The uneven geography of political backwater
As the race begins, voter turnout remains the core issue
Hello hello! Two quick things before we get to the news.
My good friend Sam Checkoway took a nasty fall off a roof at work. Based on what I know, he’s lucky to be alive. He’s a great kid, great drummer, and crucial to the local music scene. He has a GoFundMe to help him keep up with finances over what could be a months-long recovery. Consider throwing him a few bucks if you can!
The city released its list of 2025 Worcester Arts Council grant recipients and tucked in the fine print you’ll find my name attached to something tentatively called “The Unhoused Herald.” Wooohoo! More details as we get closer to launch, but the idea here is a street zine written by and for our unhoused residents. I will be serving as editor until I’ve adequately coached my replacement. I’m very thankful the Worcester Arts Council saw merit in this application enough to fund it! There are many other great projects on the list. Honored to be among them. I think with a good launch, dedicated contributors, and a solid pool of print subscribers, this thing could become a real community institution. But like I said, more soon!
Now to business. The week-in-one-paragraph feature I added last week seems to be a hit! It’s a fun writing assignment for myself. I’ll keep doing it.
Week-in-a-graf:
City Manager Eric Batista hired Tamara Lundi as the city’s new director of public health. In 2023, Lundi left her role as president of Community Health Link under let’s just say... uncertain circumstances... amid mass layoffs and damning state inspections. Thu Nguyen is officially out of the running for at-large council. Who can blame them? At the Tuesday city council meeting, Moe Bergman delivered a slew of thinly-veiled attacks on Nguyen, sending related items to his own subcommittee for “further review.” Also on Tuesday, candidates could officially pull nomination papers. A few new and exciting names. A lot of old, exhausting names. So far, no Maureen Binienda for either school committee or council. The police department provided the council with a document detailing some minor policy changes made following the DOJ report. Rather than discuss it at council, Mayor Joe Petty has scheduled a full meeting on the topic for March 18. On Wednesday the carpenters’ union held a summit for progressive organizations of all stripes. It was a packed house. On the other side of the ideological coin Holden’s own Aidan Kearney racked up yet another witness intimidation charge related to the Karen Read drama. He will be arraigned later this month. Oh yeah and thanks to DOGE, the federal government has canceled 37 percent of its office space leases in central Massachusetts, including two offices in downtown Worcester. On Friday the city council agenda for next Tuesday was published. Councilor Kate Toomey filed an item requesting the Irish flag be flown outside city hall on the same day as the special meeting called to discuss the DOJ report—a total coincidence surely. I for one think it’s a very funny thing to have done.
Uneven geography—the state of the race—meet Keith Linhares for District 1!—an interesting hire at the public health department—odds and ends
The uneven geography of political backwater
First things first—before we get to any of the races or the candidates or anything—we gotta talk about the turnout problem. So long as we take for granted that municipal elections have always and will always be 15-20 percent turnout affairs, we can kiss even a whiff of change at city hall goodbye.
Low voter turnout isn’t the weather. It’s not unknowable or an act of god. The low turnout is on purpose. It is man-made. And it is the defining characteristic of our current municipal system. Just about everything wrong with it can be traced back to who votes and who doesn’t. Not that we’re unique in that by any stretch. It’s sort of a marquee feature of the neoliberal world order that local organizing be systematically destroyed wherever it arises. Grassroots city politics used to exist in a way that it doesn’t anymore. So did pensions. And now that you mention it, living wages. Oh and public housing. Hm. Anyway.
In Worcester, you can trace a decades-long precipitous drop in election participation. In 1973, for instance, 46,000 of 87,000 registered voters came out for the city election. More than half! In 2023, 21,000 out 117,000 registered voters came out. About a fifth. (All the data is in the city council manuals and it’s fun to poke around). Twice as many residents voted in 1943 as did in 2023.
When people talk about turnout they’re usually talking about the flat percentage citywide. For instance in the last city election, that number was 19.5 percent. But that number, while low, conceals a more pernicious story: Since the 1987 charter change that gave us our current weak mayor system, voter participation has fallen dramatically. That data is easy to find. But it hasn’t fallen evenly. And you rarely, if ever, hear that part of the story. Worcester voters haven’t been disincentivized from participating across the board. Just the poor ones.
Voter turnout—like income, homeownership, racial character, crime, etc.—is a geographically uneven statistic. It varies greatly by neighborhood, and tends to vary in the same exact way as every other statistical indicator of inequity. Funny how that works!
