I was pleased to address a large crowd on Sunday, as Concord Indivisible drew residents indignant at the showy, careless, and deliberately callous roundups by ICE.
In response to ICE raids, local groups are organizing
Learning from the best at CAAL’s annual 5K
Pleased to have offered opening remarks this past weekend at the start of the annual 5K race sponsored by CAAL, the Chinese American Association of Lexington. Participation was high. Sustainability was the theme. I sounded the starting horn. Happy to have received advice on proper technique from former Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao and CAAL executive Hua Wang.
Highlighting students at WPY’s annual celebration
Shining moment at Waltham Partnership for Youth’s annual celebration: Executive Director Magali Garcia-Pletsch (left) congratulates student speaker Victoria Silveira for a speech eloquently delivered.
Taking notes from a pro
Got good advice this week from former governor Mike Dukakis, who visited the State Senate as we paid tribute to his beloved wife Kitty.
Charting a hopeful course with Third MAD
Lawrence MacDonald, Lorena Betts, and Rebecca Gore, all from Chelmsford, lit up today’s listening session, co-hosted with 3rd Middlesex Area Democrats (3rd MAD), to chart an optimistic course for Democrats.
Sen. Mike Barrett hosts an Open Town Hall for Democrats
Sen. Mike Barrett here. An annual meeting of Democrats in my Senate district is set for next Saturday morning, May 3. People are deeply shaken by what’s happening in the country. So, this year, working with event chair Robert Logan, I’d like to try something new, a Town Hall open to all Democrats and Independents in the area interested in discussing what went wrong in 2024 — and what needs to go right in 2026.
826 Boston supports young writers
In Lexington, 826 Boston supporter Sonali Shah hosted NYT best-selling author Vaishnavi Patel for a fascinating conversation on the experiences of women in India and in Indian fiction. Good turnout. 826 Boston exists to nurture and highlight the writing talents of young writers in urban neighborhoods. Great organization. Shoutout to Read My Lips Boston for inviting my wife and me to the session.
Massport’s terrible two-fer
In entertaining a proposal to build new hangars for super-polluting private jets at Hanscom Airfield, Massport is on the verge of a terrible two-fer: aiding and abetting the warming of the planet and pandering to the concentration of private wealth. I joined advocates at the State House in thanking the Governor and asking her to prevail upon Massport to do the right thing. Nothing is guaranteed, and the odds remain very difficult, but they aren’t as long as they were two years ago! We have a real opportunity to stop this.
Celebrating WIN at the Hero Awards
Waltham Inclusive Neighborhoods, founded by Tom Benavides, has been pushing to expand access to housing. I was pleased to present Tom with one of this year’s Hero Awards, organized by the Waltham Democratic City Committee, in recognition of the group’s impressive work.
This just in, from Recharge, a national publication dedicated to covering electric power and the electric grid:
“A major US engineering body this week gave the nation’s grid infrastructure a damning D+ score in its quadrennial school report-style assessment, which noted that “a large portion of the system exhibits significant deterioration” with “strong risk of failure”.
There are bright spots of course – not least in New England, where a study by the grid operator found that the region could absorb power from over 9GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050 with far less investment than previously anticipated.”
Can we have a little optimism, please? Clean energy and the Massachusetts climate movement have legs younger than Donald Trump’s. We’ll be alive and kicking when he is long gone.