Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Dear Shaun,

I am starting my freshman year in high school and so far the transition has felt very overwhelming. I am having a hard time finding my classes, I don’t know where to sit in the cafeteria, and a lot of my friends from middle school are in different classes. I just want to know does it get better? Or am I in for a real hard four years?

-Fretting Freshman

Dear Fretting Freshman,

Don’t believe the hype from pop culture. High school is neither the best time of your life nor is it the worst time of your life. When all is said and done it is just another phase of your miserable existence. If you go into high school knowing that life is shit and we all just have to move forward because the clock has informed us to, the easier everything will be.

Now, should you strive to be a good student? If that is what you want, that is what you should do. If you want to pick and choose where to succeed in your academics, be my guest! (It worked for me). If you want to wreak havoc, by all means, go for it. With all of these choices there are consequences, of course. Try hard? You may have less of a social life. Pick and choose? You may have fewer options for yourself post-graduation. Wreak havoc? Most likely you’re arrested.

I had done some pretty stupid things in my high school career. Partly because I reminded myself that it all doesn’t matter. I used to stomp around the cafeteria like a Velociraptor. I would jump on to tables and eat kids’ food without my shortened hands. I would yelp and scream and cause absolute chaos. I never once got in trouble for it. Including my last lunch when I was a senior, I received a stand ovation from the entire cafeteria including the teachers, who told me they were going to miss my performances.

In another instance, I started streaking at parties. At first, some folks didn’t really like it. The mood was homophobic. It was always guys yelling at me. It got to the point that after a while it became known that I was the guy that got naked at parties, and after a while I was just a naked guy at the party. I would play beer pong or sit and have a conversation. I guess you could say I was a nudist? If anyone ever yelled or asked me to put my clothes on, I would. But most times everyone kind of didn’t see me as naked. They treated me as an equal.

You do not have to perform as a extinct creature or expose your body in public. That is not the bad advice. The bad advice is care less. Can’t find your class? You’ll be late, and then you’ll get a detention and then maybe you meet your new best friend in that detention. Don’t know where to sit in the cafeteria? Just start sitting. If that table doesn’t talk to you, go to the next one. My freshman year the older punk kids I tried sitting with would mock me for liking Cave In and not Saves the Day (you don’t need to know these references). Eventually they realized that it didn’t faze me and they kept letting me sit. You only see your friends after school? Perfect, why would you want to hang out with them while learning about Mesopotamia? Go get into trouble outside of school and drink a dirty soda or whatever.

I’m doing a lot for you here. I hesitated putting in writing the getting naked thing. But I did it for you. Don’t blow this.

NEWS

This weekend I will be playing in a basketball tournament run by a bunch New York comedians. It is called The Big Walkowski. It is run by Joel Walkowski. He just wrote a great book titled Honolulu Blues. Go get yourself a copy. This year we are honoring a great friend that I’ve mentioned here before, John Rosenberger. The tournament raises money for LiveOnNY a organization that helps with Organ Donation. If you feel like donating, please do.

Next week Hot Dog! is back on September 18th. Stay tuned!

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

HORRORSCOPES

Virgo- Twerk like no one is watching.

Libra- The stars were just wondering if you had a few bucks you could lend them. They are good for it. I can vouch for them. They’re good. Yeah, they have their past and some of them have died recently, but the ones who are asking are chill and reliable. Be cool, man.

Scorpio- The planets are aligned. They have unionized and have demands. First, they feel grossly underpaid. I’m just the middle man, so I’m going to stay out of this. But you should definitely come to the negotiation table and offer a solution quickly.

Sagittarius- The NFL season has started. Kiss your loved ones, and we’ll talk to you again in March.

Capricorn- The Red Sox are doing well, so things in your life are not going as well. You haven’t noticed yet because of the rose-colored glasses you are watching these games through. On their next off day just check in with those you care about, there are some things you must attend to.

Aquarius- The moon is pissed.

Pisces- Try something you’ve never done before. But it has to be illegal. The stars are still waiting on that loan and want to see if you can come through for them. Maybe just stick your hand in a tip jar? Or commit some light wire fraud?

Aries- Watch someone twerk like they don’t see you watching.

Taurus- Start to keep a diary. This will help you get out some of those thoughts you feel even your therapist can’t hear. Write so much that eventually you’re thinking this stuff is pretty genius. Write to the point where you think that someone is going to have to read this. That is when you finally get to post your Charlie Kirk / JD Vance Erotic Fan Fic. Part zombie apocalyptic tale, part lustful romance where they use all the holes.

Gemini- Ooooh, okay. The moon is into you. He is telling everyone how much of a crush he has one you. Keep doin’ what you’re doin’.

Cancer- Remind yourself that you are not an expert and no one cares about your half-brained theories on crimes that you have only read about on the news and on Reddit pages. You don’t know shit.

Leo- When in doubt ask yourself what Dolly Parton would do. She made so much fucking money, you should probably follow her footsteps. Even if that means making some shitty Hallmark Christmas movies. Exploit yourself, become uber-rich and people will still think you’re a good person.

Share

Leave a comment

NEWS

Tonight we have a great show at Boland’s Irish Bar and Patio. The show is always free and we honestly should charge for how good the lineups are. This one is no different. Show starts at 8PM!

Leave a comment

For now, I got the hotspot engaged and “getting this out” in workman-like fashion. So I’ll keep the plug short...

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

There’s an election today with significant ramifications for Worcester politics. Our state delegation either stays “pretty good” or becomes “depressingly dreadful” in the same way our city council went last November. The same people that were behind the concerted, and ultimately successful, effort to replace our best city councilor with a real-lfie Geodude have taken a big whiff of their own oats, as they say, and are now trying to do the same thing to Mary Keefe and Jim O’Day, both longtime members of a relatively progressive state delegation, in the McGovern tradition—unlike our city council, which always tends to lean more reactionary... seeing itself as some hunger games arena for three or four shadow homeowner’s associations, the police union presiding over the games, zapping anyone who tries to actually legislate with the city’s ostensible legislative body, an electric fence they monitor with their collective hand on a big cartoon switchbox.

This primary contests in the 14th and 15th Worcester Districts are a concerted attempt to expand the boundaries of this metaphorical electric fence. And it is going to be a very low turnout election, odds that tend to favor the fencers more than the fencees if you know what I mean.

If you can vote in either the 14th or the 15th Worcester District State Rep Democratic Party primaries, you really, really should.

You have to live in either of the districts. The 14th Worcester, O’Day’s district, is generally the Burncoat / Greendale area up into southern West Boylston.

The 15th District, where Keefe serves and, to her great credit, lives right in the core of, stretches from the downtown area across the highway over the east side, right up to the lake.

...and when you get to your polling station, you have to request a Democratic ballot, rather than a Republican one. Whatever’s going on on the Republican ballot: not my business. Best of luck or what have you.

If you’re unsure, you can look up your voter information, including polling place and state rep. district, via this tool. You have until 8 p.m. to get down to your polling location and I can all but guarantee there will not be a line.

Audio version of this voter guide plus some serious tangents as we do can be found on the Outdoor Cats podcast feed: Episode 73: Kate Gooney

On the Dem ballot, there’s also the Markey / Moulton contest for U.S. Senate. That one is easy. Do the opposite of what an unenrolled member of the Bush Family tells you and vote for the candidate who wasn’t among the most over-eager in the country to throw trans kids under the bus after Trump won in 2024.

Vote for Markey. Moulton stinks.

It’s going to be a wash anyway, it looks like.

So let’s get to the local races. In the two local races, vote Keefe for District 15 and O’Day for District 14.

Here’s why....

The Freaky Little Primary

Sickos, cranks and other careful observers of Worcester’s local political landscape may have noticed a Facebook post the other day by one Guy Glodis, in which the former sheriff uses AI to soft launch his new guy for District 2 City Council. John Piccolo, the restaurantuer and political insider who committed the most baffling and notable act of political violence in the city’s recent history (the Spraypaint Incident). The AI render depicts Piccolo via an “urban grafitti” sort of stock filter featuring meaningless bits of text like “REAL WORK.”

The comments, mostly relishing in the act of political violence Piccolo was convicted of committing, feature a line from one Anthony Petrone, landlord, police union guy, state Democratic Party insider guy, local kingmaker, which reads:

“Can’t wait to help Pic represent the Eastside. First Ron Waddell then Pic !”

Petrone’s helping Ron Waddell’s campaign against Mary Keefe, then, after that, he plans to help Piccolo ummm paint District 2 red.

Petrone is also an advisor, albeit of an informal variety, for another campaign: West Boylston Selectman Barur Rajeshkumar, whom we’ll refer to as Raj for the rest of this post so I don’t have to keep checking my spelling. He’s likely the driving force behind a recent change of tone in the Raj campaign’s mailers: Like Glodis, the Raj campaign has made garish use of AI. More on that later.

Between Raj and Ron’s campaigns, there are 246 unique donations, per OCPF, but only four names found on both of the candidate’s donor lists: Crank-about-town Steve Quist, local not-a-developer and husband-of-Candy Joe Carlson, city councilor Satya Mitra, and, ding ding ding Anthony Petrone.

The lists are otherwise a rogue’s gallery, and you can look at them combined via this spreadsheet I made.

But the point I’m making is that the people who’ve donated to both of these candidates are the most likely to understand a certain larger project, and as it turns out, the names—especially Carlson and Petrone—confirm that analyisis. These are the people, along with cheapskate Tim Murray, who only donated to Ron, that are best understood as the real powerbrokers behind this anti-progressive backlash.

Today’s primary becomes, then, a test of whether they have the juice to remold the entire political landscape in their quasi-Trumpian though still ostensibly Democratic image, or if their Jose Riverafication of District 5 City Council last year was a one-off.

That is a very important dynamic to keep an eye on, and one no one involved is going to say out loud

Keefe v Waddell

Keefe is a member of two significant caucuses: the progressive caucus and the criminal justice reform caucus.

Waddel on the other hand works closely with the county sheriff, via his Legendary Legacies, most notably securing a $1.3 million state grant in 2021 for a re-entry program in partnership with the sheriff and the Worcester House of Corrections called Legendary Links. The sum was a large amount for the state to dole out, as noted in a Worcester Business Journal article at the time, for a relatively new organization, founded just a few years earlier, in 2018.

At a recent candidate forum, Waddel bragged about the growth.

“It is not common for a nonprofit without any, you know, ties to money like that to build an organization that is now just short of two million dollars in less than eight years.”

Per available tax information, 2021, the year they received the $1.3 million grant for their partnership with the county sheriff, was the organization’s biggest fundraising year by a wide margin.

To consider Waddel’s success as tied at least partially to his proximity to the sheriff, and to see among his backers police union leadership like Anthony Petrone, and then on top of that to also to consider the fact he sits on an advisory committee to the Executive Office of Public Safety, puts Keefe’s role on the criminal justice reform caucus in the crosshairs. Might that be a reason why Tim Murray and Anthony Petrone put this challenge together?

Waddel’s answer to a question about the civilian review board is illuminating. He began by saying the decision is a municipal one.

“There is not much I could offer in changing that,” he said. Then he goes on a long, circuitious non-answer, which I’m including in full bellow:

However I am on record saying that the research that the city has gone through in the process that they’re up to. I support where they are. But what I can say is this. One of the things that just came out in July 2026 was a report from the Violence Funding Services Joint Commission...

(He means Special Commission on Violence Prevention Services Funding, pretty sure. If not, funny committee name)

...and this talks about how we can improve the community trust between public safety and law enforcement. I think this is not so much about accountability but it’s more about community trust. And this is the work that I’m in. The work that we’re doing is being able to build those partnerships so that you can intervene before those challenges even happen where you have to worry about accountability. When you think of public safety there’s three pillars. There’s suppression which we’re most familiar with. There’s prevention, stopping it before it happens. And what I’m talking about is funding intervention. Intervention are community based experts that are able to intervene before an event happens so that we don’t even need law enforcement to have to. These are the partnerships that we developed in that report talks about that extensively. And there’s a lot in it that we can act on to improve that. And as a state rep., those are the levers that I have to pull and those are the things that I would focus on.”

So, to translate: ‘Can’t support a civilian review board and won’t say why. Hey, look over here though.’ [Waves shiny object.]

Why he can’t support civilian review is obvious: his bosses in this race are Tim Murray and Anthony Petrone, two of the most outspoken opponents of the manager’s now-reneged CRB proposal.

For comparison, here’s the meat of Keefe’s answer to the same question. Notice how she says what she means on the matter at hand, rather than changing the subject, and says what she means clearly. She started with the WRRB report on the matter, called it well vetted and well researched, then connected the current moment to a long history of struggling for more police accountability in this city.

This is 50 years of work. It goes back to the establishment of the Human Rights Commission under City Manager McGraw and it’s been fought over for that long. So please just look at the report. I stand with the people and what they really feel would make our city better and that is to have a civilian review board.

Not a hard question to answer when you’re allowed to say what you mean!

This small exchange shows basically everything you need to know about Keefe v. Waddel. Vote Keefe.

O’Day v Raj

Raj’s challenge to O’Day has been marked by his absurdist and, ultimately, evil, use of AI imagery, text and relentless SMS spam.

His most evil mailer, seen below, was the subject of most of a recent Outdoor Cats episode, so I won’t retread that ground much, except to say “man, what an asshole.”

Prior to that, Raj’s messaging was less evil and more endearingly weird. I live in this district, so I get all the mail, and there was one the other week I want to focus on—one that ended, in what was then his signature phrase, OVERLOOKED NO MORE.

The Petronification of this campaign took OVERLOOKED NO MORE away from us and replaced it with the overdone copaganda bullshit above. What a shame.

It’s the little things that distinguish a true artist. In a section headlined “follow the money,” there’s a subhead / command: “YOU DECIDE” with four check boxes.

The journeyman would let the viewer decide, so shortly after requesting they do so. Not the master, though. He checks the box for you. YOU DECIDE Borat voice: Nahhhhht.

Remember: Anthony Petrone is personally advising Raj’s campaign. Petrone, as I’ve covered a few times, is a local kingmaker, an insider’s insider, who cultivated his influence by way of a police union leadership role and personal connections to other power brokers like State Sen. Michael Moore and “Character from ‘The Wire’” Joe Carlson.

But Petrone, of course, doesn’t make the literature. Instead, Raj writes:

“Whose interests matter more on Beacon Hill, the residents of Worcester and West Boylston, or the lobbyists, special interests and political insiders funding Jim O’Day’s campaign?”

Petrone is among the most significant local lobbyists, representing the special interests of cops and/or landlords (not that there’s much of a distinction), and has perhaps the most “political insider” pull of anyone in the game.

And the third page of the mailer looks like this…

So take Raj’s advice and vote for Jim O’Day.

Odds and Ends

Thank you for reading, please go vote today! We’ll have results up at least on the website tonight as well.

Katie and I were at Shaw’s yesterday getting our powdered donuts and pringles for the trip an Katie’s grabbing her Gogurts when a woman looks at me and goes “love your writing. Subscriber for life.” Maybe the best complement of my life. Didn’t catch your name but if you’re reading this, thank you again. And to the rest of you: be a Subscriber For Life.

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

What also helps is evangelizing this fine outlet in your personal networks. Know someone in your life who should be reading this? Or Aislinn’s WPS In Brief, or Shaun’s Bad Advice, or any of the other recurring features? Bug them about it!

Share

And that’s all today I gotta take over driving. Don’t forget to drop those recs for stuff to do in or around or on the way to Austin!

Leave a comment

Did you know, for instance, Austin was at one time as significant a psych rock city as San Francisco?

Subscribe now

The Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, September 3, with an executive session at 5 p.m. The public meeting is set to begin at 6 p.m, but actual start time depends on how long executive session takes. See the full agenda. You can watch it via zoom or YouTube Live. Spanish translation is available on zoom.

Here’s what’s on the agenda:

Flags in Schools.
A public petition asks the School Committee to prohibit schools from displaying any flag other than:

• The United States flag

• The Massachusetts flag

• The City of Worcester flag

• The POW/MIA flag

The proposed exceptions would allow flags used temporarily for classroom instruction, school sports and spirit flags, and flags representing branches of the U.S. military. The petitioner, Michael Douglas, describes the proposal as a way to create “symbolic uniformity,” reduce division and maintain “educational neutrality.” Although the petition does not name the Pride flag, the practical effect seems fairly clear: It would prohibit schools from displaying Pride flags, along with flags recognizing cultures, identities or causes that are not on the approved list.

The contrast is especially interesting because another item on the same agenda, filed by Molly McCullough (district A), asks the School Committee to establish an annual recognition of June and September as Pride Months and encourage “appropriate recognition and acknowledgment” of Pride as a time for visibility, celebration, education and advocacy.