In the map below, we see basic voter turnout from the last city election—not for any one race or one candidate but simply voters who cast ballots—broken down by precinct. And then, on top of that, we see the precincts with the poorest residents, using a loose configuration of household incomes below $60,000. And the precincts with the richest, similarly loose. Just enough to get the idea.
You’ll notice an obvious overlap between poor residents and low turnout. You’ll also notice the opposite. The part of the city with the highest voter turnout is 100 percent coincidentally the wealthiest.
This is crucial to understanding so so so much about our city politics and all its various failures, from abusive policing to the unchecked housing crisis to the pathetically low bar for behavior and intelligence expected of an elected official.
That deep-red region on the west side with the highest turnout percentage is not merely over-represented in our elections. It has a controlling position over the electorate. Out of the 21,694 ballots cast in the last election, 4,481 came from that one high-density area alone. That’s 21 percent, all from the same small neighborhood. There’s not another neighborhood that comes close to that kind of authority. For context, 8,000 votes in the last city council election gets you an at-large seat with room to spare. For instance, the last election:
In one neighborhood, where almost everyone shares an economic self interest, you can get yourself more than halfway to 8,000. A more extensive analysis is needed to see how many do. (To that end, friend of the newsletter Adam Barber put together a spreadsheet of the precinct-level election data that is much more useable than anything on offer from the clerk’s office. Without it, the above map wouldn’t be possible.)
Among local reporters it's an open secret that the only polling location worth going to on election day for “scene” is the one next to Worcester State, in the heart of the deep red area above. Go to any other and you’re wasting your time. No “scene” to be found.
It’s not a coincidence that the area with the election day “scene” is in command of the electorate and is also the whitest, richest, and the most heavily zoned against residential density. Almost all of that region is protected by single family zoning restrictions. The other regions of the city with the second deepest shade of red are also predominantly filled with single-family zoned neighborhoods.
You see what I’m getting at here?
It’s not an accident of history that city policy caters to the priorities of these residents almost exclusively. Think of the bitter fights over inclusionary zoning, the rental registry, the eviction moratorium, etc. etc. For one, these residents are far more likely to benefit from an unmitigated housing crisis than any other. They already have the home equity that increases as property values increase. With this sliver of the population as your only audience, politicians find it easy to sell property value increases as the only evidence needed of successful governance. The Worcester Renaissance was fueled by this before any flashy development deal the city authored.
The growth machine relies on buy-in from this voting block, who stand to gain personally as real estate value is juiced, and apathy from any other voting block, like renters or small business owners in leased spaces, who stand to lose.
So it’s not a coincidence that poorer residents with different priorities are more apathetic about voting in local elections. They don’t see a reason, and that’s because they aren’t offered a reason. When we look at the flat city-wide voter turnout figure to pontificate about the lack of civic participation, we’re using an incomplete dataset that lends itself to lazy conclusions that almost always rely on racist or classist assumptions. When you see that it’s the poor neighborhoods that don’t vote, you come to sharper conclusions, either in that racist direction or toward the truth of the matter: that the needs of poor residents are inconvenient at best for the growth machine. Really, it’s best they just stay home. Politicians stay in these seats for forever—decades, sometimes, as with Toomey, Petty, and Russell—because there’s a general agreement that no one is going to appeal to new voters, and so the existing voters in the high-turnout neighborhoods keep putting their people in power. The electorate doesn’t change so neither do the officials.
Offering residents in low income and low turnout neighborhoods a reason to vote is an imperative of the progressive movement. These are people more likely to be immigrants, to be renters, to be young, to have been pounded into a belief that “politics” is for someone else or else see it as a TV show among other TV shows. Without doing so, we’re playing on the home turf of the cranks. And we will always lose.
This moment, with the full on vulture capital disembowelment of the federal government and fire sale of all public assets, desperately calls for a brand new understanding of what “politics” is. It has nothing to do with the Democratic Party, only slightly less so to do with the Republicans. It has everything everything everything to do with figuring out how to pull in our neighbors to a collective sense of self and sense of shared struggle.
It is also difficult! Decades upon decades of neglect have reinforced the perception city politics has nothing to offer the people in the neighborhoods that don’t vote. That reality is manifest in the data. Distrust of any new attempt to do so is more than reasonable, and should be expected.
Any pitch needs to be honest and clear and tangible and even then it still may not be enough to break through the layers of reinforced apathy and distrust.
But it remains the core defining roadblock to a progressive city hall. It is the grease on the pistons of the growth machine. There is a lot of money and a lot of entrenched political capital standing in the way of its dismantlement.
