afternoon and chartered into Boston on  Saturday night to beat the blizzard.

The team chefs arrived with meals at Hanscom Airport to help the players fuel up. Skills coach John McLean, who doesn’t travel with the team, also went the airport and shoveled out the entire traveling party’s cars, no small task with the amount of snow dumped on the region.

“We owe him a couple of beers,” said Morgan Geekie. “It takes a village and everybody stepped up today no matter how it was. Happy we could get the win.”

Advertisement

With all the help they did get, coach Marco Sturm wasn’t going to allow his players an out if they did lose in OT.

“It doesn’t matter if we lost the game or whatever. That shouldn’t be an excuse,” said Sturm. “Guys were ready to go today. You’re not always perfect Our third was definitely better than (Monday). Couldn’t close it but guys came back and showed character and at the end of the day, we need to take all the points we can get….I’m just happy the way the last couple of weeks went.”

Dating back to their New Year’s Eve win in Edmonton, the B’s are 11-2-1 in their last 14.

Despite the travel complications, the B’s were the ones to score the lone goal in the first period, which came off the stick of Sweden’s newest Olympian, Hampus Lindholm. The defenseman took the puck down from the left point to the circle and sent what looked like a harmless shot toward the net. But working the net front after winning the faceoff back to Mason Lohrei, Fraser Minten went for the tip and missed, but that seemed to distract Juuse Saros enough to allow the puck to get behind him for the 1-0 B’s lead at 13:16.

They made it 2-0 early in the second period, thanks to the simmering stick of Geekie. Pastrnak first danced around Roman Josi just inside the Nashville blue line and then shoveled the puck along the left boards to Geekie. Geekie took a few strides toward the net and, from the bottom of the circle, snapped a shot that beat Saros off the far post and in. It was Geekie’s 30th goal of the season and fourth in three games while Pastrnak extended his point streak to eight games.

Advertisement

Though the game was a snoozer, the B’s appeared to be in full control. That is until their season-long problem raised its ugly head again – penalties.

Late in the period, Pastrnak took a bad slashing on Josi in the neutral zone. It was the B’s fourth penalty to that point and, this time, the Predators made them pay. From above the right dot, Josi’s low shot got under Jeremy Swayman’s glove with 35 seconds left in the period, changing the complexion of the game just like that.

“Obviously I know it’s a bad penalty and I apologized to the group and moved forward,” said Pastrnak.

To make matters worse, the B’s lost Elias Lindholm to an upper body injury off a faceoff late in the period and he did not return. Sturm did not have an update after the game but said the centerman would be getting some tests on Wednesday.

In the third, the B’s had a great chance to regain the two-goal lead when Casey Mittelstadt, from behind the net, found a wide-open Viktor Arvidsson a the top of the crease,  but Saros stoned him.

Advertisement

And with 6:43 left in regulation, the Preds tied it. After matching roughing minors, Nashville scored on the ensuing 4-on-4 when Nick Blankenburg used the extra room to roam free out high and he beat Swayman with a long shot under the blocker.

It stay deadlocked after 60 minutes. It got unlocked 15 seconds later. On the winner, another non-uniformed member of the B’s had another big assist. The plan, as usual, was for Kastelic to take the opening draw and jump off the ice. This time Khusnutdinov was set to jump on. Only problem was, he was missing a skate blade.

Equipment manager Keith Robinson heard assistant Matt Falconer yell out “Khusy needs steel!” As soon as Robinson snapped the blade in, Khusnutdinov jumped onto the ice and joined the weave in the offensive zone, dropping the puck for the circling Pastrnak,  who then executed the pretty give-and-go with McAvoy for the winner.

As Geekie said, it takes a village.

Loose pucks

Hampus Lindholm will be going to the Olympics after all. Due to the injury to Jonas Brodin, Lindholm was named to Team Sweden on Tuesday, where he’ll join Bruin teammate Elias Lindholm. Other Bruins going to the Games in Milan, Italy will be Swayman and McAvoy (USA), Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha (Czechia), Henri Jokiharju (Finland) and Providence Bruin Dans Locmelis (Latvia).