The petition will likely be referred to the Operations and Governance Committee.

Teachers don’t have a contract.
The committee will enter executive session to discuss contracts for four Educational Association of Worcester bargaining units.

The teachers’ and paraeducators’ contracts expired August 31, meaning the new school year will begin without successor agreements in place. Negotiations reportedly began last October, but union representatives told the School Committee earlier this month that they had not yet received a complete financial proposal and wanted Committee members to become more directly involved. According to state law the school committee is “the legal employer” when it comes to negotiating with employees. It’s not clear if the Mayor has appointed a negotiating subcommittee of the school committee.

Voluntary Transfer and Communicating Policy
The agenda includes a district response to a public petition requesting a review of the district’s voluntary-transfer policy, process and decision-making criteria. The response largely reproduces the voluntary-transfer language in the approved 2026–27 Student Policy Handbook, but the language is different from what the School Committee’s JCA policy currently says, which still contains the version approved on May 21, 2020.

So which one governs? Are families supposed to rely on the student handbook? I have done that before, only to be told later that the handbook contained an outdated policy the district no longer followed. Should families instead rely on the school committee policy manual, even though it apparently is not updated to reflect the rules the committee subsequently approved through the handbook process?

The school committee is also being asked to review several other policies specifically “to ensure that the policy manual and student handbook align.” But the purpose of the handbook should be to accurately communicate policies the School Committee has adopted, not to become a separate and potentially conflicting source of policy information. Families should not have to compare several district documents, search through years of meeting records and guess which version of a policy is actually being enforced. In this case, the confusion is not helping anyone understand how transfer decisions are made or whether the rules are being applied consistently.

Report of the Superintendent this week is about the Opening of Schools. No slide deck posted yet because school just started.

Preschool and literacy grants.
The Committee will also consider several grants, including:

• A $521,064 Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative grant supporting partnerships between WPS and private early-education providers. The funding is intended to expand access to high-quality preschool while addressing barriers including cost and access to special education services. WPS staff will continue providing itinerant services to children with IEPs through community preschool partners.

• A high-dosage literacy tutoring grant for students performing below or well below benchmark, with first graders prioritized. The final amount will be determined through cost reimbursement, and the funding will pay stipends for tutoring staff working in elementary schools across the district.

  ---

A new policy under the PROTECT Act.
The Committee will consider developing a new policy governing interactions with law-enforcement officers in schools. The policy is required following passage of Massachusetts’ PROTECT Act and will likely be referred to Operations and Governance for review.

Have a good week! If you have feedback you can always get in touch: aislinn.doyle@me.com

Share

Check if you’re in state rep district 14 (O’Day) or 15 (Keefe) at this almost handy but still pretty annoying tool from the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth.

And also everyone gets to vote against ‘competitiveness of high school sports guy’ Seth Moulton. So be sure to do that, no matter what an unenrolled member of the Bush family tells you.

This podcast is supported by its listeners and the other readers of this overall newsletter. But only about a quarter of those listeners, all of them volunteers and also very cool. You can be both those things if you sign up for a paid subscription. It’s only one Dunkies a month... what a deal, folks. A whole alt weekly by other means, and just for one little Dunkies.

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

Subscribe now

(Notes from Chris:

It is so cool and extremely professional that we ended the episode only saying the names of the candidates you should not vote for! Vote O’Day in the 14th, Keefe in the 15th, Markey for Senate)

We wrap up talking about Dolly Parton. Bill got derailed from what he intended to write about by “Here I Am” in this road-dog piece from 2023. It’s legit one of her best songs off of absolutely one of her best albums. Genuinely hard for me to pick a favorite Dolly song, but my favorite Dolly performance is when she did “Mule Skinner Blues” on Porter Wagoner’s show in 1970. In three minutes, she has the entire room on fire. She never even picks up her guitar. RIP Dolly)

This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Overcast, Pocket Casts others via this RSS link.

Outro music: “Yr Op Ed Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore,” by Lex Walton

Intro music by Bill Shaner 8.29.26

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now

Dear Shaun,

My friends all tell my that my collection of pop culture items are a waste of time, energy and money. They say it’s the reason that I am single. They say that if I were to ever bring someone home that would be so turned off. That if there was someone who was excited about it, they continue, that person would be too much like me and not want to hook up, but rather look at and fawn over my collectibles. Could you tell them that I am comfortable with who I am and that I should keep these toys and posters?

-Pop Culture Conundrum

Dear Pop Culture Conundrum,

Who the hell are these friends? Are they all wearing letterman jackets and nestling footballs and staring at each others’ butts, repressing their homosexual tendencies? Their advice sounds straight out of a teen sex comedy. Or, are your friends mean dweebs? Are they being mean because you have a Spider-Man #300 where Venom is introduced but it is the re-issue and not and original first press? Are they saying that having this stuff is embarrassing because they aren’t impressed with your collection? Or, are your friends supportive but they just don’t think someone [insert age you are] should still be focusing on toys and comic books.

Any way you look at it, who the fuck are they to judge? You have money, I assume, from the job you work at and you can spend that money however you would like. If you had kids and you were getting Rick and Morty Funkos instead of putting food on the table that is one thing, but if you are single and buying these things make you happy then why are your dumbass friends even saying anything? I guarantee one of them bets on sports online. I guarantee one of them loves cruises. I guarantee one of them doesn’t know they are double paying for Netflix.

Sure you have a Mars Attacks movie poster framed and matted. But your buddy has the 1-800-GAMBLING pop-up each time he’s about to enter another idiotic parlay for the Braves vs. Tigers series. Sure you have a “My Neighbor Totoro” diorama that is 1/64 scale. But your friend is showing you picture of the Caribbean without telling you about the parasite they picked up after eating at the seafood buffet on Carnival. And yeah, you hired an artist to create photorealistic painting of your best-played game in Settlers of Catan, but your other friend forgot to logout at their AirBnB in Nashville and now Superhost Jeremy gets to watch Tony Hinchcliffe’s special every night on your pal’s dime.

Spend your money however you want. Sure you can’t take all of these things with you when you die. But you know who is keeping something for a while even after they’re gone your friend’s new roommate the parasite. Tell your friends that there will be a person who will not appreciate your stuff, but they will be turned on by it. Ultimately, if you are open and true to yourself as well as the world someone is going to recognize that try to keep you in the box for eternity. You’re more valuable that way.

Leave a comment

Share

NEWS

Next week we are back at Boland’s on Thursday September 3rd. The hilarious Tim Champa will be closing it out. I will also be hosting the Pulse Music Awards that night. It is free and I genuinely have a blast hosting it. Don’t forget, every Tuesday at Ralph’s I’m hosting the Live Forever comedy open mic. List goes out at 7:30.

Savers...

God the news about Dolly hit hard.

I had a moment yesterday with this one...

...chills, man. “Singing” doesn’t encompass what Dolly at her best does. Did. Shit...

In 2023 I wrote a travel essay on this newsletter, while out on the road up in Canada with High Command, that remains one of the pieces I’m most proud of far as the craft of writing goes. A lot of it ended up being about Dolly, about how catching the song above by chance on a long drive through the Canadian hinterlands between Quebec City and Montreal was something of a psychic reset.

Dolly Parton’s “Here I Am” is on the stereo now as we’re driving through the countryside.

Her voice trilling and freakishly beautiful and all the trees have that little splash of yellow they get in the rain and the rivers are so blue they’re black running hard and fast and textured by little white caps cresting up against the rocks. That feeling of being close to poetry I felt in the parking lot is back now. With these rivers and these trees it’s always gone like this, some immortality we can’t perceive as such, and it’s never given a shit about any of us and it’s never needed us and it’s never considered us. Not when it was fur trappers way back when, not when it’s bands on tour now. We kill each other and climb for power and control and the only thing the river ever feels is our blood seeping to the groundwater and the industrial waste we’ve dumped and our foolish attempts at controlling its flow. Otherwise we don’t matter.

“I can help you find what you’re looking for,” Dolly sings in that lilting effortless tambre and it slices through me like a soft cheese.

She’s one of those singers that can pull so deep from an interior world it drags you inside in such a way it convinces you it’s your world, not hers. But really she owns the thing you’re just renting. She sings “here I am” and you just have to believe it. She’s there. You don’t have a say in it. And you’re there too but not where you really are. You’re where she is. That’s the power in her voice.

You can read the rest here: “There’s a lightness of spirit in that I’d take it as a real complement if you do that and don’t come back for the Usual Bullshit. Though as I’ll get to the past week was far from usual.

One more note on Dolly this factoid, taken from some sort of poll conducted a few months ago on the favorability ratings of all manner of household names, is wild.

Barack Obama scored a net favorability rating of 14, Volodymyr Zelenskyy managed a 13, Taylor Swift, surprisingly or not, came in at 3. Parton scored a whopping 65, with 70 percent of respondents viewing her favorably against only 5 percent viewing her unfavorably.

Now that we’re in a world without Dolly it’s worth thinking about why it is that she remained a unifying figure, how despite being unabashedly political she was never made fodder for the culture war. The simple gut-feeling truth in her voice plays a part, I think. Like I said earlier, “singing” doesn’t cut it.

Anyway, to business. The headline today is a Lungfish song that makes for a nice musical accompaniment, I think, to today’s piece.

And before I go any further, local alternative journalism is an extremely dumb way to try to make a living but here I am and this outlet needs you to take out a paid subscription for it to keep existing.

Subscribe now

Black Helicopters

Since the news broke a week ago that a police officer was killed and his wife was on the run, I’ve written and scrapped three full stories. This is a tough one, and a weird one, and while I’ve made my antipathy toward the WPD well known over the years I don’t think this story is the appropriate place to ladle any more of it out. We simply don’t know enough about the specific circumstances to apply any analysis to it.

The amount of fruitless, or, rather, as-of-yet fruitless reporting I’ve done on that story since it broke last Tuesday... none of it is solid as of yet. The thought of injecting something speculative, ‘not solid’ as they say, into the insane rumor mill surrounding this story feels irresponsible. So instead, I’m going to provide a list of facts, in timeline fashion, in an effort to show what we know, what we don’t, and what we’ve been made to assume but do not know. Yesterday, the police brass and the DA gathered in front of the police station for a relatively short a deeply uneasy press conference. We’ll get to that, but not before setting it up with good information.

But it wasn’t just the event itself, the death of Kurt and Karen Solomon rippled out into local politics at a critical juncture, and it will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

What I’m saying is we need to take seriously the information we insert into, and, more importantly, withhold from The Discourse when we find ourselves in the midst of A Situation. A great example of what not to do came courtesy of Aidan Kearney, who parachuted in after so many years away to pull a classic Turtleboy, reporting out that the police had found her last Tuesday, just hours after the story broke, and a full six days before employees of Fairlawn Rehabilitation would find her body in nearby woods and report the sighting to police.

One of the biggest fuck-ups in recent memory, resulting in this hilarious screenshot...

...and also our freshman District 5 City Councilor Jose Rivera taking pride in violating the community standards of Nextdoor?

...the narrative leaped again to that of a killer wife found dead in nearby God’s Acre, a plot of conserved woodlands off Mill Street that is home to the “deed rock,” a flat piece of stone chiseled into a quasi-legal document by members of an end-of-days cult in Worcester’s past. (The Dome is real and it is old.)

Animating this entire story as it has so far developed is a profound and uniquely American sexism. We’ve been only nudged into a position we bend toward naturally: the woman, so accused, must be punished in a way we can watch. Witch to the pyre in the village square. The narrative tension of this particular story, so integral to the Massachusetts id, only resolves one way... and having seemingly done so in this case, when earlier this week the chief of police pronounced the case a “tragic murder suicide,” it becomes even more important to untangle the underlying narrative sway.

And like witches snatching babies the Karen Solomon story is just that: a story.

There is the real life tragedy of the unexpected death and possible killing of a father and husband, and a wife who possibly subsequently took her own life. The two sons and their extended family facing lives certainly forever changed. Then there’s the story, layered on top of it, saturating The Discourse. Not a who-dun-it but a why’d-she-do-it. And that’s what I’m talking about.

The story is necessarily bound to the fact this father and husband was a police officer: a social status that, like the witch, confers its own massive library of narrative assumptions. The “police officer” is just as foundational to Massachusetts’ culture as the witch, its spirit, collective brain disease... its ‘thing.’ Why we’re like this. And so we see in this moment a sort of explosive collision of our second and third most resonant narrative traditions. (#1 being Tommy Brady, obviously.)

The Karen Solomon story has an undeniable magnetism. But we have to keep in mind that what makes it magnetic is not the real life tragedy that occurred in the early morning hours last Tuesday on Wildwood Avenue, rather it’s in the fictions we imbued on it, implicitly as much as explicitly, collectively and individually, in the hours and days that followed. We do that impulsively, as human beings, as consumers in a mass consumer culture, as attendants to The Spectacle, really for no other reason than to satisfy our ennui, I think.

The more interesting question to be asking yourself right now isn’t ‘Why’d she do it?’ but rather ‘Why do I think she did it?’ Because, on the one hand, I do personally think she did it. I can’t help it I just do. And, on the other, I find it darkly fascinating to consider why that is. Because I know probably more than your average news consumer about the events that unfolded in the early morning hours of Tuesday, August 18, in and behind that modest brick home on a street of modest homes off Webster Square, and the speculative threads that have been spun from the rumor mill since. It has been the subject of most of my working hours over the past week. And I know very little that I can say with hand over heart is true.

With the facts we have available, minus the manipulations layered over it by the police and the cable news, it would seem just as reasonable that Kurt Solomon took his own life and that Karen Solomon, realizing that, had a mental break, and fled as a simple impulse response, then continued to flee upon realizing she’d been slapped with the scarlet letter. It is also possible Kurt was killed by someone else, which wouldn’t change much on the Karen side of things, and would make her taking off abruptly a more rational behavior. I don’t believe either of those scenarios to be true, but I’m articulating them to emphasize that what we currently generally believe is also not true, categorically.

Let’s list the facts in timeline fashion...

Tuesday, August 18

5:31 a.m. — Dispatcher calls officers to 217 Wildwood Ave. “Resident stated there’s a male laid out in her back yard, unknown breathing.”

5:42 a.m. — First officer on the scene reports that the man is “covered completely in blood” with “laceration to the neck.” Another reports blood on the side of the house and the back door. At this point the officers are unsure of whether there’s anyone inside the house.

5:45 a.m. — The dispatcher starts calling Karen Solomon’s cell phone. It rings but no one picks up.

5:48 a.m. ­The dispatcher conducts a search of MasterCARD, a system police use to track available information on people and addresses. It pings back that police were dispatched to the house in 2020, but nothing else.

5:49 a.m.— An officer in the house reports blood in the bathroom.

5:50 a.m. — A police officer addresses another by a first name that’s hard to make out. “Call my phone when you get a second.” “You got it,” the other officer said.

5:53 a.m. — Dispatcher confirms that the caller is Karen Solomon, though they remain unsure of whether she was, as she said, the resident.

5:53 a.m. — Another officer, who hasn’t been heard from on the matter as of yet, tells the officers on scene to “use caution” because there is a male with a handgun permit tied to the address.

6:04 a.m. — Officer on scene requests the dispatcher call the number again.

6:12 a.m. — “Can you try running a ping on that phone number?” “W’re running a ping on that phone and I’ll keep you guys updated.”

6:25 a.m. – They learn that one vehicle is in the shop and the other is in the house’s garage.

6:26 a.m. — The ping returned to a roughly 500 meter radius of nearby Vermont Avenue. Several officers reported searching the area, but said they found nothing. Vermont Avenue is a small street, about 300 meters from 217 Wildwood Ave.

The officers remained there until about 8 a.m., when they were called back to the house.

After that the scanner chatter quiets down.

At 11:41 a.m. the story broke publicly by way of a BOLO text alert issued by the Worcester Police Department.

Worcester Police are requesting assistance in locating Karen Solomon regarding the death of a male at her residence. Karen is a 58 year old white female with dark brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing pajama shorts and a tank top, on foot in the area of Westcott St. There is concern she may be armed. Please contact 911 if you see her.

Despite not saying what she was armed with, it quickly spread through the rumor mill she had a knife. Which, in the end, she did not. Where that came from I remain unsure.

A few hours later, none other than Tommy Duffy the II broke the news, posturing machismo for the cable news crews as he announced that the dead man was 31-year WPD officer Kurt Solomon.

Shortly after, at about 5:15 p.m., a more official press conference with the police chief and district attorney took place.

During, the DA listed a dizzying amount of local, state and federal law enforcement resources dedicated to the search:

A Customs and Border Patrol helicopter, “every asset of the WPD,” the state police officers assigned to the DA’s office, the Mass State Police Air Wing, the Mass State Police Search Team, the state police field troops, the state police dive team, the fusion center, the state police k9 unit, the WPD k9 unit, department of homeland security investigations office, the US Marshalls. The manhunt would go on for another six days until Karen Solomon was found by employees of a nearby rehabilitation center.

