State fire board approves annual checks for recalled sprinkler heads

Massachusetts property owners must check sprinkler systems every year for recalled sprinkler heads under new rules that a Fall River fire captain proposed after the deadly 2025 Gabriel House fire.

The Massachusetts Board of Fire Prevention Regulations voted Thursday, Oct. 15, to add the requirements to the next edition of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Fire Safety Code, which state officials expect early next year. Gov. Maura Healey announced the board’s approval the same day in Stow.

The fire at Gabriel House, an assisted living residence in Fall River, killed 10 people and forced more than 50 other residents to evacuate. Fall River Fire Capt. Joshua Hetzler brought the sprinkler proposal forward after the fire.

Under the updated code, sprinkler systems must undergo an annual check to identify any recalled sprinkler heads. Property owners who find recalled equipment must notify their local fire department and replace it promptly. Local fire departments may require additional fire protection measures until owners replace the recalled heads.

“The Gabriel House fire was a heartbreaking tragedy that devastated families and the Fall River community. We owe it to those families to do everything we can to prevent something like this from happening again,” Healey said.

She thanked the Fall River firefighters who brought the recommendations to the board.

State Fire Marshal Jon M. Davine, who sits on the board and voted for the sprinkler provisions, said the people affected by the fire remain on officials’ minds.

“The Gabriel House residents and their families have not left our thoughts in the 15 months since that tragic night in 2025,” Davine said. “Nothing can fill the void left by their loved ones, but I hope this makes clear to them that we are committed to saving other families from enduring the same heartbreak.”

“Strong fire prevention standards are essential to protecting lives and keeping our communities safe,” said Public Safety and Security Secretary Gina K. Kwon, who credited the Fall River Fire Department for the recommendation.

Local lawmakers also praised the vote. State Sen. Michael J. Rodrigues, D-Westport, singled out Hetzler for advocating for the rules.

“These changes will ultimately lead to saving lives and protecting our residents,” Rodrigues said.

State Rep. Carole Fiola said the regulations “will address gaps that were made evident in the horrific Gabriel House fire.”

Other Fire Code changes

The board approved several other updates at the same meeting. One bans welding, grinding and other hot work when winds exceed 15 mph and requires workers to renew hot work safety training every three years.

Other changes consolidate permitting and certification requirements and bring the state code closer to national standards while keeping protections specific to Massachusetts.

Earlier steps after the fire

The vote follows earlier actions the Healey administration took after Gabriel House. Healey convened the Assisted Living Residences Commission, which brought together families, firefighters, first responders, advocates and providers to look for ways to improve safety and oversight.

In July, the administration finalized regulations that require annual fire inspections and more frequent fire drills at assisted living residences statewide. The administration also posts compliance reports online and is developing disclosure rules to help families choose care for relatives.

The board dedicated the upcoming code edition to Deputy Chief Thomas J. Ferraro of the Billerica Fire Department and the state Department of Fire Services. Ferraro died of occupational cancer in 2025 after nearly 40 years in the fire service.

Massachusetts created the Board of Fire Prevention Regulations to write a statewide fire code after the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston killed 492 people. The governor appoints its members, who represent the fire service, technical specialties, inspection officials and the public.

Complexity isn’t the issue, The Legislature’s dysfunction is

by Jay Kaufman, CommonWealth Beacon

A recent commentary piece by Senate counsel James DiTullio arguing that criticism of the Legislature’s productivity is misplaced because we are one of just seven states that allow for multi-issue “omnibus” bills drew considerable attention, including three op-eds written in response that we are publishing. In addition to the commentary below by former state representative Jay Kaufman, there are responses by Scotia Hille of Act on Mass and Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass.

In his commentary piece, “Critics of the Legislature’s productivity ignore a key legal distinction setting Mass. apart from nearly all other states,” James DiTullio castigates critics of the Massachusetts Legislature’s productivity for failing to see the virtues of the complex bills passed by our lawmakers. DiTullio, the counsel to the Massachusetts Senate, correctly points out that 43 states have a single-subject limitation for any bill to be considered, and Massachusetts – like six other states and the federal government – does not.

This distinction, he argues, makes claims that our Legislature is among the country’s least productive very misleading when based solely on a tally of the number of bills passed, since we are one of a handful of states that can enact omnibus bills covering many issues.

The complexity of our few bills tells us very little, if anything, however, about the quality of the bills or of the process that produced them. In fact, the complexity of bills covering multiple topics often only adds to the dysfunction and underperformance of our Legislature. And DiTullio never addresses the question that really matters.

For six of my 24 years in the Massachusetts Legislature, I had the privilege of serving on the board of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the professional association serving legislators and legislative staff. I came to appreciate the wide diversity of practices and cultures in our 50 states. That experience leads me to suggest that the right question to raise is how our practices and culture translate into the quality of work produced and the quality of the exchange of ideas and information, both within the capitol and with the public. By these metrics, the Massachusetts Legislature is failing miserably.

DiTullio overlooks the Legislature’s practice of assigning bills to a “study” – a euphemism for making them disappear – or the cynical and intentional exploitation of multipurpose legislation to control the pace and outcome of what, in a well-functioning legislature, is called debate and deliberation, the democratic process. We, the public, don’t get to see committees grappling with complex and difficult issues, taking public action, and then sending bills to the floor of the House and Senate for active consideration and a vote.

Instead, if bills don’t vanish into alleged “studies,” they head to the all-powerful Ways and Means Committee or secretive conference committees. From there, if they appear at all, they emerge changed and blended with other similarly disappeared bills into new bills which, under the Legislature’s rules or practices, are simply voted “aye” or “nay,” with no amendments considered.

These long, multi-layered bills, written behind closed doors, are almost always released immediately before the chambers are asked to vote on them, certainly without adequate time for legislators, much less the public, to know what is in them or give them due consideration.

Sadly, few members, lobbyists, or advocacy organizations are willing to speak out against this and risk the access and goodwill that comes with staying quiet. In the silence, the anti-democratic practices continue unchallenged.

Perhaps requiring single-subject bills would make the omnibus bill sleight of hand harder to pull off. Perhaps requiring that any bill sent to “study” lead to a real report – complete with a recommended action to be taken by a real deadline. This would result in manageable and realistic action items in place of what are currently thousands of faux studies.

But these, however valuable, wouldn’t begin to address the underlying issues.

Perhaps eliminating the Legislature’s much-abused and corrupting leadership stipend practice would weaken the Speaker and Senate president’s hold on members and encourage more independence of thought and action. Perhaps having a nonpartisan office for policy and budget analysis (as most states do) would enhance the quality of the work and empower members to better understand and evaluate proposals before them.

Perhaps it makes sense to curtail the pay-to-play culture the results of which can be seen in legislative leaders’ campaign coffers filled by those seeking access and influence. Perhaps Ranked choice voting and serious campaign spending limits would change who runs for election and who serves in our name on Beacon Hill. Perhaps term limits for legislators (leadership positions in particular) could undermine the wait-your-turn and go-along-to-get-along culture that encourages members to surrender their independence and power to the person at the top.

Each of these reforms would make a positive difference. Would any or all make the Legislature more effective, transparent, accountable, and democratic? Let’s dare to find out. Allowing multi-subject bills is an interesting procedural distinction that sets us apart from most states, but it’s a distraction from the real issues that should be at the heart of any evaluation of how our Legislature functions.

Jay Kaufman is a former Democratic state representative from Lexington.

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Income gap widens across Worcester County as poverty rate holds near 10%

The gap between Worcester County’s highest and lowest earners grew from 2012 to 2022, while the share of residents living in poverty stayed at about 10%, according to a new report.

The Worcester Regional Research Bureau and the Greater Worcester Community Foundation released the analysis in October as part of their Insights Insider series on poverty and cost burden. The report draws on American Community Survey five-year estimates from the Worcester County Insights data dashboard.

The authors measured inequality with the 80/20 income ratio, which divides the household income at the 80th percentile by the income at the 20th percentile. Countywide, that ratio rose from 4.8 to 5.1 over the decade.

The share of cost-burdened households, those spending more than 30% of monthly income on rent or a mortgage, fell from 36% to 32% in the same period. The report said the two trends together may indicate that incomes in the middle rose enough to ease the county’s overall housing cost burden as the top and bottom pulled apart.

The income gap grew in rural and suburban communities and narrowed slightly in the county’s four cities, according to the report.

More residents in poverty, steady rate

Worcester County counted more than 3,400 additional residents in poverty in 2022 compared with 2012. Population growth in the tens of thousands kept the poverty rate roughly flat.

Statewide, the number of Massachusetts residents in poverty fell 3.71%, from 698,286 to 672,361. Worcester County joined Middlesex and Norfolk among four counties where the count rose.

The report sorts the county’s 60 municipalities into 33 rural towns, 23 suburban communities and four cities. The cities posted the highest poverty rates and the largest shares of cost-burdened households.

Suburban communities saw their number of residents in poverty rise by more than the combined margin of error, which points to a likely real increase. The rural count dipped slightly, within the margin of error.

Worcester carries the heaviest load

The report’s charts place the city of Worcester at the top of the county’s 60 communities for poverty in each of the three five-year periods it examined. More than 40% of the city’s households were cost-burdened in each period.

Newer Census figures show the same pattern. About 19.6% of city residents lived below the poverty line in the 2020-2024 American Community Survey estimates for Worcester, nearly double the 10.3% countywide rate. Worcester holds about 24% of the county’s population and about 43% of its residents in poverty.

About 42.5% of Worcester households spent more than 30% of their income on housing, compared with 32.9% countywide. Among renters in the city, the share topped 52%.

The city’s 80/20 income ratio reached 5.9, compared with 5.0 for the county. A Worcester household at the 80th percentile earned about $143,200 a year, and one at the 20th percentile earned about $24,300.

Those figures come from the same 2024 survey release the report used for its poverty map, and they do not compare directly with the report’s 2022 numbers.

Sharp swings town by town

In Barre, the number of residents in poverty grew 217%, an increase of more than 500. Templeton’s count dropped 60%, or about 600 residents. Both changes exceeded their margins of error.

West Boylston recorded the largest suburban increase after accounting for margin of error, rising from 234 to 547 residents in poverty. Fitchburg’s count fell by 1,700, a decline well beyond the margin.

Southbridge ranked high among suburban communities on both poverty and cost burden. Hardwick ranked high among rural towns in 2012 and again in 2022.

The authors cautioned that small towns carry large margins of error. Estimates for larger places such as Worcester and Fitchburg tend to run more accurate.

An east-west divide

A map built from 2024 survey estimates shows communities on the county’s eastern side, between Worcester and Boston, generally have lower poverty rates than those to the west. Northwestern towns post higher rates than southeastern ones, including among rural communities.

The report advises against comparing the 2022 and 2024 figures directly because their survey years overlap.

The analysis uses the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty definition, which applies the same income thresholds nationwide regardless of local costs. The authors wrote that families above those thresholds may still struggle with prices for food, housing and heat that vary from region to region.

Where to find help

The foundation highlighted several nonprofits that serve households facing financial hardship.

Worcester Community Action Council, the county’s designated anti-poverty agency, offers fuel assistance, financial coaching, tax preparation, early education and employment services.

Worcester County Food Bank distributes donated food through a network of 115 partner agencies across the county.

In Leicester, Deja New Leicester helps residents cover rent, utilities, taxes and transportation costs and provides free rides to nonemergency medical appointments.

Worcester DPW adds mechanics and brine trucks after eighth-snowiest winter

Worcester’s Department of Public Works heads into the 2026-27 winter with nearly three times as many mechanics as last season and at least nine brine trucks, up from three, according to a report sent to the City Council.

City Manager Eric D. Batista forwarded the report from Public Works Commissioner John K. Westerling in a letter dated Tuesday, Oct. 13. The report lays out changes DPW made over the spring and summer after reviewing how it handled last winter.

Batista put that season’s total at more than 6 1/2 feet of snow, with two blizzards and several ice storms. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported 76.8 inches fell from December through February, the eighth-highest total for those months in city records.

“I know how frustrating the experience was for residents because it was frustrating for me too,” Batista wrote.

New equipment and staff

DPW expects seven six-wheel dump trucks with wing plows to arrive between November and February. The city will also receive a loader, a loader-mounted snowblower and four sidewalk machines, two of which can help plow roadways. Westerling wrote that delivery schedules remain a problem.

Crews spent the warmer months fixing existing equipment, and DPW is buying spare parts for components that failed repeatedly last winter.

The Operations Division hired seven new CDL-licensed operators, four mechanics, six laborers, three temporary laborers and a staff assistant. Offers to three more operators and another mechanic remain pending. Overtime stays voluntary unless the city declares a state of emergency, and DPW continues to look for ways to increase participation.

DPW also dropped its practice of sometimes skipping plows for storms that produce less than 2 inches of snow. Crews will now plow when conditions call for it rather than relying on salt alone.

Salt costs climb

The three lowest salt bids rose from $69.29, $69.86 and $72.90 per ton in 2025 to $72.24, $79 and $80.70 this year, an average increase of about 10%.

To stretch supply, DPW will calibrate every city-owned salt spreader this season. The department’s updated brine system came online in February, too late to use more than three trucks. This winter, at least nine trucks will handle pretreatment and deicing, and DPW is drawing up new pretreatment routes.

Training, software and contractors

An internal training program now has employees learning loaders, backhoes and sweepers, with plows, spreaders, sidewalk machines and brine equipment to follow. Crews will take a formal spreader calibration class this month through the UMass Transportation Center’s Baystate Roads program.

Two employees attended the American Public Works Association’s North American Snow Conference in Cleveland. Two others competed at the association’s National Snow Roadeo in Colorado after winning the 2026 Massachusetts Driver Skills and Training Safety event.

The city is also buying routing software that will track equipment in real time, give drivers turn-by-turn directions and let them flag road hazards. Westerling wrote that the system should help with missed streets and with tracking contractor hours.

DPW recommended higher plow and spreader rates to keep experienced contractors and draw new ones, citing rising fuel and insurance costs.

“We simply could not handle a major storm with municipal equipment and employees alone,” Westerling wrote.

A new Bagela BA10000 pavement recycler, likely based at the Millbury Street Recycling Center, will let the city make hot asphalt from reclaimed millings for winter pothole repairs and cut trips to Boston for material.

Parking crackdown ahead

City departments now plan to hold a coordination meeting about 24 hours before an expected storm. They aim to finalize decisions and public notices at least six hours before snow starts. DPW, the fire department and the police department will jointly decide when to lift parking bans.

Before the first storm, the city will launch a public education campaign on illegal street parking. Staff from several departments will leave warning notices on illegally parked cars, and stricter enforcement of year-round parking rules will follow. Residents can look up winter parking ban rules for their street on the city’s website.

Risks remain

Westerling wrote that DPW worries about regional salt shortages like the ones last year and is working to keep its storage sheds full. The number of large contractors in the region has also dropped. If gaps remain, DPW will prioritize main routes and pull larger equipment from secondary streets.

“I believe DPW is better prepared today than we were this time last year,” Westerling wrote.

GoFundMe for family of Worcester man killed in Boston crash tops $56,000

A GoFundMe for the wife and daughters of Ilir Janko Melka, the Worcester man who died in a crash on Boston’s Arborway on Sunday, Oct. 11, had raised more than $56,000 by Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 14.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office identified Melka, 48, on Tuesday, Oct. 13. He was driving on the Arborway in Jamaica Plain around 2 p.m. when another car struck his vehicle, according to the district attorney’s office. Melka died at the scene.

Dashcam footage obtained by WHDH-TV shows a white sedan going over a concrete median and hitting Melka’s SUV head-on. Sources told the station the sedan’s 18-year-old driver lost control while traveling faster than 50 mph. The Arborway has a 25 mph speed limit.

The other driver remains hospitalized. Prosecutors have not released his name or said whether he will face charges, and Massachusetts State Police and the district attorney’s office continue to investigate the crash.

Klodi Melka, Ilir’s brother, organized the fundraiser for Ilir’s wife, Mariola Doko Melka, and the couple’s three daughters, ages 20, 18 and 12. The family needs the money first for funeral and cemetery costs, according to the page. Any remaining money will help the family cover ongoing expenses, and the organizer asked supporters to consider recurring donations.

The campaign has a $100,000 goal and had drawn 387 donations as of Wednesday afternoon.

“He loved life more than anything else,” his brother told Boston 25 News. His brother also said he believes Melka may have been driving for Uber at the time of the crash, though no one has confirmed that.

Melka attended Doherty Memorial High School and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, according to Telegram & Gazette archives.

Audit finds 29 Worcester schools missing required 20 mph signs

Auditors checking Worcester school zones this summer found 47 streets at 29 schools without the 20 mph signs the city’s school zone ordinance requires, City Auditor Robert V. Stearns told the City Council in a report dated Oct. 13.

The report answers a council order that came out of a May 11 Committee on Education meeting and won full council approval June 2. The order asked Stearns to review drop-off and pick-up areas, the streets students use to reach school, crosswalks, flashing crosswalk signs, 20 mph signs and bus stops located away from crosswalks.

Auditing staff visited 38 schools and 93 of the city’s 108 designated school zones in June and July. Along with the 47 streets that had no signs, they counted eight more where branches partly blocked the signs or where signs faced only one direction.

The Department of Transportation and Mobility has since hired a contractor to install 120 new school zone signs. Nearly all are up, and the department expects to finish the rest by the end of October, Stearns wrote.

Vernon Hill School shows the kind of gaps auditors found. On Providence Street the school meets the ordinance and has a radar speed feedback sign that warns speeding drivers. Astrid Avenue, Doane Street and Upsala Street, the other three streets the ordinance lists for the school, had no school zone signs.

The audit also found four schools missing from Schedule XXIII, the list of school zones the city clerk keeps under the ordinance. They are Bancroft School, Worcester Academy, Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School and St. Paul Diocesan Junior/Senior High School.

The council voted 10-0 on April 29, 2025, to adopt the ordinance. It sets a 20 mph limit in school zones during the posted times and days. On most other city streets, the citywide speed limit is 25 mph.

Faded crosswalks, few flashing beacons

Of the 38 schools auditors visited, 29 have crosswalks at the school. Many of the side streets listed in the ordinance have none, the report says. Many existing crosswalks also lack the newer fluorescent signs or have no signs at all.

The report lists nine schools without crosswalks or with faded ones:

• Al-Huda Academy
• Clark Street Community School
• Doherty Memorial High School
• Francis J. McGrath Elementary School
• Lincoln Street School
• Nelson Place School
• Norrback Avenue School
• Worcester Arts Magnet School
• Worcester Technical High School

The transportation department has picked 37 streets to get new crosswalk signs. So far it has sent work orders to the Department of Public Works for eight of them.

Thirteen of the schools have rectangular rapid flashing beacons on at least one nearby street. These are signs that pedestrians push a button to activate. The other 25 schools auditors visited have none. A pair of beacons, one for each direction, costs about $27,000 to install. The department saves them for busy streets, areas with frequent speeding and crosswalks that drivers have trouble seeing.

Crashes cluster near schools

Data from the city’s Vision Zero program show that 30% of pedestrian injury crashes and 32% of bicycle injury crashes in Worcester happen within 1,000 feet of a school. City Manager Eric D. Batista adopted the Vision Zero Safety Action Plan in June 2025, which aims to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on city roads by 2035.

The public schools with the most severe crashes within 1,000 feet are the Adult Learning Center, Chandler Elementary Community School, Worcester East Middle School, Belmont Street Community School and Grafton Street School, according to the report.

The reconstruction of Chandler Street has held up school zone signs there, Stearns wrote. Belmont Street now has updated signs and flashing beacons in both directions in front of Belmont Street Community School.

Outreach depends on one coordinator

All Worcester public schools now belong to the state’s Safe Routes to School program, run by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Membership lets schools get walk audits and reviews of arrival and dismissal, and apply for grants for signs and pavement markings. A citywide task force brings together Worcester Public Schools, the city transportation and public works departments, police, public health and MassDOT.

Four schools have had state walk audits so far. About a dozen have had arrival and dismissal reviews. One state outreach coordinator covers Worcester and several other communities.

“One limitation would be the capacity of SRTS to accommodate all of our requests for support, specifically around A/D and walk audits,” the district’s director of school safety wrote in a response included in the report.

The director also listed problems at individual schools, including speeding, traffic jams at dismissal, sidewalks that need repair and winter weather that makes walking harder. Upsala Street still needs the sidewalk repairs a July 2025 state walk audit at Vernon Hill School called for, Stearns wrote.

Stearns’ letter does not say which bus stops sit away from existing crosswalks, the last of the six items the council asked about.

Gov. Healey presses utilities to send $1.5B transmission refunds now

Gov. Maura Healey wants Eversource, National Grid and Unitil to start returning Massachusetts customers’ share of an estimated $1.5 billion in transmission overcharges now, months ahead of a May 2027 federal deadline.

In a letter sent Tuesday, Oct. 13, Healey asked the three utilities to work with grid operator ISO New England and other transmission owners to begin issuing refunds immediately. She gave the companies until Oct. 27 to send an accounting of what Massachusetts customers are owed and a schedule showing when and how the money will reach them.

“Massachusetts families have been paying too much for too long, and they shouldn’t have to wait another winter to get their money back,” Healey said in a statement announcing the letter.

The refunds stem from a March 19 decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that cut the base return on equity for New England transmission owners to 9.57% and applied the lower rate back to Oct. 16, 2014. Return on equity sets the profit utilities may earn on their transmission investments. FERC ordered the companies to refund the difference with interest, along with charges from a separate 15-month period in 2011 and 2012.

The Massachusetts attorney general’s office filed the original complaint in 2011 and pursued the case under Healey, who served as attorney general before her election as governor, and her successor, Andrea Joy Campbell. Massachusetts customers make up roughly half of New England ratepayers, according to state officials.

“This office has fought for years to secure this ruling, and now it’s time for customers to get their money back,” Campbell said.

FERC first gave the utilities 30 days to finish the refunds. The transmission owners and ISO New England asked for more time, and the commission moved the deadline to May 20, 2027. In May, FERC refused a request from Eversource and Avangrid to pause the refunds while the companies appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also turned down the utilities’ bid to delay, according to the governor’s office.

State officials first estimated the refunds at about $900 million. The total rose to roughly $1.5 billion after the utilities filed their own figures, the Maine Morning Star reported. Healey’s staff has no estimate yet of what the average customer will receive.

Eversource spokesman William Hinkle said reconciling more than a decade of billing data across every electric distribution company made the original 30-day timeline impossible. He said the company plans to comply with FERC’s directives.

National Grid spokesperson Brendan Moss said the company is calculating the refunds and expects to begin “processing them in 2027, in advance of FERC’s May deadline,” The Boston Globe reported. Unitil spokesperson Amanda Vicinanzo said the company will answer the governor by Oct. 27 and intends to meet its obligations under the order.

“Customers have waited too long for this refund, they shouldn’t have to wait a day longer,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper.

The utilities also want higher profits going forward. On April 30, the transmission owners asked FERC to raise their base return on equity to 11.39%. Healey and Campbell oppose the request, and Healey joined the governors of the other five New England states in urging FERC to reject it.

The refund letter follows Healey’s declaration of a State of Energy Emergency on Monday, Oct. 5, when she announced nearly $150 million in winter energy bill relief. Healey, a Democrat, faces Republican Mike Minogue in the Nov. 3 election.

Worcester fall leaf collection starts Nov. 2

Worcester Department of Public Works crews will begin curbside leaf collection Monday, Nov. 2, the city announced Tuesday, Oct. 13.

The DPW expects to finish in four to five weeks, depending on the weather. Crews will skip collection on Veterans Day, Wednesday, Nov. 11, and during the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Nov. 26, and Friday, Nov. 27.

Pickup schedule by trash day

Collection follows the city’s trash route schedule. The city lists these approximate pickup windows for each trash collection day:

• Wednesday trash route: Nov. 2-6
• Friday trash route: Nov. 9-14
• Monday trash route, Quinapoxet/Grove section: Nov. 9-14
• Thursday trash route: Nov. 14-21
• Monday trash route, Grove/Salisbury section: Nov. 14-21
• Tuesday trash route: Nov. 21-28
• Monday trash route, Salisbury/Pleasant section: Nov. 21-28

Weather and other factors may shift those dates. Because early snow could interrupt pickups, the city suggests residents on the Friday route and the Salisbury/Pleasant section of the Monday route consider bringing leaves to a drop-off site.

Parking ban and raking

The city will post signs on each street before crews arrive to announce a no-parking ban during collection. Notice generally goes up one to two days ahead, and drivers who leave vehicles on posted streets will receive tickets.

Residents should rake leaves from sidewalks and yards to the edge of the street gutter, then push the row into the gutter after signs appear on their street. The DPW asks residents to do this just before collection begins in their area or on the weekend before.

Leaves headed for the gutter should not include brush, branches, plastic or other trash, and piles should not cover catch basins. Residents who bag leaves should use biodegradable paper bags.

Drop-off sites

Residents can also bring leaves to one of three city yard waste drop-off sites without an appointment. The sites serve Worcester residents only and require ID to confirm residency. All three close for Veterans Day. The hours below take effect in November; through October, weekend hours run until 5 p.m.

1065 Millbury St. (the only site that accepts brush and small branches)

• Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Saturdays and Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

300 Chandler St.

• Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

299 Clark St.

• Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Updates

The city posts schedule changes and a live status map showing crew progress on its fall leaf collection page. Residents can also sign up for ALERTWorcester notifications to learn when crews will reach their neighborhood or call Worcester 311 with questions.