But you’d be hard pressed to find a more worthwhile question than the uneven geography of voter turnout and how to correct it.
In order to even start answering that question, we have to acknowledge that the uneven geography exists, and we have to begin to untangle the rat king of all the many compounding good reasons that it does.
I’ve been coming around to seeing the form of the tenants union as the ideal mechanism to begin that process of disentanglement. Earlier this year I read Abolish Rent, a great new book by two central figures in the LA Tenants Union. (When I have the bandwidth to revive the book club, this is the one. Easy.) More recently, I listened to an appearance the two authors made on The Dig, a Jacobin magazine podcast. I’d highly suggest a listen.
In the interview, even more so than the book, they reflect eloquently on the need for a new definition of politics—the same thing I’ve been trying to express since the election and its harbinger of doom for the Big Tent Democratic Party project. Listening clicked a lot of things into place for me.
Here’s two connected thoughts in that interview from Tracy Rosenthal:
The millennials are the first generation to be shut out of home ownership and are living in this new era of property that is transferred through generational wealth, and finding themselves in community, in the same place, with immigrants and people of color who have long been shut out of the American property regime.
And...
Why we are thinking about organizing through the specific form of a union is because we are trying to look for that form that might animate self interest and solidarity.
Another, more to the point of what we can start doing right now—this week, this month—from co-author Leonardo Vilchis:
The tenants union is right now working in an ideological battle that is looking for the construction of community. As the system individuates us, makes us into individuals just looking at our phones, the tenants union is saying stop looking at your phone. Sit down in the middle of the garden, and let's talk about the housing and the neighborhood, and let’s organize the next party next week that we want to have.
You make voters out of non-voters by animating both their self interest and their solidarity. And you do it with parties in the garden.
All this to say, in thinking about how to pry open the new frontiers needed for a more progressive and representative electorate, we may not have to look much further than renters—what a municipality can offer renters, and how renters can effectively organize among themselves to make those new municipal features a reality.
The one thing about those low turnout precincts that’s inarguably universal: lotta renters. Seems like a better starting point than most. I’m running for city council because I’m a renter and renters are getting fuckin’ boned by city hall.
Before we move on, just take another look at that map. Nothing changes until that map changes.
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State of the race
As mentioned at the top, papers for the upcoming municipal election have been available for a week now. Social media has been awash in announcement posts. I got the end-of-day list from the clerk on Friday. It’s worth a quick look at what’s shaping up to be a pretty crowded field. Reminder: this is far from a complete list. Candidates have until early May to pull and/or return their papers with the required signatures. So this is by no means what the race will actually look like. Just a rough idea. I’ll pause a few times for some quick analysis. Much more to come as the race develops, of course.
City Council
At Large (incumbents): King, Petty, Toomey, Colorio, Bergman
—Khrystian King is running for mayor. He’s the easy choice for both mayor and at-large. He’s also the only incumbent I’ll be voting for. The rest stink bad, as regular readers will know. Interesting: Petty has yet to formally announce for mayor.
At large (challengers): Charles Luster, Cayden Davis, David Webb, Sean Rose, Satya Mitra, Bernard Iandoli, Jermoh Kamara, Owura-Kwaku Sarkodieh
—Jermoh Kamara, a former school committee member and progressive organization leader, and Cayden Davis, a trans member of the queer coalition pressuring city hall of late, would both make wonderful additions to the city council. The rest of the challengers range from ‘eh’ to ‘absolutely not.’ More on that in the coming weeks.
District 1 (open seat): Tony Economou, Keith Linhares
—Economou is a former councilor and run-of-the-mill Chamber of Commerce-type guy. A completely lateral move from Pacillo. Keith is a political newcomer with good politics and a strong vision for what a city council should be. Later in the post, you’ll read a word from him. Linhares all the way.
District 2: Candy Mero-Carlson, Rob Bilotta
—Vote for Rob Bilotta and tell everyone you know not to vote for Candy Mero-Carlson.
District 3 (open seat): John Fresolo, Rob Pezzella, Jason Diaz, Feanna Jattan-Singh.
—Rob Pezella spelled councilor wrong in the flyer for his campaign kickoff, which was very well attended I hear. He stinks. Mr. Suspend All Latinos. Google “John Fresolo allegations.” I don’t know Jason Diaz at all. Feanna is good people.