5:30 p.m. — With a city council meeting imminent, set to center around the de-proposing of a civilian review board, the coalition for a CRB put out a statement saying they were holding off. Around the same time, the mayor put out a statement saying the item would be held, and requested that people do not show up to speak about a civilian review board. The only person who did was the only person who would: David Webb.

6 p.m. — At the meeting vice chairman Khrystian King tried to get the council to postpone the meeting fully. He failed to reach the eight votes apparently needed to do so. Before casting his “no” vote, Councilor Moe Bergman said “no one asked us to cancel,” a statement which implies an awful lot that I don’t have the space to get into.

Later in the meeting, the council voted against King’s proposal to put up signs up on city property stating the locations can’t be used for civil immigration enforcement by the ICE and other federal agencies in the wider mass deportation machine.

In casting his predictable “no” vote, Bergman invoked the “rapists and murderers” trope, a gross thing to do on any day but especially the same day that a city employee was found covered in blood from a gash in his neck, laying dead in his back yard.

“I don’t want to be answering the family whose family member got raped or murdered or assaulted that we prevented the federal authorities from stopping that person from committing the crime because there was kind of this free zone on Worcester property where, even though they were present, nobody could go after them,” said Bergman.

What to say but ‘what an asshole.’ Bergman was joined by Toomey, Mitra, Rosen and Rivera in opposition to King’s signs order. Economou was absent. At 5-5 the vote failed.

The council also voted to appoint former Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson to the Worcester Redevelopment Authority despite the fact there is an open investigation into bigoted comments she made about former City Councilor Thu Nguyen–a fact the manager confirmed just minutes before they voted her through. Before casting his predictable yes vote on the appointment, Bergman tried to make the point that allegations are not convictions. But what came out of his mouth was way dumber than that.

“All of us in public office have allegations that people that don’t like us every day on Facebook,” he said.

Allegations that people don’t like us. God, what an asshole.

We know he’s dumb and cruel and that there’s no point in arguing with him. More than he doesn’t know, he doesn’t care what he’s saying. But allow me a quick little rejoinder:

ICE deportation proceedings are far more often than not initiated on people who’ve been accused of no crime at all. Others, like Rosane Ferreira De Oliveira, are initiated on people with open court cases that, like Rosane’s, are of the low level misdemeanor variety, and often get dropped. We saw up close how ICE threw around “violent criminal illegal” to support their behavior on Eureka Street and how they refused to take it back once it was clear De Oliveira was not violent, a criminal, nor here illegally. Only 5 percent of the people ICE has rounded up during Trump II have had serious convictions. The other 95 percent are like Rosane. But hey. Candy gets the benefit of the doubt but all those people? Can’t stick our neck out for them.

The main point: the city council used the event of Kurt Solomon’s death to ram through two notably unpopular votes, one for the benefit of ICE and the other for the benefit of a local powerbroker who went around city hall calling a non-binary colleague “It.”

Also on Tuesday, Tom Marino over at This Week In Worcester put up an extremely interesting bit of inside baseball: the executive committee of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau called an emergency meeting last October to vote against the release of the civilian review board report. “Suppression of WRRB CRB Report Stopped by 1 Vote.” The backlash was, apparently, per the reporting, and also obviously, per everything else he did and continues to do, led by Tim Murray. It was nearly successful, coming within just one vote. Paul Matthews of the WRRB to his great credit stood his ground. I seem to remember Murray’s comments after the report released including a line about how he wasn’t consulted and didn’t know it was coming out. Lemme check...

Ah yup, in a statement he released after the report came out, which is now 404’d on the chamber’s website, Murray said the board “does not receive notice about when reports are being issued, nor are we solicited for input on potential research topics.”

Wow, Tim, way to super publicly lie for no reason!

And that, folks, was only Tuesday.

Quick break to say I busted ass on this and this coverage is unlike most of what you’ve probably read. That’s what alternative local media is all about, baby. Please consider a a subscription so I can afford to treat this outlet as my full time job, putting in the days of work required of a single post the way I write them. This one was about eight full days.

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Wednesday, Aug. 20

On Wednesday morning Karen Solomon remained at-large. Police used the cable outlets, eager as they were for more witch content, to blast out new Ring camera footage recovered of Solomon walking, as if in a daze, through neighbors’ yards.

Later in the afternoon, police officers got a tip about a woman walking in the woods close to where she was eventually found. Police responded, per the scanner, but, like the morning prior, came back with nothing.

Into Thursday, the black helicopters continued to fly overhead as the manhunt raged on. Coes Pond was shut down as the WPD focused heavily on boat stuff that ended up being unnecessary.

Friday, Aug. 21

On “Talk of the Commonwealth,” Eric Batista said the city council could vote to instruct him to put together a civilian review board ordinance and he would. He said so knowing with absolute certainty that the council which three days prior voted down putting up signs about ICE would absolutely not vote for him to do that. The buck-passing machine that is our form of government working as designed.

At a 3 p.m. press conference, police announced a warrant for Solomon’s arrest. Interestingly, the warrant was only for a single charge: assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Well, two instances of the one charge, one with the quibbling difference of “with serious bodily injury” tacked to the end. The cable news would have you thinking there’s an armed and dangerous killer on the loose, but the powers that be saw fit to only charge her with the same charge they hit Ashley Spring with for the baby bottle full of water. At the press conference, they only let on that they believed the weapon was a “sharp object.”

At the press conference, Saucier said:

His service weapon was not missing his home. But again we still believe she may be armed and dangerous. We want to keep that out there.
The nature of the injury was a sharp object. So we don’t know

A reporter asks what probable cause they have to charge Karen Solomon. At this point DA Joe Early steps in with a brusque “no.”

Then he takes the floor.

“As the chief said no one’s going to stop until we find Karen Solomon and really that’s can’t add too much more. Just have to let them do their jobs.”

Again, the totality of available evidence, from the scanner reports and the drips of information afterward, point as much to suicide as to murder. Karen Solomon was never even charged with murder. The detail that is completely lost by this time is that Karen herself called the police. As of my writing this, the case has been declared a murder-suicide publicly by police while there remains no public details on probable cause or a murder weapon.

Over the weekend, the black helicopters stopped buzzing overhead, as Karen Solomon remained at-large the manhunt crawled along. No news on any front about much of anything.

Until Monday morning, when the black helicopters came roaring back, giving the manhunt for this supposedly dangerous woman a real 9-5 quality.

Monday, August 24

At 12:49 p.m., 10 minutes to go in the lunch break, the 9-5 manhunt was brought to a resolution by two employees of the Fairlawn Rehabilitation Center who happened upon a body in the nearby woods. The location is a kilometer and a half from the location officers were called to on Day 2, and about as far away from the Solomon home.

At about 4:15 p.m., a press conference was held outside the police station. Chief Saucier, with DA Joe Early to his left, Tommy Duffy to his right, and about a dozen suited men behind him, spoke for about five minutes. He said that two people at Fairlawn found the body. He said the identification was only preliminary, and still needed to be verified by the medical examiner.

“In addition to the surrounding area, we did locate a handgun in the area of the body.”

That could mean a few different things. Hold onto the thought, because then Saucier abruptly changes the subject.

And I also wanna come back to, when we put out that this was a domestic incident, that’s based on Mass General Law. Anytime there’s a family or household member, it constitutes a domestic as far as for crimes. At no time did the Solomon family have any history of domestic abuse. I wanna make myself absolutely clear at this point that has nothing to do with this case.

My ‘there was no domestic abuse’ t-shirt has many people asking questions already answered by my t-shirt.

Matter settled, he then transitions back to the immediate facts, making a firm declaration that, of course, all the outlets ran with.

We believe this case is a tragic murder suicide that occurred, and we still have plenty of work to do as far as wrapping up all the pieces to this. Again, it’s tragic.

It wasn’t until a reporter asked directly that Saucier said he believed that she shot herself. But he also said no gunshot was detected or reported, also after being asked. And that particular area is blanketed with Shotspotter microphones.

He said it wasn’t a service weapon but was likely another gun owned by the husband, though that he wasn’t sure yet.

As the line of questioning went on, Early and the men behind him grew noticeably uncomfortable, their eyes shifting around, their postures changing. The interview ended after a few more questions, all of them softballs.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, a full-honors funeral procession for Kurt Sullivan shut the downtown down.

Wednesday, August 26

At a funeral Wednesday at Our Lady of the Angels church, Kurt’s brother addressed the hundreds of police officers, public officials and others there for the ceremony, and some of his comments, as relayed by the Telegram, read a bit worrying.

Salomonsson urged mourners to ignore the negativity.

“We cannot allow the heinous, evil incarnation of this past week to define my brother’s life,” he said. “We cannot allow the sad, pathetic comments of the parasites on social media to write the narrative.

“We will write the narrative, all of us here.”

There was no clear mention of the officer’s wife, Karen Solomon, who police say killed Kurt Solomon on the morning of Aug. 18 before taking her own life.

Also, craft appreciator I am, just want to say Rick Sinclair took one hell of a pallbearer shot right here.

So that’s where we are.

As it stands we know very little about the death of Kurt and Karen Solomon, but we have nevertheless coalesced around the very cut and dry narrative of a fallen hero in the true blue Massachusetts cop tradition, taken by a wife who’d suddenly and inexplicably turned murderous and then suicidal.

It’s a narrative we’re primed to accept, and we see in this moment it being accepted despite an insufficient body of evidence. Left unchallenged our collective firmware leads us naturally to see the dead man as a hero and the dead woman as some flavor of insane. With only dribbles of concrete information to go off, we have done a great job of filling in the gaps. We still don’t know: the cause of death autopsy determinations for either person; whether the body recovered is even Karen’s; the “sharp object” used in the death of Kurt Solomon, or by whom it was used; what physical evidence there is to suggest Karen assaulted Kurt; how close “in the area” means vis-a-vis the gun; who owns said gun, or whether it was fired; any of the circumstances leading up to this tragedy. I have some stuff I haven’t shared yet—as I wrote up top, we gotta be sure we’re inserting rock solid stuff into this discourse—and will continue to chase down other leads, though most of them quickly pan out to be garbage, products of a rumor mill and media environment that makes Jose Rivera feel good about publicly sharing his experience with violating the NextDoor terms of service after disseminating false information.

While we’ll never know what happened last Tuesday morning, really, and it’s not our business anyway, the way the consent manufacturing machine works around here is very much our business. The moral of this story, as it stands, having been insufficiently padded with evidence but nevertheless asserted with confidence, is “idk, some women are crazy.” And I fear, now that the spectacle of this event is past us, the TV crews off to some other community with some exploitable tragedy, that’s where we’re all going to decide to leave it. And for that reason alone it’s incumbent on us to press for a thorough investigation and a public release of the findings. As Solomon’s brother showed us in real time yesterday, the narrative currently on offer can and will be used as a cudgel to cast critics of the department as the genuine “heinous” entity: the unseen coven engineering the tragic outcomes by shadowy means.

Leave a comment

Share

No odds and ends today this post is overlong as is and I owe you all an election guide over the next few days so I’ll put em there. If you’re voting early, just please don’t vote for Raj. And please consider supporting this outlet!

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

After that, we talk about the most unnecessarily disgusting mailer in quite some time around these parts, courtesy West Boylston Selectman Raj (who, like Prince and Zendaya, is a one-namer if ever there was). See below:

Front…

Yoikes.

(Link to the image for those of you reading in your podcast player)

((This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Overcast, Pocket Casts others via this RSS link.))

Back…

(Link)

The primary election is on September 1 and there are two local races that are important, this being one. Full election guide in the next couple days. Check this site to see if you live in the 14th Worcester District (Burncoat-ish, southern West Boylston) or the 15th Worcester District (downtown / Grafton Hill-ish) where the same people propping up Raj are running Ron Waddell against Mary Keefe. And then mark your calendars for Sept. 1.

Vote O’Day, fuck Raj. Oink, oink.

Some other links:

MassLive: Can This Viral Food Hall Make It In Mass?

Eater.com: What’s the deal with Wonder?a

Video: AI Food Slop Is Here)

Please support this outlet! We need paid subscribers to continue to exist. Like a vampire needs blood or a regular human needs diet Coke.

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

Outro music: “Big Rock Candy Mountain” as sung by Harry McClintock

Intro music by Bill Shaner 8.22.26

Leave a comment

Share

I spent the first two weeks of August on a glorious vacation in PEI with my family, so, in an attempt to have actually taken that time off, this edition of WPS in Brief looks a little different. I will not be covering the August school committee meeting in my usual play-by-play format. Instead, I am sharing a few reflections from Tuesday night’s redistricting meeting and linking to other local reporting on what happened at the one full school committee meeting this month.

Subscribe now

Let’s dive in:

Initial Redistricting Scenario.

If you missed my post about the initial redistricting scenario—including what would change and why WPS is undertaking this process—you can read it here.

The initial proposal is just that: a proposal. There are three more scenarios coming, with public forums and months of feedback before anything goes to the full school committee for a final vote. There are plenty of boundary lines that could change. But it’s important to keep the larger goals of this important work centered. Redistricting gives us an opportunity to ask not only, “What does this mean for my child?” but also, “How do we make Worcester Public Schools stronger and more equitable for every child?”

Nelson Place/Norrback Divide.

One issue that emerged during Tuesday night’s redistricting discussion probably would not surprise anyone who has followed Worcester’s real estate market or read the recurring “Where should I buy a house in Worcester?” posts on Reddit: Nelson Place is perceived as one of the city’s “better” elementary schools, and families want to remain within its attendance boundary.

That perception is not necessarily a measure of the education children actually receive inside the building. But it is real. Nelson Place is regularly mentioned alongside schools such as Flagg Street and West Tatnuck when people discuss where to purchase a home in Worcester. The $58 million building, opened in 2017, is the newest elementary school in the district and sees some of the highest requests for voluntary transfer from other neighborhoods. Real-estate listings sometimes identify the school as an amenity, and families have said they bought homes specifically so their children can attend the school.

Case in point, on Tuesday, a parent of a rising Nelson Place first grader whose home would be reassigned to Norrback told the School Committee, “I purchased my home with careful consideration of where my children would be receiving their education.” She said recommendations from lifelong Worcester residents whose children attended Nelson Place and Forest Grove influenced the family’s decision. After moving in and speaking with neighbors whose older children attended the schools, she said, “I knew I made the right decision.” The parent, who said she serves as Nelson Place’s PTO treasurer, asked the committee to pursue alternatives that would not “negatively impact my son and his friends’ education at Nelson Place.”

During Tuesday’s discussion, school committee member Molly McCullough (district A) also raised the new proposed boundary between the two schools and discussed alternatives she had previously suggested to the district’s redistricting consultant, including using Ararat Street instead of the railroad tracks as a dividing line. She said that her proposed “solutions” had so far “struck out,” but that she was “still working on it.”

That caught my attention because the alternative boundary McCullough discussed along Ararat Street would directly affect the school assignment zone for her own property, something she did not disclose during the discussion. Her home is currently assigned to Nelson Place, but would move to Norrback under the initial scenario. The alternative boundary she proposed would keep her home within the Nelson Place boundary.

The map below shows the general area McCullough discussed, highlighted in yellow.

The perception surrounding Nelson Place, that it’s one of the district’s better schools, is what makes McCullough’s advocacy for the boundary change worth flagging. The perception of a school can in turn influence how desirable, and potentially valuable, a home in its assignment zone is perceived to be. I cannot say whether the proposed boundary change would affect the value of McCullough’s property, and I am not making that claim. But Massachusetts conflict-of-interest law prohibits municipal officials, including School Committee members, from participating in a particular matter in which they have a financial interest, including when a matter could alter an official’s property “value, rights, or use.” The term “participating” encompasses more than casting a vote; it can include discussion, recommendations and advice.

There is also a relevant precedent. In 2021, the State Ethics Commission advised a Natick School Committee member that she could not participate in a school-closing decision because of its potential effect on the value of her nearby home. The potential conflict arose not from where her children attended school, but from her ownership of property that could be financially affected by the decision—a principle that applies, for example, when an official’s property would be affected by a zoning change.

The Natick case does not mean every school boundary decision creates a conflict. Massachusetts law exempts some general policy decisions when an official’s financial interest is shared by a substantial portion of the community, and citywide redistricting may qualify. But Tuesday’s discussion moved beyond the broader plan to a specific boundary—and an alternative that would keep a small group of houses, including McCullough’s, assigned to Nelson Place. Only the Commission can determine whether a conflict exists, but the public should not be left to speculate. School committee members should publicly disclose potential conflicts, seek guidance from the State Ethics Commission before participating, and share the Commission’s determination. That transparency is essential to maintain public trust in the redistricting process.

