Incumbents running for re-election: Will Mbah, Kristen Strezo
New candidates: Ari Iaccarino, Scott Istvan, Justin Klekota, Jon Link, Jack Perenick, Holly Simione, Christopher Spicer, Tuesday Thomas, Marianne Walles, Ben Wheeler
9/16 update: Will Mbah, Ben Wheeler, Kristen Strezo, Jon Link, Marianne Walles, Jack Perenick, Holly Simione, and Scott Istvan will advance to the general election.
Find answers to a Somerville supplemental questionnaire here:
In Worcester, City Council At-Large candidates have the option to run in the separate ballot line for Mayor. The Mayor serves as the City Council President and the Chair of the School Committee.
Voters can choose up to six. Twelve of the fourteen advance to the general.
Incumbents running for re-election: Joseph Petty (Mayor), Morris Bergman, Donna Colorio, Khrystian King, Kathleen Toomey
New candidates: Cayden Davis, Bernard Iandoli, Jermoh Kamara, Charles Luster, Satya Mitra, Edson Montero, Jessica Pepple, Gary Rosen, Owura-Kwaku Sarkodieh
As the Trump administration rolls back progress on climate action, we need states like Massachusetts to be bolder. And that means not entrenching polluting fossil fuel infrastructure.
Eversource Gas is holding an Open House and Listening Session on August 7th at 6pm to take a concrete step towards getting their permits and building a toxic and dangerous pipeline expansion project from Longmeadow to Springfield.
Springfield Climate Justice Coalition is once again calling on organizations in Western Mass and beyond to stand with them as they send a powerful message to the Healey administration, elected officials and Eversource Gas: “We do not want Eversource to build a polluting pipeline that would run through environmental justice residential neighborhoods, and dangerously close to schools and community hubs in Springfield!”.
The Springfield Climate Justice Coalition is organizing a dynamic outdoor event before the Open House, calling public attention to the dangers of this project and Eversource’s deceitful and self-serving intent in building it. We will gather at 5:15 pm sharp in Stearns Square (one block north on Bridge St) for a street theater performance and call to action, followed by a mini-march to the Eversource Open House at the UMass Center at Tower Square, 1500 Main St.
The Open House (6 to 8 pm) will consist of a short presentation by Eversource, followed by Q & A. Eversource will be providing food and child care, as well as language interpretation in Spanish and Russian. We need the place packed with opponents of this dangerous project, raising all the questions Eversource wants avoided. Wear red!
If you join online:
Tune in at 5 pm to the livestream of the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition’s dynamic outdoor event before the Open House. Then take action together, writing to our elected officials to pass S.2290 / H.3547 “An Act preventing gas expansion to protect climate, community health and safety”. Eversource will begin their powerpoint at 6:30pm, which we will encourage folks to log into. This is open to everyone who cares about our climate future!
Healey Wants to Spend $360 Million on a New Prison. Tell Her No Way.
For years, our friends at Families for Justice as Healing have been organizing against a proposed $50 million new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham.
How has Governor Maura Healey responded? By proposing a $360 million new women’s prison.
Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls have been clear: what we need is not a new prison, but greater programming for those currently incarcerated, better reentry programs for people when they return to community, and greater community investments in housing, health care, education, and economic security and opportunity.
Think of how much that $360 million could do if it went instead to keeping communities safe and ending cycles of incarceration and harm.
Join FJaH in telling Governor Healey to stop the $360 million new women’s prison with the action toolkit at bit.ly/FreeHerMA.
Call daily between 9am and 5pm only – (617) 725-4005
“Hello, my name is _________________ and I am your constituent. I oppose your plan to build a $360 million women’s prison. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prison construction is not investing in people’s wellbeing and will not make our communities safer. Our communities need this money for housing, healing, healthcare, treatment and more. We could actually make Massachusetts a model for the rest of the country by releasing many more women and implementing alternatives to incarceration rather than building yet another prison.”
Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republicans in Congress have made it their mission to cut funding for essential government services on which we all depend. Their priorities are clear. And so should ours in Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, Governor Healey’s proposed budget would halve the number of mental health case workers, limiting access to essential care. Thankfully, she put a pause on her plans to close two of the state’s mental health hospitals, but more funding will be needed
And we know how to raise such funds. It’s not by giving tax cuts to rich people and large corporations as our Legislature did two years ago. It’s by ensuring that large corporations are paying their fair share.