District 4: Luis Ojeda, Ted Kostas
—Ojeda’s been growing on me lately. Ted Kostas is a member of the Republican city committee that’s been demanding immigrant councilors show their papers. No thank you.
District 5: Etel Haxhiaj, Jose Rivera
—Here we freakin’ go again I guess.
School Committee
At-Large (two seats): Susan Mailman
—Interesting that Maureen Binienda, the other incumbent, hasn’t pulled yet. Will she? Or is she going for mayor, as rumored? We’ll see. Sue is great. In the past term she’s emerged as the real moral leader of the school committee. A team captain, if you will. I’m tempted to say Sue should run for at-larger council. But I don’t get to decide these things.
(Here’s a map of the school committee districts. It’s very confusing. Why they couldn’t just use the five council districts is beyond me. The whole thing is just... bleh... I’ll save that take for another time.)
District A: Molly McCullough
—Would love to see a progressive opponent.
District B: Vanessa Alvarez
—Vanessa has really grown as a school committee member in the past two years. She’s been impressing me lately, especially the way she handled Petty’s—sorry, McCullough’s—skullduggery around the LGBTQIA safe schools proposal. Alvarez showed herself to have a backbone. She did not get bludgeoned into submission by the political class.
District C: Feanna Jattan-Singh, Dianna Biancheria
—We don’t know which one Feanna’s running for yet, I guess! This or District 3 council. Dianna Biancheria is easier to beat than Rob Pezzella, though, that’s for sure. And the school committee would greatly benefit from her not being on it. A school committee with no Biancheria is a greater net positive than a city council with no Pezzella, and more realistic to pull off.
District D: Alex Guardiola
—Can someone pleaaaase run against this guy? It was not the intent of this reform to have a Chamber of Commerce plant walk onto the school committee unopposed two times in a row.
District E: Kathy Roy, Nelly Medina, Noelia M. Chafoya
—Kathy Roy organized bus trips to Jan 6. Her first term on the school committee has shown her to be a remarkably quiet but nevertheless fully loyal henchwoman of Binienda. No thank you. Nelly is among the best people in the city and in a just world she would have won last time. I don’t know Noelia but I’ve heard very good things. I think either Nelly or Noelia should run at-large, but that’s just my opinion. I don’t really want to be deciding between two good candidates when there are other seats on this board that need a good challenge.
District F: Jermaine Johnson
—Nice guy.
(Full list of all candidates from the clerks office)
It’ll be a while until we really know what the race looks like. Signatures are due back May 6. Until then it’s all sorta up in the air. Especially Binienda... what’s up with that?
In the meantime, candidates need volunteers, contributors, and signatories for their nomination papers! Toward that end, Councilor Thu Nguyen is putting on a cool event at the end of the month! Half party, half organizing event. It’s at Mint (best banh mi in the city), Wednesday, March 26 7-9 p.m.
Meet Keith Linhares!
We here at the Worcester Sucks Media Empire are desperately hungry for good new candidates. Now is the time to be fielding them, getting to know them, encouraging others to come forward. That’s why we jumped right on interviewing Cayden Davis for Outdoor Cats earlier this week. That interview rocks, by the way.
And why I’m sharing an open letter from District 1 candidate Keith Linhares below in full.
My name is Keith Linhares, and I’m running for Worcester City Council in District 1.
I’m a minivan-driving father of three daughters, a supportive husband to a community and youth worker who has tirelessly dedicated herself to helping Worcester, a lifelong resident of the 508, a first-generation college graduate, a music lover, a pragmatic, action-oriented project manager, a homeowner in District 1, and an eternal optimist.
I’m not a politician.
But I’m running for Worcester City Council in District 1 because Worcester is my family's future. Our city has grown to a point where we need leaders who believe in bringing people together and helping our city and its residents reach their full potential. Leaders you can trust to prioritize quality-of-life for residents over short-term gains and “economic indicators”.
I see so much untapped potential here. As the second-largest city in New England, Worcester should be a leader in affordability, civic engagement & transparency, and quality-of-life. I imagine Worcester as a place vibrant with small businesses and community spaces, where kids can walk or bike safely to school, where city departments like DPW are adequately funded to provide excellent service, where participation in our local democracy thrives, and where anyone who wants to be here can afford a place to call home.
But our city’s current leadership isn’t doing enough to make that potential a reality. Rather than tackling real structural issues or putting forward a vision for the future, our city leadership clings to outdated thinking, and they dilly dally and waste our time over things that should be easy decisions, as the past several months has clearly shown.
People claiming to be “voices of reason” are saying City Council should stop listening to activists and community members and focus on potholes and snow removal. In the year 2025, with the intense stress people are under, whether it's practical concerns like a place to live, or headier concerns like the USA's place in the world, the idea that a City Councilor in New England’s 2nd most populated city should only care about potholes and snow removal is anything but reasonable.
In this day and age, the idea that a city councilor can’t ‘walk and chew bubblegum’ - fixing practical problems while addressing the structures and systems that caused them in the first place - feels like a slap in the face, and is the same thing as saying “Don’t think too much” and “Don’t ask for more.”
If you’re reading this, you already know what’s at stake in our city's next election. Now is the time for people with bold, creative ideas to step up and shape Worcester’s future.
We can’t afford to let leadership keep us stuck in the 1980s. We need fresh voices in City Hall that bring bold visions for the future and the energy and spark to get it done.
Among the candidates in District 1, I can confidently and proudly say that I am the most:
Pro-transparency & accountability
Pro-union
Pro-worker
Pro-affordable housing
Pro-tenant
Pro-fiscal responsibility
Pro-teacher
Pro-public schools
Pro-accessible design
Pro-crosswalks, sidewalks, and walkability
Pro-bike lanes
Pro-environment
Pro-sustainability
Pro-feminist
Pro-LGBTQIA+
Pro-direct democracy
Pro-participatory budgeting
Pro-public transit
Pro-library
Pro-local food
Pro-farmer’s market
Pro-community garden
Pro-decentralization
Pro-potluck dinner
Pro-mutual aid
Pro-public art
Pro-street fair
Pro-starting a REAL, community-driven Worcester Renaissance
I don’t have all the answers to Worcester’s problems—but I know our community does. I’ve told family and friends about my candidacy, and I’ve heard at least one great idea to improve Worcester from each of them. I am so inspired by concerned residents who show up to City Council meetings to speak about issues that matter deeply to them.
I am open minded, pragmatic, and humble, and I will listen and work with all District 1 residents, unions, grassroots organizations, and community groups to make Worcester the best city it can possibly be. I have the determination, the optimism, and the strategic thinking to take big goals and break them down into actions that will make our community thrive.
This community has so much heart, grit, and determination. Together, we can build a Worcester that works for everyone. My family’s future, and our city’s future depends on it.
Please consider donating to our campaign. We need money for things like a website, mailers, and yard signs. My opponent, Tony Economou is a former city councilor who has already raised $10K from people like John Monfredo, Tim Murray, and Sean Rose.
Imagine taking money from John Monfredo? Still? Unbelievable. Vote for Keith.
We have time scheduled for a podcast interview with Keith coming up, so look out for that. And make sure you listen to Cayden’s interview too if you haven’t. It’s so wholesome and good.
An interesting public health hire!
Of all the people the city manager could have hired for the vacant director of public health position, he chose a person directly embroiled in controversy over the dismantling of one of our more important public health service providers, a few blocks over from city hall.
We’re already long here so I’ll be brief on this. Public health industry reporting is mostly outside my wheelhouse anyway.
Batista hired Tamara Lundi to head the division of public health, which reports directly to the director of health and human services, and oversees about a third of the HHS meager $3 million annual budget. Lundi started on Monday. There was no announcement. The public learned about it on Wednesday, via the Telegram.
The Division of Public Health is responsible for the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and Health and Medical Coordinating Coalition (HMCC) among other programs. The director oversees the city’s nurses, prevention specialists, an epidemiologist1, and program coordinators.
All of these things are vital and grossly underfunded city services. Which is why Batista hired someone who, in her last job... dismantled public health services?
In 2023, she left her role as president of Community Health Link—a crucial health services provider under the aegis of UMass Memorial for some of our most vulnerable residents. Treatment beds, detox programs, emergency medical care, mental health care, youth addiction services. It’s a lifeline for people going through it. The details of her departure are unclear at best. But what we do know is that it came amid mass layoffs and shuttered programs that the center has still not fully recovered from—at a time when there’s more people going through it than ever. This got a lot of press back at the time, centered around some not-so-great state inspection reports. It’s hard to see Lundi’s departure amid all that turmoil as a coincidence.
UMass Memorial’s CEO Eric Dickson used the words “complex” and “multiple factors” when describing Lundi’s departure to the Telegram. He noted it was “her decision.” But we know a phrase like that often conceals a lot of decision-making in the bureaucratic chain we’re not privy to.