How we talk about other schools.

This redistricting process is going to be long, complicated and, at times, emotional. Families should ask questions, scrutinize the maps and share what they know about their neighborhoods and schools. But as we do that, I hope we can remember that there are real children on every side of every boundary line. And keep that in mind as we have these conversations.

In 1994, when I was in fourth and fifth grade, my hometown of Framingham went through redistricting because schools on the south side were overcrowded. My elementary school had grown from 634 students to 822 in five years. By my fourth-grade year, there was so little space that the sixth graders were being taught in the town administration building.

My school was also more than 50% “minority”—the language used at the time—and the district was required to redraw boundaries to address the racial imbalance. What I remember most is the overwhelming sense that other families did not want their children reassigned to our school. They talked about buying homes specifically so their children would go to different schools. They emphasized how difficult the transition would be for their children. The message I heard was that our school, and, by extension, the children already attending it, were not good enough.

During Tuesday night’s public comment, I heard echoes of that same dynamic. Redistricting means some children may have to change schools or buildings, and families have every right to ask what those transitions will mean. My own child’s school closed suddenly in 2023, forcing them to move to a new school. I understand that transitions are hard and that the district must provide meaningful support to the children affected.

At the same time, there is a difficult line between advocating for our own children and speaking as though another school—or the children who attend it—is somehow less desirable. Children hear these conversations, too. They hear how adults describe another school building. They hear when attending school with children from a different neighborhood is framed as a loss. And they notice which programs and communities adults rally to protect.

None of this means families should stay silent about legitimate concerns. It means holding two questions at once: What does my own child need, and what would make the district stronger and more equitable for every child? The measure of this process should not simply be whether each of us gets the outcome we want, but whether every child in Worcester has access to a school worth fighting for.

What happened at School Committee.

I am not doing my usual play-by-play recap of the August 13 School Committee meeting, but several local outlets covered the major issues.

The School Committee unanimously rated Superintendent Brian Allen “proficient” in his first annual evaluation. The Telegram & Gazette covered the evaluation, while MassLive reported on concerns raised by some parents.

The Worcester Guardian reported on calls from union representatives for School Committee members to become more directly involved in negotiations. The current contract expires August 31.

Questions about enrollment at Nelson Place also came before the committee after parents described difficulties navigating the placement and voluntary-transfer processes. Two petitions seeking de-identified information about placement decisions were referred to the administration. The Guardian later published an explanation of the differences among neighborhood enrollment, voluntary transfers and special education placements.

You can also watch the full August 13 meeting here.

PSA: Download the updated school calendar.

WPS has posted an updated 2026–27 school calendar. Take note that there are four weekdays between October 9 and November 11 when students will not have school:

• Friday, October 9 — Professional development day

• Monday, October 12 — Indigenous Peoples’ Day

• Tuesday, November 3 — Election Day/professional development day

• Wednesday, November 11 — Veterans Day

Don’t forget to put those dates in your calendar now, especially if you will need to arrange child care!

Thanks for reading. Good, local journalism is essential to a healthy city. It leads to higher voter turnout and less political polarization. We don’t all have the same priorities, but in order to have productive conversations we need to be working with accurate information. Please support our work here at Worcester Sucks and consider a paid subscription. Happy back to school and see you in September!

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Dear Shaun,

Could you settle an argument my boyfriend and I are having? I say that you’ve got to wait for either a signal or a car to stop to cross the street in a crosswalk. My boyfriend says as long as you are in the crosswalk you are safe to walk and shame on the cars for driving dangerously. He actually is reading over my shoulder right now and wants to add that you really can walk across the street at any time because pedestrians have the right of way and jaywalking isn’t a real enforced law.

-Wondering Walkers

Dear Wondering Walkers,

Of course the easiest thing to do is look up the actual law here in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That is boring and also All Cucumbers Are Bountiful. You, the writer, are correct that you should be cautious when walking with your loved ones and wait to see if the three-ton murder machines are going to stop and allow you to get to the other side of the street. However your boyfriend, the man who stoops over you as you write, is right that pedestrians have the right of way and cars should be cautious of crossers.

Unfortunately, we do not live in a caring and compassionate society. Picture this, boyfriend, you are attempting to cross the street like you are Frogger incarnate. Folks are in oversized SUVs, on their phone, and eating fries from Chick-Fil-A, and you are merely trying to get to the Little Free Library at your local Universalist Church. Of course those Nissan Rogues should go against their namesake and stop when they see a living, breathing human in front of them. But that is just it: they are not seeing you, boyfriend, they are trying to get a “flush five” or whatever on Balatro while fighting with their ex on their phone. Holding the phone mind you, not using the hands-free option that they definitely have based on the year their car was made.

Now you, the writer, a clear narc—you are also in the wrong. How are you going to get through life waiting for someone else to let you do what you want to do? Sure, patience is a virtue, but action is success. While your boyfriend runs across the road avoiding semis and jumping on lily pads you are literally standing on the sidelines with no option to beat his high score. Of course, you believe in humanity to do the right thing. I bet you went to Clark University and you love Ted Lasso (I do as well). We all can’t be pie in the sky, sometimes that pie is on the windowsill and you have to grab it.

You’re both wrong. Nothing should be done in extremes. Extremes bring us aunts yelling at children on Facebook about bike lanes or fathers ignoring their wives to listen to more conservative talk shows. Sometimes the path best taken is a quick jaunt across the street when you have enough time before another vehicle is swerving while watching the Nelk Boys stream. But sometimes you got to wait and chill. Just be cool?

NEWS

Still dipping my toes back into shows so I don’t have a lot going on at the moment. But you can find me at Ralph’s every Tuesday for the foreseeable future! Love you guys!

Share

Leave a comment

The civilian review board drama keeps unfolding and unfolding and will again be the subject of today’s (tonight’s) post. The primary guide I’ve been trying to get out will have to wait yet again! Let’s get to it.

First, this outlet only exists because of the members of our community who want it to so much they send me the equivalent of one maybe one and a half Dunkies a month. If that’s you, thank you thank you thank you! If it’s not, it could be, and it’s just one maybe one and a half Dunkies.

Subscribe / Tips

Imposing Ignorance On The System

Next Tuesday’s council meeting (agenda) will again focus primarily on the manager’s decision to forgo the civilian review board proposal he floated, in retrospect quite obviously, to placate an angry community after the DOJ released its WPD investigation detailing all manner of horrible power abuses, up to and including systemic rape.

It’ll be another meeting to tune in to, show up for, make a stink about. The council will do... something... with the manager’s report. Remains to be seen. But it’s another opportunity to give ‘em the business. The course of the night colored by the bizarre news cycle around the DOJ’s abandonment of the Worcester investigation. As I covered last post, this was set off by a three paragraph, self-congratulatory press release from the city manager, in which our esteemed not-the-mayor Eric Batista tried to trick us into believing the DOJ absolved the WPD. The investigation, he said, was dropped “without sustaining any of the findings” in the 2024 DOJ report.

Turns out that was a lie! Flat out, unambiguous lie. Unbelievable.

Big ups to Sam Turken at GBH who got his hands on the actual letter the DOJ sent, releasing the full text of it earlier this week in a story headlined “Newly obtained DOJ letter sheds light on decision to close investigation into Worcester Police.”

The letter is from Patrick McCarthy, acting chief of the special litigation section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and it’s addressed to Brian Kelly, the lawyer the city initially hired to put out an atrociously Trumpian statement about the report when it was released. (Remember that? I can’t even bring myself to go get the link. It was so rotten. Ugh.)

Here’s the full text of the letter. As an exercise, humor me: read it closely. Be on the lookout for any language about sustaining findings.

I write regarding the Department of Justice’s investigation of the Worcester Police Department (WPD) pursuant to 34 U.S.C. § 12601. Our investigation focused on allegations of use of force and sexual contact during undercover operations. As explained below, the Department is closing this matter.

Since our December 9, 2024 findings report, WPD has taken a number of important steps and shared substantial information with us. We requested, and PD produced, existing and updated policies, training materials, incident reports, body-wor camera video, and complaint investigations related to use of force and sexual misconduct allegations. We reviewed all reported uses of force by WPD officers from July 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025, with the assistance of a subject-matter expert. On July 14, 2026, our team met with WPD leadership and personnel. including Chief Saucier. In addition, WPD clarified its policies to demonstrate a strengthened use-of-force review and explicit prohibition against officers engaging in sexual contact while on duty.

Based on these developments and lack of current allegations concerning the conduct that was subject to the original investigation, we are closing this matter without further action. We thank Chief Saucier and WPD for their cooperation, and we commend WPD for taking steps to improve its practices.

Did you see anything in that about the allegations being sustained or not sustained? Still an open question what “sustain,” the way the manager used it, even means. But the tone, I think it’s fair to say, is ‘you have made improvements since we found this pattern of bad behavior, there seems to be less bad behavior now and better systems to prevent it.’ The entire letter rests on the tacit assumption that the DOJ stands by what its investigators found.

The line that opens the third graf is the most critical: “Because of these developments and lack of current allegations...” i.e. no evidence of what we found and still believed happened is still happening (more on that in a sec). It’s not something you say when you’re doing a take-backsies. That the city manager tried to twist it into that, ‘the DOJ told me they made a whoopsie,’ is intellectually insulting. Grounds for termination for an executive who makes north of $300,000 annual. A willful misleading of the public on one of the most important questions the municipality has faced in a long time. He won’t be punished, I feel confident saying, and therein lies the true nature of corruption in this city. It’s in who he lied for, and who will happily swallow the lie, and who will parrot it, that the above-board corruption of our city government is and will continue to be on full display.

Exhibit A:

Wherein Kate Toomey is asking permission, for some reason and to whom remaining unclear, to hold a meeting of the subcommittee she has the sole legal authority to schedule meetings for. In keeping with the way she sees her role, this “discussion,” should it ever happen, will be for propaganda purposes only.

Reading deeper into this letter from the DOJ, knowing what we know about their greatly diminished capacity in the arena of civil rights, we should take the “lack of current allegations” with a grain of salt. The letter lists three things that happened prior to the DOJ dropping off: 1. a review of reported “use of force” incidents, which doesn’t include unreported sexual assault, i.e. most sexual assault, especially when a cop is involved. 2. They met with the chief once. And 3. the WPD demonstrated a “strengthened use-of-force review” and “explicit prohibition against ... sexual contact on duty.” This, in context, means there was no explicit prohibition against WPD officers having sex on duty prior. Alex here says it better than I could:

These are thin grounds on which to close out an investigation that required hundreds of man hours, dozens of interviews, and sorting through reams of documents to put together. It’s hard to imagine that a DOJ Civil Rights Division that wasn’t gutted by 70 percent over the past year, redirected to explicitly white nationalist enforcement priorities like “Fraud” with a silent “Somali,” would let years of work go so easily.

Celebrating this moment the way the manager did in that release is pig-like chauvinism, a great stain on this city that will linger for years and years.

While the majority of this city council is sure to swallow and spit up the lie, Councilor Khrystian King released a statement earlier this week that speaks plain truth to the situation.

It is beneath Worcester’s leadership to treat the federal government’s failure to finish its work as vindication or proof that the original findings lacked merit. The City Manager’s latest mischaracterization continues a pattern established at the outset, when the City Manager and Mayor approved a statement from the city’s outside counsel labeling the DOJ report “unfair, inaccurate and biased” before the City Council had an opportunity to publicly review and deliberate on its findings.
This effort to discredit the findings places Worcester’s leadership in disturbing alignment with a Trump administration actively dismantling civil-rights protections. Worcester’s experience must also be understood within the broader federal retreat from civil-rights enforcement.

If the manager’s calculation in releasing that lie of a statement was that it’d help paper over the civilian review board debate before Tuesday’s meeting, that has backfired spectacularly. Instead, he showed us exactly why we still need one.

I was pleased to find this sentiment echoed in a statement by the coalition for a civilian review board released this afternoon.

A department describing its own progress to the agency that investigated it is not equivalent to independent confirmation that the progress is sufficient, sustained, or complete. This is precisely why Worcester needs a permanent, independent Civilian Review Board: to verify progress independently of the department’s own account of itself.

A few more notes on this:

A meeting of the city’s Advisory Committee on LGBTQIA+ Affairs that took place on August 5 was finally uploaded to the city’s YouTube page earlier this week. The committee, which advises the city manager directly, took a unanimous vote to draft a memo stating its opposition to the manager’s abandonment of the civilian review board proposal. Staff Liaison Patricia LaFore, same one that does the HRC meetings, emphasized repeatedly that they only had the power to send a memo and could not vote to make a public statement, per a three year old rule implemented by the manager they ostensibly advise. As of press time, the memo is apparently on the way to the manager’s office, but it hasn’t been publicly released as far as I know.

Acting chairman of the Human Rights Commission Randy Feldman yesterday released a statement emphasizing the position of the commission (minus the police chaplain Batista personally appointed to it to placate the law enforcement community). Feldman said the the alternative offered by the manager, a separate system of review for some cases taking place under his DEI office but not replacing WPD review, misses the point: It’s not independent. He then details the long history of HRC policy suggestions being ignored.

An independent review board should also have the authority to examine departmental policies and practices, not simply individual complaints. Worcester’s experience with the Human Rights Commission demonstrates why this distinction matters. Over the past several years, the Human Rights Commission has reviewed and raised concerns about numerous proposed police policies.
Virtually all recommended significant changes were not adopted, save for one concerning using professional translation services if the officer at the scene did not speak the language needed.
Policies involving use of force, juvenile arrests, undercover operations, responses to individuals experiencing mental or behavioral health crises, and the operation of specialized units remained unamended by HRC suggestion.

A well-articulated summary of the current failures, providing a nice contrast for the next thing:

Joe Petty was cornered outside a diner it seems by a cable crew for Spectrum News and he gave an off-the-cuff interview about all this. “The chief has done a good job implementing the policies and procedures that they wanted implemented.” Going unmentioned was that a civilian review board was one of the things they wanted implemented. On that, Petty said: “Like they seem to cause some more chaos, more anxiety than getting anything done. Look what happens in Boston. The Commissioner just comes in, says, no, I’m not going to do it.”

It’s different here, where the manager and police chief ignore the Human Rights Commission, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, the Board of Health, the Advisory Committee on LGBTQIA Affairs, a large coalition of local organizations, the hundreds of city council speakers at this point, the lawsuits for garish abuses of power, the reporters getting sued for writing about it...

“So people have with experiences, you’ve got to listen to them,” said Petty, as likely as not understanding that he was saying something that meant nothing.

The other day I had “Democracy Now” on the radio, courtesy local legends WCUW, and caught the line “imposing ignorance on the system,” delivered in a statement by a scientist with NOAA, as part of a comment on the Trump Administration’s abrupt decision to cease funding the Artic Report Card, an annual report tracking all manner of data on the Artic’s overall health. It seems to me, looking at this note next to the Petty quotes above, that Trump’s imposition of ignorance might be experiencing what the economists call the “trickle down effect.”

Later in the same show, I caught another line, “accountability should always be with the system designers.” Whatever this messed up system is in Worcester City Hall, it’s not the one on paper, and Joe Petty is for a certain fact one of its designers.

So with that in mind, do mark your calendars for next Monday night’s municipal operations subcommittee meeting. Charter change is on the agenda, and in so much as a way out of Petty’s system is possible, it will more likely than not involve a charter review process—a process that has only ever been used in this city to diminish the role of the public, not the other way around. But hey there’s a first time for everything, right?

Leave a comment

Odds and Ends

Thanks for reading! Please consider helping this outlet stay afloat.

Subscribe / Tips

Tip Jar!

Subscribe now

I also want to plug a fundraiser for the wife and daughter of local tattoo artist Christopher Welch. Chris died in a motorcycle crash on I-190 last week. Katie knew him, said he was the sort of guy who’s always a treat to run into, always had a story, something cool in the works, type of guy so crucial to any artistic community who’s always in everyone’s corner, always jazzed and hyping everyone up. Their daughter’s just two months old, a fact that could bring me to tears if I hang on it any longer. Here’s the link again.

Good Reddit thread from a Worcester Subredditor who found out how much money we pay Eric Batista to carry the water of the small and unaccountable coterie that actually makes decisions. As noted, it’s more than real and notable mayors such as Michelle Wu and Zohran Mamdani. Such is life under The Dome.

Two late night posts for the Worcester Sucks team tonight. Be sure to read Aislinn’s post on the WPS’ Friday news dump about residistricting. Releasing all that info juuuuust ahead of a meeting about it on Tuesday is very a very City Hall move from the folks over at Durkin Administration.