That’s why I strongly support Raise Up Mass’s Corporate Fair Share campaign to ensure that billionaire global corporations like Apple, Google, and Walmart pay their fair share and can’t get away with tax-dodging antics.
Did you know that Massachusetts taxes a smaller share of offshored corporate income than New Hampshire? An Act Combating Offshore Tax Avoidance (H.3110 / S.2033) would fix that, bringing us in line with the federal government and other states and raising hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual revenues.
MA needs to combat offshore tax dodging and make the world’s most profitable mega-corporations pay their fair share in state taxes, instead of cutting public services like healthcare and education that we all rely upon.
A month ago, Trump and Congressional Republicans passed the Big Beautiful Bill. But this bill is ugly: containing one of the biggest rollbacks of health care access in US history, cuts to food assistance and public education, and escalated funding for ICE.
Through this bill, the Trump administration wants states like Massachusetts to do their dirty work for them. Bay Staters need to be clear that we won’t.
Massachusetts needs to better protect our essential services from federal cuts. The extreme cuts to health care access, food assistance, education, and other vital programs will hit state budgets hard. Indeed, we are already seeing the impact of the unilateral cuts that Trump made earlier this year.
Rather than making cuts that will fall on the backs of the most vulnerable, we should be making sure that the most profitable corporations in our commonwealth are paying their fair share. That’s why we need to pass the Corporate Fair Share bill (H.3110 / S.2033), which would ensure that large multinational corporations like Amazon and Walmart pay more in taxes using a federal formula called Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI).
Fun Fact: if Massachusetts started charging these corporations fifty percent of their GILTI, it would be the same percentage of their GILTI that Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire already do.
Beacon Hill also needs to tap into the state’s $8 billion rainy day fund. The looming cuts that Bay Staters face under the “Big Beautiful Bill” are why the rainy day fund was created.
Second, Massachusetts needs to better protect our immigrant communities by not being complicit with Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Trump’s $45 billion increase in ICE funds means that the administration will be looking for more people to work as immigration agents. Scaling up means that they will want states to offer existing personnel to do their dirty work. We must be clear that we won’t. Bills like the Safe Communities Act (H.2580 / S.1681) and the Dignity Not Deportations Bill (H.1588 / S.1122) would ensure that our state and local law enforcement are not being deputized as ICE agents.
Our legislators on Beacon Hill speak of doing the best for their constituency. Bay Staters should push for them to pass these three bills to help them do their best and reject the President’s agenda.
Heather T. Ford Westwood, MA
Thanks to Heather Ford, Westwood resident, for sharing these comments and opinions with Westwood Minute.
To the Editor: Seven months into President Trump’s second term, the harm has been swift: rollbacks of civil rights, environmental protections, and safety net programs. ICE raids are tearing families apart, and Congress has aided these efforts. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has been slow to respond. There has been some progress, like immigrant legal defense funding and laws pro- tecting abortion and gender-affirming care, but we can and must do more.
We need to better protect immigrants. Trump’s $45 billion expansion of ICE means federal agents will pressure states for help. Massachusetts must draw a clear line by passing the Safe Communities Act (H.2580/S.1681) and the Dignity Not Deportations Bill (H.1588/S.1122), which would ensure that local law enforcement is not deputized as ICE agents.
We also need to shield essential services from deep federal cuts to health care, education, and food assistance. Massachusetts can lead with fair and direct revenue policy. The Corporate Fair Share bill (H.3110/S.2033) would close offshore tax loopholes, ensuring that large multinational corporations like Amazon and Walmart pay their fair share. This would be an overdue fix with meaningful impact.
And let’s not forget our $8 billion rainy day fund. These federal assaults on our communities are precisely the “rainy days” it was designed for.
Massachusetts has the wealth, the tools, and the moral imperative to act. When the Legislature returns from recess, we need them to meet the urgency of the moment—not just with words, but with action. Constituents must demand bold leadership. Jason Brown West Roxbury
