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As Chair, Jamie Van Nostrand put the “public” back into the Department of Public Utilities. He put ratepayers and household budgets first and positioned Massachusetts to continue the transition off fossil fuels. He’s on to his next adventure but his shadow is long and his achievements, indelible. A number of us gathered recently to honor him and express our profound thanks.

From left to right: Garrett Casey, Elizabeth Van Nostrand, Jamie Van Nostrand, marvelous host Marilyn Ray Smith, Ania Camargo, and Nathan Phillips. I think I see Mark Dyen’s leg.

Pictures from the Waltham Land Trust’s newest addition: a very beautiful plot of land next to Hardy Pond designated for conservation and recreation. I joined Sonja Wadman and other WLT leaders to celebrate the purchase. Photo credit: Sonja Wadman.

Just unveiled in Lexington: a new exhibit featuring three Black Patriots who fought in the American Revolution. The animated videos tell the stories of Prince Estabrook and Eli Burdoo, who each fought in the Battle of Lexington, and Pompey Fiske, who witnessed the battle and later enlisted in the Continental Army. Shoutout to Sean Osborne and the Lexington Visitors Center for bringing their stories to life.

Credit to the Town of Lexington for the photos.

Pictures from the Concord Democratic Town Committee’s September meeting, for which I was the featured speaker. Topics of discussion included immigration, data privacy, and climate change.

For the third time in four years, Lexington High School has taken gold at the National Conservation Foundation’s annual Envirothon. This year’s competition focused on ways to manage forest ecosystems impacted by climate change. Over the course of a week, students completed a series of exams and delivered presentations to a panel of professionals. Impressive stuff. Congratulations to the Lexington team: Jocelyn Chen, Caroline Ehmann, Tomer Elkayam, Eileen Ho, and Erin Suh.

George Pappas, an experienced immigration lawyer and a PhD in philosophy to boot, accepted an appointment to a judgeship in a federal Immigration Court in Massachusetts. A resident of North Carolina, he and his wife began a long-distance relationship so he could take the post. Now he and a raft of his colleagues in immigration courts across the country have been summarily dismissed.

Pappas told the Lowell Sun, “Many of us uprooted from far away places to do this job. Some people bought a house, integrated their family, and then they got fired. They had a mortgage to pay, they have family here, and this has happened across the country. Many of us have relocated to become judges from different places and we’re just thrust out onto the street.”

Pappas will land on his feet. He’ll move back home and resume his private practice. But the federal court in which he served, located in my district, in Chelmsford, may not be as resilient. Once home to 18 judges, by the end of August it will be down to 6. The backlog of unresolved cases is, predictably, exploding.

Courtesy of his long reach from Washington, immigration czar Stephen Miller is disappearing due process. Who knew you could kidnap the Constitution? Thank you, Lorena Betts of Chelmsford Connected, for setting up the conversation with Judge Pappas before he returns to North Carolina and we lose him.