Ok I gotta get to bed ASAP. Good night, moon. Good night, computer. Good night, computer friends. Here’s a real deal rock and roll song.

Share

Worcester Public Schools released its first districtwide redistricting scenario ahead of Tuesday’s School Committee Operations and Governance meeting. You can review the meeting agenda, presentation, and administration’s report . Here is the interactive scenario map. For more background on why WPS is undertaking this process and how it began, read my initial redistricting overview from March.

Let’s dive in:

What problem is WPS trying to solve?
Districtwide, WPS has enough elementary school space. Elementary buildings are currently about 84% full overall, which is considered an ideal utilization rate. The problem is where those seats are located. Individual elementary schools range from 57% utilized to 113% utilized. Some schools are significantly overcrowded, while others have substantial unused space. Current elementary boundaries also include disconnected “satellite” zones, divide neighborhoods and send students from the same elementary school to different middle and high schools.

The initial scenario attempts to:

• Bring elementary schools into a narrower utilization range of approximately 77% to 92%.

• Eliminate split feeder patterns so students from the same elementary zone continue together to middle and high school.

• Remove disconnected satellite zones.

• Place at least one Pre-K classroom in every elementary school over time, as funding becomes available.

• Create districtwide access to magnet and technical programs rather than limiting access by quadrant.

• Address expected enrollment growth from new housing developments.

• Better align school enrollment with actual building capacity.

This is a complicated puzzle. Moving one boundary to relieve overcrowding can increase transportation time. Keeping students close to home can result in unequal building utilization. Expanding access to specialized programs may require moving those programs or changing how students are admitted. Many of these same tensions—including transportation, equity, school capacity and disruption to students—were raised during the district’s first community forum in March.

There is no scenario that maximizes every priority at once. We can do anything, but we cannot do everything. Still, many of these issues are successfully addressed in the initial redistricting scenario.

What would change?
Almost every single school geographic boundary has some change— you can look at them more closely here. The biggest change is that every elementary school would feed into one middle school, and every middle school would feed into one high school. No more kids getting split at transition years!

A quick breakdown of notable changes in the draft scenario include:

• Belmont Street would move from the North Quadrant to Burncoat.

• Columbus Park would move from the South Quadrant to Doherty

• Jacob Hiatt would become a neighborhood school in the South Quadrant.

• The Gerald Creamer building on Granite Street would become a neighborhood school again, serving Pre-K–6 and helping relieve Rice Square and Grafton Street. The GCC program would move to the Fanning Building.

• Rice Square and Grafton Street sixth graders would attend Worcester East Middle. Rice Square sixth graders began attending Worcester East last school year.

• The current Worcester Arts Magnet building would become a neighborhood school serving the growing Burncoat area.

• The arts magnet program could move to the Francis McGrath building, while the McGrath neighborhood zone would largely become part of Nelson Place.

• Plumley Village would be assigned entirely to City View instead of being divided between City View and Belmont Street.

• Worcester Dual Language Magnet would remain a districtwide, lottery magnet school.

In terms of individual school zones, some of the largest reductions would be at Chandler Elementary and Rice Square. May Street, Elm Park, Grafton Street, Heard Street, Thorndyke Road and Midland Street would also have smaller zones. On the other side, City View, Nelson Place and Goddard would receive substantially larger zones, while West Tatnuck, Roosevelt, Clark Street, Flagg Street, Quinsigamond and Vernon Hill would also serve larger areas.

The chart I made below shows the net change in the number of students living within each elementary attendance zone (not the change in current school enrollment!) For example, 732 students currently live within the Rice Square zone, but only 421 attend Rice Square. Under the proposed scenario, the number of students living within the Rice Square zone would drop to 413. In other words, the chart shows how many students would be added to or removed from each school’s geographic zone, not necessarily how many students would enter or leave the school.

Secondary Schools.
At the secondary level, the challenge is different. Worcester’s middle and high school buildings are not proportionally sized. Doherty High has considerably more space than its feeder middle school (Forest Grove), while the South Quadrant has more middle school capacity (Sullivan) than high school capacity (South High). The presentation suggests that boundary changes alone cannot solve this problem.

One presented potential solution is a districtwide high school lottery or controlled-choice process to fill seats beyond those assigned through each quadrant’s regular feeder pattern. If that moves forward, families will need clear, public information about how seats are assigned and how equitable access will be ensured.

School Time Changes.
The proposal would also establish three school-day tiers: 7:15 a.m.–1:38 p.m. for high schools, Burncoat Middle and specialized programs; 8:15 a.m.–2:38 p.m. for other middle schools and elementary special education hubs; and 9:05 a.m.–3:28 p.m. for neighborhood elementary schools. Several schools would also be renamed to remove terms such as “community” or “magnet” when those labels no longer reflect their programming.

What should you keep in mind?
This is an initial scenario, not a final plan. It is intended to give the community something concrete to review and improve.

The plan also depends on WPS addressing voluntary transfers. About 14% of non-special education elementary students currently attend outside their assigned zones. If that continues, the new boundaries will not create the balance shown in the scenario.

Most schools would not see dramatic demographic changes under this scenario, but there are some notable shifts. Nelson Place and West Tatnuck would serve more low-income students, while Norrback, May Street and Thorndyke Road would serve fewer.

We also do not yet know when changes would begin, whether they would be phased in, or whether current students and their siblings could remain at their schools. Those details will obviously matter enormously to families, but we are not at that implementation stage yet.

What’s Next?
Right now, the district is asking for feedback, and this is where your local knowledge can be especially helpful: unsafe walking routes, natural neighborhood connections and places where a proposed line simply does not make sense. Families can see their current and proposed assignments and submit feedback through the district’s Community Input Mapping Tool or email alignment@worcesterschools.net. Of course, look at what the proposal means for your own family. But also look at the bigger picture: Does it use our buildings more fairly? Keep neighborhoods together? Create clearer pathways for students? Expand access to programs and opportunities?

Final scenarios are expected to go to the School Committee in December, following public meetings and community forums throughout September, October and November (see below).

There will not be a perfect map. But this is a once in a generation opportunity to make it better, and to build a stronger WPS for all our kids.

An Amuse-bouche...

It do be feeling like that. I used to work there and always fantasized about how to get that thing (‘ummmm his name is Buster, actually’) on top of Union Station as some elaborate prank. Luckily for Eric my beloved former general manager (Hi, Eric) I was never able to roll the 25/20 I needed to pick Buster’s lock.

Had to set aside the primary election primer I was working on all week because the city manager did a very annoying Friday news dump, our main focus today. Said dump, coming juuuust before 5 p.m., was a terse three paragraphs: the DOJ,the manager said, “informed the city” that the investigation into the WPD is closed.

On the one hand, which faces upward, a wet finger extended to the wind, no shit. On the other, which extends downward, wrist-deep in the muck of our little political backwater, sifting around, questions, questions, questions.

Also in this issue:

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’re the best. If you’re not, it’s a cheap way to also become “the best.” And who wouldn’t want to be that?

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

The paid subscribers are the people who keep the lights on here. Without them, no lights.

Let’s get to it.

“For Immediate Release”

By way of a classic Friday news dump, City Manager Eric Batista demonstrated he’s learning how to be a truly evil little guy.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 8/7/2026 4:52 pm

WORCESTER, Mass. – The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) informed the City of Worcester Thursday that is has chosen to close its investigation into the Worcester Police Department without further action and without sustaining any allegations from its 2024 report.

When the DOJ released its original report, the municipality was already taking steps to improve its practices to promote fair, safe, and unbiased policing in the community. That work continued after the report was announced and will continue into the future, as ongoing improvement is necessary to have an effective police force.

“I want to thank the DOJ for recognizing the positive steps the WPD has taken to strengthen its policies and practices and for their thorough attention to this matter,” City Manager Eric D. Batista said. “I also want to thank Chief Saucier and the entire department for working cooperatively with the DOJ and for their work every day that helps make Worcester one of the safest mid-sized cities in the country. While the DOJ investigation may be closed, we remain committed to proactive evaluation and improvement.”

And that’s it! Just three little paragraphs that seek to put a firm cap on four years of “the DOJ report” resting as the backdrop to pretty much everything in Worcester politics.

How did they inform the city? When? What did they say exactly? What does “without sustaining any allegations” mean?

I sent an email to the DOJ, not that I’m expecting anything back on it. But it read:

Hey there just reaching out to confirm information being shared by city staff locally: that the DOJ reached out to the city (Worcester MA) On Thursday 8.6.26 to “that is has chosen to close its investigation into the Worcester Police Department without further action and without sustaining any allegations from its 2024 report.” Here’s the release the city put out. Don’t see anything on the DOJ’s end.

And I filed two FOIAs with the city: one for emails between the DOJ and city officials about anything at any time on Thursday (pro tip: ask the city to search by domain, i.e. “@usdoj.gov,” rather than query individual email addresses), and the other for calendar entries. If these queries bring back hits, I’m sure it’ll take the maximum amount of time the city has (25 business days all told) and an appeal or two to the state’s records supervisor to actually get the documents. We’ll see.

As it remains, the manager’s release is wholly insufficient. We have no idea what “informed” really means, and the manager, it seems, is banking on the news-consuming public to fill that gap in a way that’s advantageous to the police department, and thereby to the prospects of Batista keeping his third floor office.

In order to properly understand the situation, we need to zoom out and look at what’s been going on at the DOJ lately.

The Worcester investigation was one of the last acts of the local DOJ civil rights division under Biden. When Trump took over, most of the attorneys who worked on it were replaced within months.

It’s been no big secret that the DOJ’s work in Worcester has been effectively over. Without the involvement of the DOJ, it would fall to local advocates to push the manager to make good on his promises, the civilian review board being the most prominent.

The DOJ’s capacity to investigate civil rights cases, including pattern and practice investigations into police departments like the one in Worcester, has been severely diminished over the past year and a half—a conscious dismantling of the ability to investigate racism, while doubling down on “fraud” (of the “Somali fraud” variety) and other such racist dog whistles in the administration’s war on immigrants.

The Civil Rights Division is down from 90 or so attorneys in 2024 to 20, according to a Bloomberg Law report in April. Who knows how many more cuts have been made since.

DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which has lost about 75% of its career attorneys since President Donald Trump took office again, has fewer than 20 attorneys handling civil rights investigations into patterns or practices of constitutional violations by state and local law enforcement, according to the MacArthur Justice Center report, shared exclusively with Bloomberg Law. That’s down from more than 70 attorneys working on these types of cases at the end of 2024, the report said.

In early 2025 Trump issued an executive order directing the DOJ to “review all federal consent decrees” with law enforcement agencies.

Worcester never got that far. Consent decrees are the end result of a pattern and practice investigation like the one announced in 2022, then released in fall of 2024.

But they often take years to get there. In nearby Springfield MA it took two years, with a fully staffed and willing DOJ, to get from releasing the investigation (2020) to signing a consent decree agreement on police reforms (2022). Emphasis on fully staffed! As opposed to the present circumstances: “barely staffed.”

Presciently, George White, a professor of race and public policy at CUNY York, was quoted in a Capital B story in April, 2025, saying the gutting of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division would leave cities like Worcester, with open pattern and practice cases, “adrift for the next four years, or until we get a completely different administration in place.”

“If you don’t have that kind of external pressure in place to make sure that these actors are actually doing the right thing — creating equity, and creating fairness — they’re not going to do it.”

The way the process typically goes: 1. DOJ announces the investigation, 2. DOJ investigates, 3. DOJ releases findings of the investigation and suggests reforms, 4. city and DOJ negotiate in court to reach an agreement on the scope and nature of the reforms. This last part is the “consent decree.”

Worcester only ever got to step 3. That was back in early December, 2024. Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, in January 2025, the DOJ started ghosting the city. We heard less and less until we heard nothing at all. What should have been happening stopped happening. The U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts overseeing the investigation was replaced by a Trump appointee, who made wishy washy comments about the investigation.

In March, the chief of police put together a response document, which the council sent to Kate Toomey’s Standing Committee on Public Safety, where it of course went nowhere, by design. At that March meeting, the chief said he’d recently met with the new U.S. attorney, Leah Foley, and said that they didn’t even mention the DOJ report. At the point he said that, we could more or less call the DOJ report dead in the water. I wrote as much at the time:

And we need to be operating with clear eyes about a DOJ that’s most likely to just... quietly dip out. ... The federal government situation makes the path to meaningful reform an unusual one for such an investigation, but there is a path. The situation isn’t by any means hopeless, it just falls to us—the community that pays this police department—and not the federal government. It all falls to us and how we organize.

Really, what Batista’s answering in this moment, with his recommendation against a civilian review board, is the question of whether or not he would listen to the community that continued organizing after the DOJ dipped out. And that answer was a “no,” as we’ve well covered by now. This Friday news dump amounts to tacking an exclamation point to the end of that “no.”

That context is important for understanding this release from the city—what’s in it, what’s not in it, and why now.

Let’s take those three questions one at a time.

—First, what’s in it: not very much. At three paragraphs, there’s little information to be gleaned, even between the lines.

Then, the customary “I’d like to thank...” quote from Batista, the tacit implication being some sort of victory occurring. Let’s look at it again.

“I want to thank the DOJ for recognizing the positive steps the WPD has taken to strengthen its policies and practices and for their thorough attention to this matter,” City Manager Eric D. Batista said.

When did the DOJ recognize the positive steps? How? Did they, even? The manager provides no answer, leaving the reader to assume the DOJ said it when they informed the city they dropped the investigation. Or, even worse, Batista is advancing the idea that dropping the investigation means a tacit recognition of progress, which as we’ve established is not the case.

The prior two grafs give no indication the DOJ dropped the report because of the improvements made locally. If they did, you’d have to imagine that’d make the release… reaching, as it already is, to pull the framing of a “win” out of this.

—What’s not in it: how the city was informed, anything at all that the DOJ officials said, who reached out to who, and what this bit of “informing” was apropos of. It also doesn’t even mention the fact that the civilian review board is on the agenda for a week and a half from then. It also doesn’t acknowledge that they waited until 4:52 p.m. on Friday to make it public, despite having apparently learned on Thursday. The “Friday news dump” is a classic fuck you move government officials pull. The timing of this news dump sets up a situation where the news consuming public has a week and a half to finish chewing the narrative they served about the DOJ’s apparent decision to drop the investigation.

What’s also not in the release, and this one feels the most on purpose, is what in tarnation “sustained any findings” means. It’s worked into the sentence quite cleverly, so as to avoid direct attribution to anyone in particular, but just by order of appearances, looks enough like something the DOJ said to a reader not thinking very hard about it.

In Worcester, let’s be honest, that’s most readers. The framing allows for a colloquialization to happen, a game of townie telephone, ending with the sentiment “the DOJ took it all back” spreading far and wide. It’s something we might very well hear Kate Toomey say out loud in the coming weeks. But the DOJ didn’t “take it back” they just dropped the investigation before they could “sustain” the findings—if that’s something they even do in these investigations, which is itself unclear. And taking this news in light of the dismantling of the division responsible for carrying it out, it’s much more likely they didn’t have the resources to pursue it than they decided there was nothing to pursue. The release tries very hard to slyly advance the idea that the DOJ had a change of heart, when in reality they had a change in man-power and in top-down directive. The victory here for the city manager is not an earned one, but rather the luck of the draw: a byproduct of a white supremacist executive branch reshaping its DOJ toward priorities that advanced white supremacy and gutting the rest.

For instance, on the very same day (Thursday) the manager apparently heard from the DOJ, the Trump administration announced the launch of a website called Fraud.gov. Fraud Dot Gov, folks. The best 30 Rock joke never written. Fraud Dot Gov is a dashboard of sorts for the public to view the hard work of the Task Force To Eliminate Fraud, an entity created in 2025 that essentially repackages the DOJ’s financial investigations.

It is much more likely the DOJ dropped the Worcester investigation because they had to send all their lawyers down into the fraud mines than it is what the manager would have you believe, that we were such good boys and girls the DOJ said “you did it, gold star.”

You can’t condemn the brutish behavior of ICE and celebrate the inability of the DOJ to hold police departments accountable. To do so is fundamentally contradictory. So, in the case of the Batista administration, having now done both, the question becomes: which one’s the lie?

The shock tactic cruelty of ICE’s street rips, as seen on Eureka Street, is part and parcel with the dismantling of the DOJ’s civil rights work. The MacArthur Justice Center last April, in a report on the gutting of the civil rights division, put it well:

As federal agencies, including the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), have grabbed headlines with their shocking cruelty, the Administration simultaneously has leveled a devastating—but far quieter—attack on mechanisms designed to check state and local law enforcement. Emboldening state and local police departments and prison systems in this way risks disaster. After all, the combined size of these departments’ personnel dwarfs the number of federal officers who answer directly to the Administration.

—Why now: Given all the questions presented above, I think it’s a safe assumption that the “Friday news dump” was a tactical move to head into the next council meeting on the winds of a more sympathetic narrative to the city manager’s decision. It allows the old guard of the council to say, “look, even the DOJ doesn’t see a problem anymore.”

It’s a smarmy move, relying on the majority of this city’s political class being credulous, simpering, conflict-averse and in a state of complete fealty to the police. It will probably work.

Subscribe now

When the council inevitably throws the CRB proposal in the proverbial trash, be it at the next meeting or some other time in the future, they will have told basically everyone in the city who cares to go fuck. The coalition that showed up at the last meeting is massive and will grow. The Human Rights Commission and Worcester Regional Research Bureau have recently been joined by the Board of Health, who called for a joint meeting with the HRC, and the Commission on LGBTQ+ Affairs, which took a vote in support of the CRB proposal. Basically, the entire bench of city hall is set against the small group of police loyalists and townies who will make this extremely consequential decision. And they will make that decision in a callous and insultingly low-IQ fashion. We’ve seen this show before. For instance, Kate Toomey has not bothered to even respond to the people who’ve called on her standing committee to hold a meeting on the issue. Flagrant disrespect, in keeping with the modus operandi.

While we’re at it, a good thread on the most often heard response, ‘we already have the POST commission,’ to which the only response is ‘yeah, and… ?’

Giselle l Writer | Avoider of Burnout (@notjustawriter) • Instagram photos and videos

Worcester Working Families (@worcworkfam) • Instagram photo

How do they think that’ll work out for them in the long run? Moe Bergman, who remained on the council by the grace of some 36 votes, and is the second-longest running member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety, should be especially nervous. By any indication, he isn’t.

Leave a comment

Share

Odds and Ends

That’s it for today! We’re already “at length” and the hour grows late. Thank you for reading yet another edition of this newsletter. I hope you found it useful, entertaining, enlightening, etc. If you did or didn’t I suppose please consider putting down a deposit on my ability to continue churning these things out.

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

There were a few important stories I wasn’t able to get to in this issue. (Need a sign that says “you can’t cover everything” like the “every second counts” one in The Bear.)

—One we’ll definitely cover on the next Outdoor Cats: Went to the premiere of Burning Down The House at Hanover Theater Thursday night with Chris and Katie. Will have lots to say about that.

—One we might if Chris wants to: There’s been a development in the bad faith lawsuit police union president Thommy B. Duffy II filed against This Week In Worcester‘s Tom Marino. He’s angling, apparently, to flush out Marino’s sources on a string of hugely revealing and important stories following Eureka Street. Highly suggest giving Brad Petrishen’s story on the matter a read. That a police union official is using the courts to ferret out a journalist’s sources is a press freedom issue that should be getting much much much more play than it has been. Should Thommy B succeed, it would set an ugly precedent in this state, which, as Brad points out, is one of only 10 in the nation that lacks a “shield” law protecting sourcing. Free country for me but not for thee says the legislature.

Some lesser important but noteworthy happenings. The Hanover Theater’s recently departed director Troy Siebels is set to do that job at The Worcester Guardian. In an interview with Radio Worcester he says pretty much outright he’s there to fundraise. Best of luck, big dawg.

Program transfers are finalized as Community Health Link offloads and closes up, generational homelessness epidemic be damned. WBJ has it.

You love to see it! Rent control advocates flooding the statehouse…

Keep Mass Home (@keepmasshome) • Instagram photos and videos

A mesmerizing video about data centers and how we all love them.

New Ceremony record out hell yeah!

Ok podcast soon then another one of these after that. Talk soon!

Subscribe now

This so happens to be Shaun’s first post back since the one-week paternity leave I graciously and also generously allowed him. All tips today go straight to Mr. New Baby Daddy (a name he insists you all call him now). —Bill

Tip Jar!

HORRORSCOPES

Leo- If your stomach hurts, it is probably just gas. I know you haven’t developed how to pass gas properly yet, so just cry loud enough, pull your knees to your chest, and I’ll help massage it out of you.

Virgo- Your feces were originally black, now they are a yellow rice-like substance. The planets are telling you that you are out of the darkness and into the multi-textured light that is existence.

Libra- I know you can only see four feet in front of you, and the stars suggest that is the smartest thing for you right now. You should only come in contact with things that are within your grasp. Anything beyond that radius is not worth your time and a greater distraction in your life.

Scorpio- Sometimes you just need a change. Things can be wet. Things can be squishy. Things can be just feel stale and forgotten. All that needs to happen is a quick wipe clean and a brand new start.

Sagittarius- Communicate less. Use sound and gesture to get your point across.

Capricorn- Your hair will change. It always can. I currently have my head buzzed. Yours will take a new shape, and you can keep it, discard it, dye it, or tie it. Your head may even outgrow it.

Aquarius- You’re in need of making brand new connections in your life. While these relationships are new, different and foreign, they will keep you alive. You are loved, hold these new people in your life close.

Pisces- You’ve spent most of the last year holed away in your own filth. It was dark and you kept to yourself. A recent change has forced you out into the world. The stars suggest taking this challenge head on, screaming.

Aries- There is an older person in your life who is taking your change just as hard you are. Realize that they are experiencing you just as much as you are experiencing them. Give them grace and they will too.

Taurus- Dogs fear you. Keep your hands to your damn self for a while.

Gemini- Sometimes it is best to sleep it off. Sure you’ve got to eat and interact with your surroundings. But sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is just to rest.

Cancer- I’ve recently become a father yet again. Give me a break and I’ll get back to you next week. Or, if you are really that needy, go use Leo’s.

Share

Leave a comment

NEWS

August 14th is the comedy kickoff show Hot Dog! at George’s Coney Island. Show is at 8PM and this is my first show back doing comedy since I had my baby. COME HANG!!

August 15th is THE WORCESTER HOTDOG SAFARI.

Far as news goes, it’s a light week. We spend considerable time working through a rough editorial by Massterlist’s Jon Keller about why Jim McGovern doesn’t get many challengers. It’s a trip. Some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen.

“The Untouchable Incumbent”

Maybe there’s a clue in that most rare phenomenon, a member of Congress facing absolutely no competition for reelection. No Democratic primary challengers. No Republican general election foe. Not even a stray independent or third-party wingnut who flits onto the ballot like a fly seeking purchase on a dog’s leavings, pending certain disposal by the voters.

(Hey it’s Chris, up top I talk about the Benn Jordan data center noise study thing. Here’s Benn’s full channel, he’s a foundational always-watch YouTube guy for me. I keep thinking about how we all kind of live in an oil field now?

Most of Benn’s contemporary work is focused on surveillance-state/Big Tech-state resistance and avoidance, but I originally got into him through this mind-blowing video he made about how Aphex Twin sounds like Aphex Twin and why kind of no one else ever has or can.)

The Russell quote can be found in the last written Worcester Sucks post: “There will be no going off script.”

Thanks for listening and please please please consider a paid subscription if you can afford one and want this outlet to continue existing!

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Subscribe / Tips / Merch Store

And I was serious about needing a Watermelon research assistant: billshaner at substack dot com.

This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Overcast, Pocket Casts others via this RSS link.

Intro music by Bill Shaner 8.3.26

Outro music: “STAMPEDE” by Genesis Owusu

Help spread the word!

Share

Leave a comment

If you’re coming in cold: The city manager said “nope, actually” to the civilian review board he pitched after the DOJ report in 2024 made problems in the police department more difficult to ignore. After two years of allegedly working on this, the manager came back with a rather terse report, at 30 some odd pages, which was heavy on repackaged information and light on details about this CRB model they allegedly thought long and hard about.

At that meeting last week, more than 100 people showed up to speak in favor of a civilian review board, the need for police accountability, and the longstanding issues with the WPD.

Since, there have been some very interesting developments. Lawsuit developments, the continued suppression of the HRC, despite the role the manager claims it plays vis-a-vis civilian review, a pressure campaign on Kate Toomey’s Standing Committee on Public Safety, an amazing George Russell quote—Worcester’s a little bit fun to report on again!

We’ll get to it all, but first I want to bring your attention to a few things. I’ve been hard at work since in the video editor, where I feel very much like a chimpanzee happening upon a Nintendo Switch, but I’ve got a playlist of about 20 of what I thought were the best public comments up on YouTube.

Such as my man Andrew Marsh right here, who yields back the balance of his time like no one I’ve ever seen, this clip being no exception.

And I whipped up a few quick-cut reels reels for the newsletter’s Instagram.

Part 1 — Emphasis on lawsuit costs ft. Giselle Rivera Flores, Janet Davis, Andrew Marsh, Roberto Diaz, Tom Marino

Part 2 — Emphasis on Eureka Street, ft. Sue Mailman, Etel Haxhiaj, Ashley Spring

Part 3 — Built around Jermoh Kamara’s white-hot testimony about the way the Ghanaian community is used for political purposes while their concerns are ignored. This is the one that really “took off,” which is great. “Many of you out here parade yourself in the Ghanaian community, in our African communities, in our Black community, thinking that you care,” she said, “but you don’t give a damn about these communities.”

Jermoh’s full comments are worth a watch if you ask me. Oh look at that they’re in a playlist readily available on the internet along with everyone else’s.

36 votes, man…

It took me a long ass time to get all that done and while it may not have been a newsletter post per se, it was very much part of the goal of this newsletter. I’ve found that video editing is at its core a form of writing, or can be treated as such, once you get past the layers and layers of additional technical considerations. You’re making the same decisions: what to keep, what to cut, how to arrange it for the reader’s (viewer’s) benefit. And reels “meet the people where they are” a whole lot better than these written posts do, unfortunately. The Instagram has more followers than the newsletter has subscribers, (we just hit 6,000 thanks in large part to Kelly Cashman, our poster-in-chief ~salute emoji~) and all three of the reels “did numbers” as they say.

Sheesh!

But Instagram does not pay the bills. So think of it this way: your subscription gave me the time and energy and mandate and platform to get clips of a lot of solid community members talking about the real problems of the WPD in front of 30,000 people and counting.

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Since, there’s been a few updates:

—Details were released of the settlement the city reached with the 12 protesters the WPD brutalized in June, 2020, at the tail end of a BLM rally downtown, during which then-police chief Steven Sargent took a performative knee outside the courthouse. The city now owes those 12 individuals a lump sum of $825,000 in damages. The Telegram‘s Brad Petrishen—he’s been absolutely busting ass lately on this WPD stuff, much respect—got the details from Hector Pineiro, the attorney representing the demonstrators. Brad’s story is worth a read because right next to Pineiro saying, essentially, “yup this is a public document here ya go,” the city’s main spokesman is issuing a litany of excuses as to why the city can’t provide the settlement details.

Pineiro...

“For all intents and purposes, this case is over,” Hector E. Pineiro, the plaintiff’s lawyer, told the T&G July 22, saying that he, in addition to already receiving the funds, gave the city approval to file the final stipulation July 8.

...versus the city:

The city on July 20 told the T&G it would need an extra 15 days to “search for and review” the settlement agreement to fulfill a request the newspaper had filed under Public Records Law July 6.

The excuses are of the sort the city often employs when it has no standing to keep something from the public but wants to—like a candy apple, where the apple is the lie and the candy is the circular and purposefully vague lexicon of municipal governance and the stick used to twirl that apple around in the hot candy goo is a one-time local journalist who now makes much more money than he did and knows what he has to do to keep making all that money: he has to be a good sturdy stick.

—The police unions praised the manager for dropping the CRB proposal, per the Telegram.

“We’ve made a lot of changes,” Capt. Matthew Early, head of International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 504, said, opining that the current level of oversight is already making it difficult to recruit and retain officers.

He also said he’s against a CRB because it could potentially “alienate” police officers. Snowflake aura.

Worcester’s favorite son Tommy Duffy II “deferred” to a New England Police Benevolent Association Facebook post he definitely didn’t write and doesn’t all read in his exact speaking cadences. It reads, in part, that the a CRB would “(inject) politics into policing while duplicating oversight that already exists.”

The most politically powerful man in the city, made that way because of his leadership role in the city’s king-making political institution, says we can’t have any politics in policing.

The sad part is he likely believes what he says... Like he’s not lying on purpose.

—Organizers have started a campaign to call Kate Toomey, chairwoman of the public safety subcommittee, to pressure her to put the CRB on an agenda—any agenda! So far, nada.

Fun fact: Toomey is personally named in a federal lawsuit filed in May by community organizer Gordon Davis, over a petition urging the police to look into systemic racism that Toomey tabled in 2024 and the city council has since left to collect dust. I pulled all the docs from PACER: Davis v. Toomey PACER docs

Way back in May of that year, Davis filed a petition that read...

“Whereas the Disparities in Arrests Report shows a disproportionate number of Black and Latino people arrested in Worcester. The police chief has said that this systemic racism harms Black and Latino people.

Whereas the statement by the Worcester Police Chief is evidence of a clear and present danger.

We ask the City Council to assign to the Public Safety Committee the task of investigating the issue of systemic racism and public safety. The investigation should include public hearings.

Toomey tried to file it but then-Councilor Thu Nguyen (miss you) pushed it to a vote, and the motion to file failed, 6-4. So Toomey squirmed for a bit, vaguely invoking the “inaccuracies” in Davis’ five-sentence petition before tabling it.

I wrote a whole subsection about it at the time in a post with the evergreen headline “A Town Full of Babies.”

Since Toomey tabled it, Davis’ order has appeared at the bottom of every single city council agenda, in the “tabled” section that the council under Mayor Joe Petty has used as a sort of public trash folder.

It appears, every meeting, next to orders that are often years old, like a 2019 item from then-councilor Konnie Lukes.

Toomey or any other councilor could at any time take it off the table and file it, thus ridding themselves of the burden of carrying it from agenda to agenda. But no one bothers— or perhaps dares?—to do that. So it stands as a sort of running metaphor: systemic racism is the item of business on every agenda that they can be relied upon to not address.

Davis’ lawsuit is one worth following. Will update when there’s an update.

For now, just something to call and/or text or email Kate about when hitting her up.

It’s truly one of the marquee ways Mayor Joe Petty demonstrates he’s dabbing on us, in the Matt Christmanian use of the term. Kate Toomey is an out-and-out police apologist, using what is probably the single most important (in theory) publicly elected seat for police accountability to cheer lead and claim valor.

—Speaking of Joe, last week he went on Talk of the Commonwealth and made it clear he’s a hard no on civilian review board, not that we were surprised.

“Passing something like that undermines everything the chief has done and his authority,” he said.

Then, a few days later, former District 3 City Council George Russell, Mr. Peppers and Onions himself, was on the radio, and he delivered a surprisingly accurate summary of the situation on the city council in this new term.

Host Hank Stolz framed the dynamic of the council as progressive versus centrist. Russell corrected him.

The only thing I would disagree with you, Hank, is that you refer to the council as a centrist. … But the bottom line is, is that they’re not centrist. This council is a very conservative council. It’s made a real move to the right.

And when I think of centrist, I think Sean Rose, I think of Joe Petty, I think of myself, that people that were able to take stands on liberal issues and on conservative issues both and be able to do it. I don’t I don’t see that in the majority of the council right now. Majority of the council right now is is more to the right and more more conservative.

You do, I think, have to hand it to him.

—On Monday night the Human Rights Commission met for an hour or so, and on display were many of the concerns former members expressed during public comment.

First, the meeting opened with the board’s staff liaison, Patricia LaFore, the city’s director of human rights and accessibility, actively suppressing a conversation about the civilian review board report. Chairman Randy Feldman came prepared with a letter he’d written about the matter and LaFore prevented him from sharing it.

Then they moved on to a discussion of the highest profile currently open lawsuit against WPD, the mental health response model lawsuit filed in March, concerning the fact that cops, untrained in mental health response techniques, are almost always the first and often the only responders to a mental health emergency.

Feldman walked through the fine points of the lawsuit in careful detail only to be bludgeoned by a know-nothing comment from Father Jonathan Slavinskas, the literal chaplain of the WPD and out-and-out cheerleader for police. Feldman ended his summary on the remarkable fact that WPD training includes just one course in the 20-week training regimen that deals with mental health emergencies, and that the 40 hours of mandatory online training a year, as proscribed by the state, has only one mental health course—on the wellness of the officers themselves. Less than 25 percent of Worcester officers have participated in the voluntary trainings on offer.

To which Slovinskas asked, “Is that something we should confirm with the Worcester police, just to make sure all those... that’s accurate?”

In the manager’s report, he described the HRC thusly:

Within Worcester’s existing accountability framework, the HRC serves as an important avenue for community participation and engagement. One of HRC’s foundational responsibilities includes oversight and review of issues involving WPD. Over time, this relationship has continued to develop through increased communication, collaboration, and structured opportunities for dialogue.