Advertisement

“Any time you put (the Sweden jersey), it’s such a cool jersey, it has so much history tied to it. I haven’t had any opportunity for the Olympis for me in my career, so it’s going to be a great honor to go there,” said Lindholm… Alex Steeves was scratched in favor of Mikey Eyssimont, who played his first game since Jan. 11…Nikita Zadorov, who missed Monday’s game with a lower body injury, returned to the lineup and saw 21:53, second most on the B’s to McAvoy’s 27:14.

 



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Boston, MA

Families of two killed in US boat strikes near Venezuela file wrongful-death suit in Boston – The Boston Globe

Published

on

Families of two killed in US boat strikes near Venezuela file wrongful-death suit in Boston – The Boston Globe


The lawsuit against the federal government was filed Tuesday morning by lawyers from the political advocacy group American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Samaroo’s sister, Sallycar Korasingh, and Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley.

Maritime lawsuits can be filed in any federal court in the US, the ACLU noted, and they said they chose Boston because of the long history of such suits here.

The complaint alleges the deaths amount to extrajudicial slayings, or the unlawful killing of an individual by a government.

“I miss him terribly. We all do,” Burnley said of her son, in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure.”

Advertisement

The strike that allegedly took both men’s lives came on Oct. 14, as they made the short journey to the island that’s only a handful of miles off Venezuela’s coast.

For Joseph, according to the lawsuit, it was to be a long-delayed homecoming. The farmer and fisherman had been in Venezuela since April for work, as sometimes happened with him. On top of that, the suit said, he had a hard time finding a boat back to the small fishing village on Trinidad’s north coast where he lived with his common-law wife and three children.

On Oct. 12, he called his wife to tell her the 20-mile boat trip was finally happening: He’d be back in two days, according to the lawsuit.

He’d be with Samaroo, a coworker and fishing buddy who had moved to Las Cuevas a year earlier after his release from prison. He was imprisoned for 15 years for his role in a killing, according to the lawsuit. Media reports say it was the homicide of a street vendor, but don’t provide further detail about what happened.

Samaroo told his sister he was returning on the Oct. 14 boat because he wanted to see their mother, who had fallen ill.

Advertisement

Neither man, their families and the Trinidadian government claim, was involved in the drug trade.

Korasingh, Samaroo’s sister, said he had “paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again” when the strike killed him.

“If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him,” she said in a statement. “They must be held accountable.”

On Oct. 14, the news came in the form of a social-media post from the president of the United States.

Trump posted that he’d authorized a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting narcotrafficking” in international waters near Venezuela. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route.” Six “male narcoterrorists,” Trump said, died in the strike.

Advertisement

If was the latest of what would ultimately be more than 30 such strikes on boats near Venezuela, whose leadership Trump has blamed for the influx of drugs coming into the United States. Ultimately, tensions escalated to the point that US military forces entered Venezuela and arrested its president, the dictator Nicolas Maduro, in a raid earlier this month.

In the Oct. 14 post announcing the strike, the president attached a video of the men’s last moments. A small boat appears to sit in the middle of the frame. Suddenly, a dart of light comes from off the screen above, striking the boat, which explodes into a fireball.

Joseph’s mother, Burnley, saw the reports of the strike on the news and called her son’s wife.

“They immediately feared that Mr. Joseph was aboard this boat, as the timing of the strike directly coincided with Mr. Joseph’s journey by boat from Venezuela to Las Cuevas,” lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

They called his phone, but it was dead. And, the complaint said, “The line remains dead to this day.”

Advertisement

Their remains were not found. Both families have filed missing-persons reports and sought more information, but non has been available. Both families, according to the lawsuit, have held funerals.

As justification, Trump has said that the US is essentially in conflict with the large drug-trafficking organizations that smuggle drugs into the United States.

In the lawsuit, the families allege the strike was illegal because drug traffickers — even violent ones — do not qualify under international law as an entity that a country can claim it’s in armed conflict against. But even if that were the case, the suit claims, the government should not target civilians.

“As a result, even in the context of an armed conflict, the killings of Mr. Joseph and Mr. Samaroo would constitute a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and thus a war crime, making its perpetrators punishable under federal and international law,” the complaint states.

The lawyers are suing under the century-old Death on the High Seas Act, which allows family members of people killed in international waters to sue for wrongful death.

Advertisement

Ultimately, this suit is seeking unnamed monetary damages for the families. The complaint is not seeking an injunction ordering the government to change its behavior.


Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.





Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending