Category: Town Government

As you know, the stage of reopening that cities and towns are allowed to enter currently depends on the risk level they are assigned in weekly public health reports released by the Department of Public Health. Communities need to be designated “lower risk” for three weeks in a row to be allowed to enter Step 2 of Phase III of reopening.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our lives, including state finances. Since the pandemic began, my colleagues in the House of Representatives and I have focused crafting policy that protects public health while addressing economic disruption caused by the pandemic.

The Thursday evening remote meeting of the Governance Committee (GC) was called to order by Chair Sam Tyler at 5 PM, for the purpose of viewing and discussing revisions and annotations each had made to Article I of the Holliston By-Laws and a proposed Article concerning the Budget Development Process. Town Administrator Travis Ahern sat in on the meeting.

COMMENT attached to this article

Each week, the Department of Public Health releases community-level numbers of COVID-19 testing and positive case totals. Our town-by-town numbers in this week’s public health report:
Holliston: 173 (+17 from last week)

As the current trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic continues here in Massachusetts and across the nation, hospitalization numbers will likely continue to climb, and preparations are underway for a “second surge” within our health care system. Nationwide, we are unfortunately on track to hit our all-time high for hospitalized cases sometime this week, and our statewide hospitalization numbers have grown 91% in the last 30 days alone.

Last Friday, our statewide COVID-19 public health report contained a sobering reminder of the continued severity of the pandemic: our Commonwealth reported over 2,000 daily new cases for the first time since May 1st.