But at the meeting earlier this week, we saw city staff openly working to make sure none of that happens.

From there the HRC members tried to wrap their heads around the confusing way that city staff have constricted their ability to actually ask the WPD questions at the annual meeting coming up next month. Lafore made it clear that if they don’t provide the questions in writing and well in advance, the police won’t be answering them. Take this exchange, for instance…

Member Kerry Whiterell asked if the board really needed to draft and submit a formal list of questions.

“I was also under the impression that there was going to be, this was maybe going to be a little bit more conversational in nature and questions that we have were able to bring with us to the meeting. So I just wanted to clarify which questions need to be given in advance and which are things that we can bring to the meeting because I’m certainly gonna have questions, but I was maybe not aware it was so formal.”

LaFore said you absolutely have to draft the questions.

We’re gonna go with the question responses categorically like we received last year and then update the data and that we anticipated there may be some discussion about that.

If there are other questions, she said, “I think it will be reasonable for us to present them as soon as we can for them to prepare to answer questions when they come here in August.”

Feldman tried to soften LaFore’s response.

“I would say reasonable but not required.”

But LaFore immediately resharpened it.

“I don’t think you’ll have much conversation if they don’t have fair notice of what the discussion’s gonna be.”

Translation: There will be no going off script.

Public appearances from the police are often conflated with the police being transparent. The above moment is a glimpse into how most if not all of the public appearances are tightly choreographed public relations stunts. The routine meetings with the public safety committee are a great example.

Which brings us nicely to our next news item....

—The police released, sorta, some data on crime over the past six months, compared to the same time sample going back five years. The upshot: arrests are up, crime is down. Cue the “Home Improvement” confusion noise. Euuuurgh?!

Listen I’m no Einstein but arrests are for crime in a categorical sense. More arrests equals more crime not less crime. So let’s challenge that assumption by digging into this new cache of WPD data.

Curiously, the report wasn’t released at all, but rather teased out, I guess, on the department’s Facebook page. I couldn’t believe it... I dug through PrimeGov for a few minutes, finding nothing, then went back and reread the Telegram story linked above and yup... “according to (the department’s) Facebook page...” and it’s a post with a screenshot of an infographic, no text, and about 4 or 5 likes over three days, truly a lost post given the engagement on WPD posts about literally anything else.

I’d say this was an attempt to reclaim the narrative, but you’d think if that were the case they’d have tried just a little bit.

The data itself is indicative of a few things. It provides a snapshot of January to June going back five years, listing incidents by how they were initiated, and then violent crime and gunfire reports.

In the incidents section, we see a massive spike in both arrests and “patrol-initiated” incidents, meaning no one called in any public safety threat, the officer just took it upon themselves. 911 calls, the only tried and true way of gauging whether a civilian perceives there to have been a crime committed, are down over the five-year average, in line with the violent crime statistics reported in the second block of the infographic.

Per the dictates of Shotspotter’s “crime forecasting” AI tool, called Resource Router and other names rolled out by the company to make it harder to research and report on, officers are to make routine “community engagements” in the areas that the large language model synthesizing past crime data dictates they go on a given date and time. These “community engagements” are sometimes reported out over the scanner and, anecdotally, they tend to be ‘telling an unhoused person to get lost.’ When I hear “community engagement” on the scanner it’s accompanied, as a rule, by some “quality of life” the officer observed. Outdoor Cats co-host Chris Robarge has the scanner on more than I do, and he’s noticed it, too.

More often than not, an officer is going to “run names” on such an “engagement,” and if it pings back in the system that the person has a warrant out—most likely for missing a court date or a meeting with a parole officer or falling behind on court payments—then the officer racks up an easy arrest. Otherwise, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and trespassing are all right there on any given encounter with an unhoused person. Arresting them for these minor offenses all but guarantees a “failure to appear” warrant automatically issued by the district court clerk some time in the future. And so you have basically a perfect system for keeping the same small group of people cycling through the court system, bleeding them of whatever money, autonomy, or sobriety they can muster in the in-between.

It occurs to me at the moment that the vampire-thrall dynamic is a useful analogy here, but I’ll hold onto that one for another time.

The AI’s mandate to do street harassment under the guise of the pleasant-sounding “community engagement” policy, plus the newfound ability of anyone in the city with a smartphone to log a complaint about seeing a homeless person somewhere they’d personally rather not, anonymously, via the 311 app... something that happens on a near daily basis.... produces a situation where arrests can shoot up 50 percent while violent crime—i.e. the only real public safety threat under police purview—is down across the board.

I’m reminded of a new episode of Doom Scroll I listened to earlier this week with #1 GOAT marxist geographer David Harvey (”Right To The City” is my bible), wherein he says that throughout history technological advancements have all served in some way to discipline and diminish the power of labor.

The way 311 and SoundThinking’s surveillance products have exacerbated the homelessness crisis in subtle and plausibly deniable ways feels to me an extremely good piece of evidence to support Harvey’s claim. But who’s to say...

Worcester’s dip in violent crime is in keeping with the trend nationwide. This is a societal phenomenon. The behavior, good or bad, of the WPD has little bearing on it. But the “visible homelessness” problem in Worcester is something the police can very much take credit for. Left with little else to do, they have exacerbated the problem in their attempts to fix it by enforcing a defacto banishment ordinance.

That’s how the police department can produce this absurd dataset: crime is down, arrests are up.

The city council, when inevitably given the chance (likely within a month or two), will credit them for both. The lack of crime will be due to the brave men and women of the WPD “who are out there every day...” they’ll say, along with the other five or six phrases they cycle through, all of them safely meaningless. The arrests will be proof positive of their get-to-it-iveness. The unsheltered homelessness crisis unfolding before our eyes will be the failure of someone else, certainly not the police and the courts and the county jail. More than likely, they’ll blame “the towns.” Or, more accurately, that’s what they’ll say out loud. But in their heads and their hearts they’ll be sure of the real culprit and what should be done to them.

The next council meeting is set for August 18. Definitely mark your calendars as that’ll be another one worth showing up for and tuning into.

Also: the day before, on Monday, August 17, the municipal operations subcommittee is holding a hearing on charter review. That’ll be interesting.

Cursory search of the calendar shows nothing for the public safety subcommittee. Makes sense, given there are no notable public safety issues at the moment.

Share

Leave a comment

Odds and Ends

Thanks for reading! Pretty pleased with this one. Took a lot of work. Please consider chipping in so I and the rest of the team can keep this outlet running!

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

Look at this simply incredible find my friend Nessa pulled from the whatnots depths of the Lincoln Street Savers.

Excited to see The Shoestring and friend of the newsletter Andrew Quemere teaming up on a series called “The Brady Bunch,” about officers on the Northwest District Attorney’s “Brady list” — i.e. officers whose conduct has been such that their testimony is not allowed in court. The first edition is about a Granby cop who paid subordinates to do his homework. Lmao.

Records allege Granby cop sexually harassed women, paid subordinates to do his schoolwork

An outside investigation found that the former lieutenant, Gary Poehler, boosted his pay by obtaining two degrees after having police department employees write papers and take exams for him, records say.

In light of the investigation’s findings, the police department sustained an allegation of “conduct unbecoming” for “cheating in pursuit of academic degrees and receiving compensation for those degrees,” according to the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission’s online disciplinary database. The department also sustained an allegation of a “non-minor policy violation,” finding that Poehler “abused his position as a lieutenant” by asking the employees to complete his schoolwork, the database says.

Once we get the Worcester DA’s Brady list—something they continue to deny even exists—we’ll have to do our own Brady bunch. That list remains the holy grail of Worcester reporting.

Funny one from Andrew Quemere. State police officer stealing a bobcat from a tree service he hired at his house in the exact town where this would happen, Palmer, MA.

Meanwhile in New York mamdani is going after bad landlords…

I pick up Worcester events coming up...

You love to see it!!

Good story in Playboy the other day: “What We Didn’t Learn from Vietnam” by Tom Bissell.

Good track:

Ok! That’s it. Talk soon!

In keeping with the heavy-then-light format of the show, this segment appears toward the end, at the 59 minute mark.

Before that, we talk about the only thing in Worcester politics really worth talking about at the moment: the manager’s decision to abandon his pursuit of a civilian review board. Catch up on that news here and here and on the Worcester Sucks Instagram you’ll find three compilation reels of public comment I worked pretty hard on.

I have a substantial “print” post in the works about where we stand on that front. It’s almost done. Stay tuned!

Watch an orca ram a sunfish so hard that the fish explodes

Without paid subscribers, we simply wouldn’t have the time or bandwidth to put this show together. Please consider it and you’re already signed up, thank you kindly!

Subscribe now

Subscribe / Tip Jar / Merch Store

Intro music by Bill Shaner 7.29.26

Outro music: “Nashville Cats” by the Del McCoury Band

This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Overcast, Pocket Casts others via this RSS link. Please share it with someone you think might like it!

Share

Leave a comment

Welcome to the July issue of WPS in Brief. This month covers key topics from one school committee meeting.

Subscribe now

Let’s get to it:

Superintendent’s Goals and Self-Reflection.

At the beginning of each school year, the superintendent presents annual goals to the School Committee for approval. At the end of the year, he reports back on how those goals were met (or weren’t). It’s an important process because, when done well, these goals serve as both a roadmap for the district and a key accountability tool for the superintendent, the School Committee, and the public.

While Allen’s presentation lasted just twenty minutes, his 44-page self-assessment covered a lot of ground. I could do a deep dive on every goal, but in the interest of keeping this brief, I try to highlight the biggest takeaways.

Because Allen has been in the district so long at such a high level, it allowed him to hit the ground running as a first year superintendent. One thing I want to emphasize is where Allen’s strengths lie: he has an expert’s understanding of operations, systems, and organizational structure (as I reported when he got the job, he’s one of the best in the state, if not the region). His leadership has focused on turning the district’s strategic plan into concrete systems and processes, with nearly every initiative tied back to that plan, which runs through 2028—the same year his current contract expires. As Allen put it, “Running the Worcester Public Schools is equivalent to running a massive, highly regulated enterprise. We are more than a half billion dollar operation navigating complex legal, civil rights, and special education mandates... ultimately our role is shielding schools and classrooms from many of these operational challenges.” Whether you agree with every decision or not, his emphasis on building systems that support schools is a consistent theme throughout his leadership. It’s also what I believe sets him apart from many of his peers.

Student Goal.

The Superintendent set a goal of increasing the percentage of students meeting or exceeding benchmark on Star Reading (grades 2–9) and Star Math (grades 1–9) from 33% to 36% by the end of the 2025–26 school year. By June, 35% of students met the benchmark in both subjects, representing a 6 percent gain in reading and a 5 point gain in math. According to the district, this is the largest single-year improvement since Star was implemented districtwide in 2021–22. That’s encouraging, though I’d be interested in seeing the data broken down by grade level and student group. Districtwide averages can mask important differences, and some grades have historically shown as much as an 11 percent gain over the course of a single year.

The district also noted that fewer students fell into the lowest benchmark category than at any point since Star was adopted, suggesting growth occurred across the achievement spectrum, not just among students already close to proficiency. As always, though, the bigger question is why scores improved. How much reflects stronger instruction, increased familiarity with the assessment, changes in testing conditions, or other factors? It’s also worth remembering that Star is a universal screener and that student proficiency rates are heavily influenced by factors outside a school district’s control, including family income, home language, and parents’ educational attainment. Worcester’s student population saw decreases in both low-income students and English learners this year, which likely plays some role as well.

There was a deeper conversation around assessments later in the meeting, which I touch on farther down in this brief.

Collaborative Teaming Goal.
The district exceeded its goal of creating more consistent collaborative meeting structures across schools. The target was for 70% of collaborative teams—including Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), grade-level teams, departments, and school leadership teams—to consistently use four core meeting practices by the end of the year. According to Allen, 84% of team meetings included all four practices (using a standard agenda, sharing it in advance, reviewing meeting norms, and documenting action steps), and 38 of the district’s 49 schools met the district’s standard for implementing the collaborative teaming model with fidelity. This is one of those goals that’s hard for the public to see directly, but schools are full of meetings, and having consistent structures can help make those meetings more productive. It’s another example of Allen’s broader focus on building systems and processes that he believes will lead to stronger instruction over time.

Communication Framework Goal.
Allen also reported that the district met its goal of implementing a unified communications framework. The idea is to create a more consistent approach to how Worcester Public Schools communicates with staff, families, and the broader community, while also expanding multilingual outreach and accessibility. The framework is also intended to ensure district messaging aligns with the Vision to Action strategic plan.

The communications strategy document itself is pretty impressive, and I know I sound like a broken record, but communication is night-and-day compared to WPS before 2022. According to the Superintendent, the district will track the framework through communication audits, analytics, and surveys of staff and families, to see whether communication becomes more consistent, transparent, and responsive over time.

Future Teacher Pipeline Goal.
One initiative that seems to be off to a strong start is the district’s new “Grow Your Own” Future Teacher Pipeline. The goal is to recruit Worcester students who are interested in becoming teachers and, ultimately, bring them back to work in Worcester Public Schools. Given that Allen is himself a WPS graduate, this seems like a particularly meaningful initiative for him.

The district far exceeded its first-year goal, enrolling 41 students in the inaugural cohort instead of the 15–20 originally planned. According to the district, 78% of participants are students of color and 56% identify as Hispanic or Latino. Through a partnership with Worcester State University, 13 students completed their first college education course, and 25 graduating seniors took part in the district’s first “Future Educators Signing Day,” committing to pursue careers in education with the hope of returning to teach in Worcester.

Allen has also said he hopes the concept eventually expands beyond teaching. At a recent CPPAC meeting, he noted that WPS is the second-largest employer in the city and said he’d like to see similar pipelines developed for careers in areas like accounting, information technology, and other district professions.

Areas to Improve.
In his self-assessment, the superintendent reflected on several challenges during his first year, emphasizing that continuous improvement requires identifying problems, understanding their root causes, and making systemic changes. He acknowledged that communication was a common issue in several situations, including the principal selection process at Nelson Place, the proposed merger of the Worcester Alternative and ACT programs with the Central Massachusetts Collaborative, proposed administrative reorganization related to equity, and changes to elementary prep periods. In each case, he stated that the district plans to improve transparency, stakeholder engagement, and communication moving forward.

The self-assessment also outlines plans to strengthen the district’s advisory structure by restructuring groups that have seen low participation, while continuing to support established parent organizations such as CPPAC, SEPAC, and ELPAC and maintaining active middle and high school student advisory groups. The superintendent also plans to launch new teacher and community advisory groups, integrate school safety discussions into existing advisory structures, and continue efforts to improve district decision-making through broader stakeholder feedback.

Some other bits and bobs from the self-assessment:

• Artificial intelligence remains on pause. Allen reiterated that he has suspended instructional classroom use of AI with students while privacy concerns continue to be evaluated. Both the Future Ready Technology Committee (which includes parent representatives like me) and an internal AI Steering Committee are working on recommendations, with the administration saying any future AI use will be guided by student privacy, educational value, and state law.

• Screen time guidance. The school committee approved screentime guidelines that recommend that devices remain classroom-based through grade 3, and students may start bringing Chromebooks home in grade 4. The administration said it plans to revisit those recommendations during the coming school year as new medical guidance and research become available.

• A longer elementary school day is still on the table. Allen wrote that “there simply isn’t enough time in the school day” to accomplish everything the district is asking schools to do. He noted that extending the elementary school day remains part of the current collective bargaining process, making this something to watch for the fall.

• Seven elementary libraries will open next year. The superintendent said that with seven elementary school libraries operating during the 2026–27 school year, it will be the most Worcester has had since the 1989–90 school year. Future expansion will depend on available space and funding for books, materials, and furniture, but it’s encouraging to see libraries included as part of the district’s long-term vision. (Donate here!)

• Planning continues for the Advanced Scholars Academy. The district is continuing to redesign the selection processes for its admission-based programs while a working group develops plans for the proposed Advanced Scholars Academy at Worcester East Middle School and North High School. The stated goal is to make advanced academic opportunities easier for eligible students and families to understand and access.

• A new central office leadership position has been created. The district established a Chief of Equity, Access and Opportunity position by reallocating existing administrative funding. The role will oversee equity initiatives, family engagement, and several priorities within the Vision to Action strategic plan.

• The Elementary Wellness Support Center is back. Modeled after the district’s former Safety Center, the reopened center is designed to provide students with social-emotional and behavioral supports before situations escalate. The goal is to improve school climate while reducing disciplinary removals from the classroom.

• The district continues to standardize teaching and learning. More than 70 new curriculum maps for elective courses will roll out next year, while existing K–12 curriculum maps continue to be refined based on teacher feedback. The district is also implementing five required instructional practices intended to better support multilingual learners across all classrooms.