It was a tumultuous situation CHL still struggles to recover from. The Telegram is also reporting that about 250 of the 800 jobs at CHL remain unfilled. And the city just scooped up a person at the heart of it to lead its already under-funded public health department. Seems like a disaster in the making.
Lundi was apparently chosen from a pool of four finalists. Was she really the best of them?
There’s an observation my Outdoor Cats cohost Chris Robarge made on the most recent episode (we talk about the Lundi situation at the end, about 1:20 in) that’s stuck with me:
I think a pattern that I have noticed over the years in Worcester is that we love to hire people into jobs that are not qualified for those jobs. Because then they're really grateful to have the job and they will do whatever the people who hired them want them to do. We have a city manager I don't think is super qualified for the job. We had a school superintendent who I don't think was super qualified for the job. People that are connected and people that tell the people that hire them that they'll play ball in exchange for getting those jobs. That is a trend, and I think that is, from what I'm hearing, what we're seeing here.
This is a more than plausible scenario, and it’s a surefire way to sow internal divisions and fall into otherwise avoidable goof-em-ups. Would love to be wrong, of course, but all signs point in the direction this was a hire made for reasons other than merit.
There’s obviously a lot more to this story and I don’t want to get out over my skis speculating. If anyone reading this has more information to share about Lundi and CHL, feel free to reach out by email (billshaner@substack.com), via the new tip line (508-556-1017). Or, if you’re really wanna be sneaky, drop a tip in our new tip submission form, where you’ll find my public PGP key for extra-extra-secure messaging. (Any techie readers out there who would be willing to help me set up a SecureDrop for document sharing, please holler. One look at the set-up instructions makes my head spin.)
Odds and ends
Thanks for reading. Here’s one more pitch for the road. To everyone who already subscribes thank you for allowing me to do this job for as long as you have. Pride of my life!
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And don’t forget about the Roast of Worcester on Friday! Gunna be real fun. Then Worcester Havurah’s Purim on Saturday!
Two other events coming up this month: Me and some buds are filling in as the house band for Shaun’s Sort Of Late Show March 28. Me and Katie are doing a table at the Worcester Punk Rock Flea Market on March 29. She’s making a bunch of Big Sass Glass pieces—right behind me as I write this, soldering away—and I’ll have some new merch items!
A few news items worth mentioning:
A Worcester police officer is on administrative leave after getting into a fight on the field with another parent at a youth soccer game.
Interesting read here on the “Skull Senior Society” at WPI, which I somehow have never heard about? This quote especially makes me want to go spelunking.
"You'll be expelled if you're caught in the steam tunnels that don't exist," one redditor wrote.
Ray Mariano using the space the Telegram gives him to tell a woman how to behave. Nice job. What’s that Chris was saying about jobs in Worcester going to unqualified people?
Oh oh! Looks like we might have a soon-to-be abandoned half-constructed biotech campus on our hands. Right on Rte. 9 too. Good work as always here from Eric Casey at the Worcester Business Journal: “WuXi construction at $300M Worcester facility moving slowly”
The slow progress at the site comes as WuXi Biologics appears to be re-examining its presence outside of China. (...) The BIOSECURE Act, a proposed piece of legislation which would block China-based life science firms from receiving federal funding, continues to worry firms like WuXi Biologics, according to BioProcess International. The impact of potential tariffs and other actions from the President Donald Trump Administration is also looming over the industry, which is particularly reliant on international trade and cooperation.
Thanks, Brandon!
Roundabout coming for the Flagg and Salisbury Street intersection. Is this really the most pressing road infrastructure project right now? Or is this yet another example of the nice part of town getting hooked up? Who’s to say.
The Midtown Mall, which has some new weird name I can never remember, is getting a grocery store (nice!) called Market 22 (lmao).
I used this song as the outro for the most recent episode but I’ll put it here again because I’m obsessed with the rhythm section work on it. Out of this world!
Ok that’s all for now folks!
Original version that went out to inboxes had this as epistemologist (philosopher concerned with how people know things) which is a funny typo. I wish it were an epistemologist! Thank you to reader Glenn Pape who pointed out this typo in an email with the subject line “Breaking News: Worcester Sucks Newsletter Hints Worcester Public Health Now Tackling the Nature of Truth (or Should)” So good lol.
Bill - Glad to see you were on top of Mariano's column today. Your comment regarding his comments about Etal was spot on. I've attended most council meetings over the last year, and I haven't seen Mr. Mariano there once. There is a new energy in the chamber. Let's just say his comments were unnecessary.
Great piece 👏