School Committee panel to hear Scenario 3 of Worcester schools realignment plan

Consultants studying how Worcester assigns students to schools present their third set of proposals Tuesday, Oct. 13, at Vernon Hill Elementary School, two months before the School Committee takes up a final plan.

The School Committee’s Standing Committee on Operations and Governance convenes at 5:15 p.m. in the school’s auditorium, 211 Providence St. A Realignment Community Forum follows at 6 p.m., when staff from Dillinger Research and Applied Data will walk residents through Scenario 3, which the nonprofit released Thursday, Oct. 8.

The district encourages the public to attend. School Committee meetings offer a virtual attendance option, according to the district’s fall meeting and forum schedule.

District officials say they have made no decisions. Scenario 3 also keeps earlier proposals in play, and the consultants continue to weigh every option.

What the realignment project aims to do

The School Boundary and Quadrant Alignment Project began in the spring and runs through the 2027-28 school year. The district lists its main goals as easing crowding at over-capacity schools and filling seats at under-enrolled ones.

The project also targets feeder patterns, the sequence of elementary, middle and high schools a student attends based on home address. Worcester organizes those pathways into quadrants, and the district wants routes from elementary to middle to high school that keep classmates together.

Redrawn assignment zones could give some families a different school for their address within one to three years, the district said in August. Other possible changes include expanded full-day preschool and new school start and end times to widen bus service.

What changed in Scenario 3

• School assignment boundaries would shift across the city. An online comparison map shows how the lines differ from Scenario 2.
• Consultants revised elementary school capacities to reflect a reorganization of preschool and substantially separate special education seats.
• Middle and high school capacity figures changed after additional feedback from principals.
• Students at Francis McGrath Elementary School would move on to Forest Grove Middle School in the Doherty Quadrant, then to Burncoat High School in the Burncoat Quadrant.
• Greendale Head Start would relocate to the South Quadrant closer to 2032, freeing space for a new elementary school in the Burncoat Quadrant, where the district expects enrollment to grow. Goddard Elementary School in the South Quadrant may add seats for preschool and behavioral programs.
• Rice Square Elementary School would keep its sixth graders on site, provided construction expands its classroom space. Under the alternative, those students would attend Worcester East Middle School.

What comes next

Dillinger will present a final scenario to the School Committee and district administration in December. Committee members and administrators will then decide which options they can feasibly pursue. The district said in June it expected the full committee to vote on a recommended scenario that month.

Residents who miss the Oct. 13 sessions can attend one of the remaining fall meetings:

• Monday, Oct. 19, 3 p.m.: Community forum, Chandler Elementary School, 114 Chandler St.
• Monday, Oct. 26, 6 p.m.: Operations and Governance committee meeting, Forest Grove Middle School, 495 Grove St.
• Saturday, Nov. 7, noon: Community forum, Goddard Elementary School, 14 Richards St.

Families can send questions to alignment@worcesterschools.net. The district posts updates and answers to frequently asked questions on the project website and through a ParentSquare notification group.

Image Courtesy of Worcester Public Schools

Auburn traffic stop leads to arrest of Leicester man wanted on parole warrant

Auburn police arrested a Leicester man wanted on a parole violation warrant after he gave officers a false name during a traffic stop Sunday, Oct. 4, according to the Auburn Police Department.

Sgt. Gregg Wildman saw a black Acura leave the Massachusetts Turnpike onto Southbridge Street at high speed at about 6:35 a.m., police said.

Wildman ran the car’s registration and learned the registered owner had a suspended license. He found the Acura on West Street and pulled it over. Officers arrested the driver on a charge of operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license. The department did not release the driver’s name.

The front-seat passenger then offered to drive. He told officers he held a Maine driver’s license but did not have it with him, and he gave them a name that turned out to be false, police said.

Officers identified the passenger as Connor Ferguson, 30, of Leicester. Ferguson had an outstanding warrant from the Massachusetts Parole Board for violating the terms of his parole.

Ferguson pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2018 for his role in the 2015 shooting death of an 18-year-old man in Worcester, and a judge sentenced him to state prison, according to police.

The U.S. Marshals Service also sought Ferguson in a separate case that originated in Maine, police said. The department did not describe the Maine case.

The announcement did not say whether Ferguson faces a charge for giving officers a false name or when he will appear.