• Higher education partnerships continue to expand. Worcester Public Schools is building new partnerships with Assumption University, Clark University, Worcester State University, and Quinsigamond Community College to expand scholarships, early college opportunities, internships, educator discounts, and its Grow Your Own teacher pipeline. Allen also noted that Holy Cross and UMass Chan have expressed interest in supporting North Quadrant schools.

• Allen offered an interesting glimpse into how governance works. In his self-assessment, he wrote that he meets individually with every School Committee member each month, saying those conversations help ensure there are “no surprises” at public meetings. One-on-one meetings between superintendents and committee members are common practice, but it does provide some insight into how much discussion and relationship-building happens before issues ever reach the public agenda.

The committee will formally evaluate the Superintendent at the August meeting, which is a requirement of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

Common Assessments and Benchmarking.
The school committee approved a three-year contract with Renaissance Learning, which the district uses for Star assessments and district common assessments. During the discussion, Vanessa Alvarez (District B) asked some clarifying questions about how these assessments are used. Dr. Andrew Lampi, of the Research and Accountability Office, explained that Star is administered three times a year for district benchmarking, with additional testing for students receiving interventions. He also cited research showing that assessments can improve learning when teachers review the results with students, help them understand what they got right and wrong, and use that information to guide instruction. He’s right, and it raises an important question: is that happening?

For years, families have asked for access to the results of the online assessments their children take throughout the year, including Star Reading, Star Math, and district common assessments. The issue has been raised repeatedly at CPPAC, where families have been told the district is working on it, but as of today the only way to get your student’s assessments is to request reports from your child’s school or, for Star, to sign up in advance to have them emailed after each assessment, (but this doesn’t give you access to past scores). Even then, the reports can be difficult to interpret. Check out the reports below. On one the reading domain is marked “secure,” but the overall score is only “meeting expectations.” On the other the student is “exceeding expectations” overall in math while multiple domains are still marked “developing.”

As a parent, you’re left wondering: What does this actually tell me? What skills should we practice at home? What misconceptions does my child have? Those are the kinds of questions a traditional classroom assessment often answered naturally because students brought their work home, teachers provided written feedback, and families could see exactly where learning broke down. With these digital assessments, that feedback isn’t readily available. Instead, I have to know my child took the assessment, request the report, and then follow up with the teacher to understand what it means. Most families aren’t going to navigate that process, and teachers simply don’t have the time to hold individual data conferences after every benchmark or common assessment. If the value of an assessment is the feedback it provides, then that feedback should be easy for students and families to access, not something they have to work to obtain.

Teachers have always assessed students by creating quizzes, reading student writing, listening to classroom discussions, and adjusting instruction based on what they observed. Those assessments were immediate, personal, and directly connected to classroom learning. Today’s standardized digital assessments are designed to produce comparable data across classrooms, schools, and the district. Data that can be valuable for identifying trends, evaluating curriculum, monitoring interventions, and measuring district progress. But if students, particularly those receiving interventions, spend hours each year taking these assessments only to receive little meaningful feedback, it’s fair to ask who benefits most from the data being collected. I don’t think the question is whether Star or the common assessments are “good” or “bad.” The question is whether they provide better feedback than the assessments teachers already create and use every day, and whether the additional instructional time devoted to district benchmarking produces enough educational value to justify it.

Assessment should serve students first. Districts need data, and schools need ways to measure progress. But if students and families can’t understand the results, if the feedback isn’t meaningful enough to improve learning, or if the primary value lies in district dashboards rather than classroom conversations, then it’s worth asking whether we’ve shifted from assessment for learning to assessment about learning.

Air Conditioning and Facilities.
This wasn’t on the School Committee agenda, but after the early dismissal for heat at the end of the school year, I heard from a lot of frustrated parents asking the same question: why don’t all Worcester schools have air conditioning?

The short answer is that many of our school buildings are old, and only 12 schools have air conditioning throughout the entire building. As temperatures continue to climb in June and September, heat-related early dismissals have become increasingly common. Trust me when I say these buildings can get hot.

What often gets left out of the conversation is why. For decades, Worcester and other high-needs districts were underfunded by the state and federal government. Faced with difficult budget decisions, districts prioritized keeping teachers in classrooms and protecting student programs, while major building maintenance and upgrades were deferred year after year. Our school buildings didn’t get this way overnight, and they won’t be fixed overnight either.

Upcoming Dates.

All school committee meetings have virtual options with Spanish translation, see the school committee site for more information.

• School Committee Meeting, August 13, 4pm

• Operations and Governance, August 18, 3pm

Also.
West Tatnuck students will now have sidewalks adjacent to the school! A happy update to the February story where Public Works committee members then-councilor Mero-Carlson and then-councilor Russell voted against the sidewalks. There’s three new members (Fresolo, Economou, and Mitra) and all three voted in favor. (ICYMI: Snowbanks, no sidewalks make it tough to walk to this Worcester elementary school: If you have children in WPS, I caution you before you watch the video from the meeting. Seeing why they originally voted down installing sidewalks-that the city is willing to pay for-adjacent to an elementary school will infuriate you!)

Thanks for reading. See you in August.

Share

I’ll be going live on the Worcester Sucks Instagram to capture the community org press conference in front of, or in, city hall (looks like rain). Worcester Sucks Instagram. That’s scheduled to start at 5:30.

Update: watch the whole thing here

The meeting will be on the city’s YouTube page starting at about 6 p.m. I’ll be inside, but won’t be streaming.

Meeting starts at 6, at which point I’ll do my best to get time stamped notes up on here.

Please subscribe! I have to ask.

Subscribe now

Tip Jar!

4:10 p.m. — Second HRC member resigns. Drew Schnoebelen follows Jacqueline Yang out the door in the wake of Batista’s CRB decision.

Unfortunately, I have not observed a healthy, functioning, and effective commission, especially over the last 12 months. I personally feel that over the course of my tenure, city leadership has consistently and purposefully manufactured roadblocks and barriers that constrict the Commission in a way that simply cannot be overcome without major systemic change.

Full resignation letter is on my Bluesky.

9:22 p.m. — Back from council. After two hours of public comment, overwhelmingly in support of a civilian review board, to a packed chamber applauding almost every speaker, Councilor Khrystian King held the item under privilege, pushing it to the next meeting. One of the last speakers, former District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj, said there’d be more people at the next meeting. By my count, about 100 people showed up for this one. Several dozen spoke in favor of a civilian review board. Only one speaker, a man who said he worked in some capacity at Worcester District Court some time in the past, spoke against.

Summer schedule in effect, it won’t be until August 18. For the next month, the question of how the council will vote remains an open one.

More notes up as I transcribe tonight!

News you can use today (tonight). Please subscribe.

Subscribe now

Tip Jar

And please show up to city hall 5:30 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) if you can! The city council meeting will be actually interesting for the first time in a while: the big promise made in the wake of the DOJ report has at long last been made an empty one. On Friday, City Manager Eric Batista announced that he’s not going to move forward with the civilian review board recommendation after all. It comes as no surprise and heads to a city council that would, at best, vote down a real civilian review board proposal by a 7-4 margin.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not infuriating. Just the opposite. This is a major moment in this city’s dramatic slide to the right since the DOJ report was released in December, 2024. A 38-page report explaining the decision stands as an intellectually insulting document, one that will surely be celebrated by the majority of the city council on Tuesday night. Because it’s intellectually insulting, mind you, not despite it being that way.

I’ve been an out-and-out doomer about our city government since the last election. But this is a meeting to show up for, to speak at, if only for the sake of letting these people know we see them. Understand what they’re doing. That they can’t just lie to us like this. That the recommendations in this report are not a suitable replacement. They’re nothing.

Toward that end, there’s a press conference happening at city hall tomorrow at 5:30 p.m., organized by a dozen or so community groups.

The council meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. (Here’s the agenda.) It’d be nice to see you there! Ideally at both.

You can read the statement in full here.

Here’s my favorite part.

The City Manager’s decision ignores the mountains of advice and evidence as well as the lived reality of his constituents. His suggestion—that body-worn cameras and a diversity officer can solve the deeply rooted problems identified by the DOJ and the report he himself commissioned—is void of all reason. By ignoring the evidence and refusing to recommend a civilian review board, the city manager has effectively said that he is willing to shield a small minority of bad cops from accountability.

That right there is exactly what he’s effectively said! The only question left is whether he won’t hold the cops accountable or he can’t. It’s about the last question you’re bound to hear answered, at least honestly. It’s in the best interest of the manager, the chief of police and the police unions, in different yet complementary ways, to have the real contours of the power dynamic remain hidden from view. But an interesting thought experiment: is the alternate timeline Batista, who does in this moment what he said he’d do—presents a CRB proposal to the council, in accordance with the recommendations of both the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and the Human Rights Commission—is that Batista on his way to getting run off the third floor? Is he already gone?

Back when the DOJ report was released, in 2024 (approximately a decade ago) I started presenting the question of whether the police control the city. Reading this report over the weekend, reflecting back on the last two years, I think I can safely answer that question: yes. The Civilian Review Board proposal really died last November, when the police achieved (or, perhaps, restored?) a comfortably secure regulatory capture of the city council. The manager’s recommendation merely formalizes the position of absolute political fealty that comes with an eight-vote majority of councilors who are unambiguously, and, for the most part, proudly, beholden to the police unions.

In the report, Batista (and, Kevin Lovaincy, the city’s chief diversity officer and Batista’s appointed cabinet member, who technically gets the byline on the main document) spend a lot of time articulating things they’ve done in lieu of a civilian review board, and much less time articulating why they can’t or shouldn’t do a civilian review board as well. Both arguments are light on specifics, and throughout, the circular language of bureaucracy stands in the place where some concrete facts should be. For instance, “administrative costs” were cited as a reason a civilian review board can’t happen, but the report doesn’t include even a ballpark estimate, either by position numbers or annual budget. That it doesn’t include such information suggests they did not get far enough in the process to put together a few hypotheticals. If you’re arguing it’s too expensive, why not chuck a round number into the discourse?

Of all the insults in Batista’s withering explanation, the worst is its reliance on the Human Rights Commission as a suitable alternative to a civilian review board.

From the report:

Within Worcester’ s existing accountability framework, the HRC serves as an important avenue for community participation and engagement. One of HRC’ s foundational responsibilities includes oversight and review of issues involving WPD. Over time, this relationship has continued to develop through increased communication, collaboration, and structured opportunities for dialogue.

This is the same Human Rights Commission that Batista battled with and ultimately neutered for their insistence on doing police accountability work against his recommendation that they drop the subject. This is the same Human Rights Commission he appointed the Police Chaplain to after letting go two of its most talented and hard working members, in a transparent sop to the Thin Blue Line set.

Let’s play the hits: In November, 2023, Batista refused to provide the HRC with records they requested about incidents of officer misconduct. A month later, Batista pulled the catty move of skipping a planned meeting with the HRC after they voted to continue their police oversight work against his request that they stop.

In December, 2024, around the time the DOJ report was released, Batista refused to post HRC minutes with attached supporting documents for two meetings, which happened to take up the matter of police oversight. But in his report Friday, he wrote…

Additionally, HRC meetings are conducted in accordance with Massachusetts Open Meeting Law requirements, providing public access to meeting discussions and opportunities for public comment. This ensures that residents have the ability to observe these conversations, remain informed about accountability discussions, and provide feedback on issues affecting the community.

May 2025, Batista refused to reappoint then-chairperson Ellen Shemitz and Elizabeth O’Callahan, two of the commission’s members most doggedly pursuing its police oversight responsibility. As a replacement, he appointed Father Jonathan Slavinskas, the literal chaplain of the Worcester Police Department and a close friend, others have said, to Anthony Petrone, the police union official and shadow city councilor and also landlord of several 4-8 unit rental properties that may or may not have sprinkler systems.

This past March, Chairperson Guillermo Creamer Jr. announced he was stepping down. A few months earlier, Creamer brought the HRC to vote on recommending the city manager craft a proposal for a civilian review board. The vote passed 5-1. Creamer didn’t publicly say why he chose to step away.

In Batista’s report, he writes that the HRC “represents an existing mechanism for community participation and accountability by creating a structured opportunity for appointed community representatives to review information, ask questions, and engage directly with police leadership.”

Of course that’s what the HRC is in theory. But in practice? The only member who’d likely agree with him is Slavinskas.

For instance, a late breaking story from the Brad Petrishen over at the Telegram: One of the longest serving members of the Human Rights Commission, Jacqueline Yang, resigned today due to the manager’s decision.

“This is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” longtime Human Rights Commissioner Jacqueline Yang told the Telegram & Gazette, adding she’s been extremely frustrated since Batista last May declined to reappoint two members who’d pushed for police accountability.

Yang confirmed she resigned July 20, and used an expletive to describe any suggestion that the Human Rights Commission plays a serious role in police oversight.

Any guesses which expletive? Here’s mine.

Brad: Do you believe the HRC plays a serious role in police oversight?

Jacqueline: Fuck no.

I think we have the HRC pretty well covered. On to the WRRB.

Back in October, the Research Bureau put out the report, that Batista himself had requested, on civilian review boards. The organization’s findings were more definitive than usual. Headline? All caps. “OVERDUE FOR CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT” they wrote (I’m summarizing) not only is it imperative Worcester adopts a civilian review board, it’s weird that it hasn’t yet. It stands—and will stand, now, for god knows how long—as the only city in the area of any substantial size that lacks one.

The second graf is unambiguous:

Today, Worcester stands as the 114th largest city in the United States and the second largest in New England, yet it remains one of the few major cities in the nation without a civilian review board or comparable oversight structure. More than half of the 200 largest U.S. cities have adopted such mechanisms, and within the region, Boston, Providence, Cambridge, Hartford, and New Haven all operate oversight entities. Worcester’s absence is striking in this context—and even more so in light of the December 2024 U.S. Department of Justice findings report, which identified systemic weaknesses in the city’s internal accountability systems.

It goes on to list 14 bare minimum requirements for such a board to be effective, including full powers to access data and subpoena for records, a sufficient and sustained budget, and a mandate for the police department to take some sort of action on its disciplinary recommendations.

So it’s jarring to read Batista write that the WRRB’s report was the “foundation” on which he built his report, about doing the exact opposite of what the WRRB recommended.

Batista’s report details at length an investigation process apparently in place in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, wherein staff investigate complaints of discrimination alongside the police’s internal Bureau of Professional Services. But it’s carefully worded. While it details a dozen or so investigations the DEI office undertook from 2022-2025, it doesn’t make it clear whether these investigations yielded results that were any different from what BOPS would have administered. The investigations themselves can only ever end in recommendations to the police department, and there’s no formal mechanism compelling the police to listen. None of it occurs in public, nor is it reported out to a public entity. Right there, in that short summary, are at least five of the deficiencies the WRRB argued the city must solve.

In the introduction, Batista writes that the WRRB “provided valuable insights into strengthening transparency, accountability, and collaboration within the municipality’s oversight framework. In fact, the WRRB’ s findings serve as the foundation for the Executive Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ s ( EODEI) own report.”

Tomorrow, we’ll get to see how the council reacts to this report. Expect a lot of lauding, a lot of talk about how the new chief has done such a good job, a lot of “that’s in the past now.” All of it will amount to a show of fealty.

See you at 5:30 p.m. sharp tomorrow!

Share

Leave a comment

That’s all for me today. More later in the week. Hopefully I’ll be sharing the essay on my recent jury duty experience in ‘ol Worcester District Court I was going to publish over the weekend, before Batista dropped the big news. It’s very related.

As always please consider supporting this outlet. It’s not an easy way to make a living, which feels at times like it’s by design. But politely asking for a little money every time I post has worked out well so for, so I’ll keep at it.

Subscribe now

Tip Jar

Oh one thing I forgot to mention: Also on the agenda tomorrow, Candy Mero-Carlson getting appointed to the Worcester Redevelopment Authority. Lol.

Good reporting in BINJ by man about town Chris Faraone about the way Boston hoovered up all the world cup money. Worcester’s mentioned a few times.

The initial February solicitation stated an intent to fund “up to five watch parties at no more than $400,000 each” in geographically diverse areas. In practice, the program funded at least nine separate watch party projects in round one alone (Easthampton, Everett, Greenfield, Worcester, Lowell, Burlington, Lexington, Weymouth, and the Haitian Community series). Instead of a few large grants, most were small allocations ranging from $10,000 to $120,000.

Keep on keepin’ on, folks. Oh, I’m going to see Twisted Teens at the Stone Church in Brattleboro on Wednesday. Beyond stoked. This track right here has a line that drops my jaw.

and every now and then i think about what tommy said
that we’re chained to the world, and we all gotta pull