Nearly four decades after an infamous toxic waste trial drew attention to widespread industrial pollution issues in East and North Woburn, local officials accepted an initial settlement funding payment awarded to restore city wetlands.

Only a few short weeks ago, hopeful Reading officials envisioned they’d be stepping before Town Meeting members right about now for permission to purchase a coveted piece of downtown real-estate for a luxurious new community center.

When Reading’s Select Board last fall slated $1.5 million in COVID-19 bailout funds for a major park project in the heart of town, Recreation Administrator Genevieve Fiorente sat in Town Hall’s hearing room in a state of disbelief.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 in 36 children in the US is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls.

Reading school officials hope to join the likes of Burlington and Woburn by creating a rainy day account to better manage difficult-to-forecast special education expenses related to out-of-district placements.

Having the United States Air Force Band come to Reading Memorial High School is a big enough deal on its own, but it’s even more special when a former RMHS student returns to her old stomping grounds as part of the ensemble. On Wednesday, March 29 at 7 p.m. that exact scenario will take place.

For one evening in the spring of 1963, Reading’s most famous citizen let down his guard and dared to believe that he and his family would finally experience what it felt like to be accepted by their neighbors.

Woburn officials will again entertain the possibility of encouraging the creation of a denser multi-family housing project in the city’s downtown region by the community’s public library.

Knock. Knock.

While it seems members of congress sometimes struggle to pass legislation on a national or federal level, those same members oftentimes still work hard for their local constituents. Case in point: both Representative Katherine Clark and Representative Seth Moulton recently filed funding requ…

MIDDLESEX - Able to enjoy the amazing new tool from the comfort of their own homes, Reading residents and history buffs can now sample the flavor of life in the community from as far back as the era of Mark Twain and Gilded Age.

Delaying implementation of the bylaw for a year to give financially ailing restaurants some extra time to prepare, Reading late this fall officially passed a partial styrofoam ban.

It’s said the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, in downtown Winchester that saying might not apply.

While Woburn retained its status of charging the lowest residential real-estate taxes in The Middlesex East region, Mayor Scott Galvin recently warned that a regional trend of converting commercial sites into housing will eventually undercut the community’s ability to stay affordable.

After being essentially chased out of the city just a year earlier, a Boston developer earlier this winter scored a major victory for the life sciences community by convincing Woburn officials that next-era research and development (R&D) facilities can safely co-exist by residential homes.

The Boston Marathon bombings changed the lives of countless people, not to mention took the lives of several others including eight-year old Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lü Lingzi. A fourth victim, Wilmington native and MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, was killed while he was on duty…

As neighboring towns consider a half-dozen similar school building projects, Stoneham leaders recently sounded the alarm over budget-busting inflationary pressures that have plagued the public construction sector over the past year.

Public transit riders who reside in Burlington, Woburn, Stoneham, and Winchester will fare quite well under the latest version of the Mass. Bay Transit Authority’s (MBTA) ‘Better Bus’ initiative.

By RYAN LAROCHE

For those more intimately familiar with the byzantine bureaucracy involved with getting utility companies to remove the eyesores, it’s a crusade that just can’t be won.

The Middlesex East Santa (M.E. Santa) is getting to be an old hand at raising funds for The Salvation Army these days around the Christmas holiday!

Area environmentalists can’t wait to install a new fish ladder by Woburn’s Scalley Dam after a record number of herring splashed their way into Horn Pond and other bodies of water along the Mystic River watershed in 2022.

Town officials and citizens in Stoneham wasted no time in setting aside the needed by-right multi-family housing acreage to come into compliance with the state’s new “MBTA Communities” regulations.

The Middlesex East region’s unified opposition to recreational pot sales just blew up in a cloud of smoke.

While most cities and towns have four questions to answer during the general election on Nov. 8 including the so-called “millionaire’s tax,” changes to dental insurance, changes to liquor licenses, and whether or not to uphold a vote by the state legislature to allow undocumented immigrants …

It’s not every day business conglomerates file court paperwork arguing their industry is slowly dying and then wage a years-long battle to prove that contention.

A Stoneham Square landowner heaved a big sigh of relief last month after town officials realized an overlooked provision of a 2020 zoning reform bill had spared a proposed mixed-use redevelopment of an old catering business.

Thanks to advances in medicine, breast cancer is survivable. Just ask Winchester resident and Reading native Brienne Black.

For Reading’s green movement activists, a proposed styrofoam ban represents the next logical step in the battle against a potential public health and environmental doomsday.

Already visited by Congressman Seth Moulton earlier this summer, a quiet nature trail and bird watching spot by the Aberjona River and Austin Preparatory High School in Reading sure is catching a lot of attention these days.

Very rarely will residents support a 40B project in their neighborhood (unless the development team works closely with them to make sure the project fits with the neighborhood in style and size). Typically, when residents hear about a proposed 40B project they petition the town’s governing b…

During an era when citizens shared packed dirt roads with horse-and-buggies and a handful of first-generation cars, Stoneham citizens had plenty of space to roam about its historic downtown area.

Surrounded by small bedroom communities like Reading, Burlington Winchester, and Stoneham, the City of Woburn has long been envied by abutters for its booming industrial and commercial tax base.

In some respects, Winchester and Woburn are fierce rivals. Every Thanksgiving, the two football teams go head-to-head to see who is the king of the gridiron. Off the field, however, the two neighboring communities can work together, as evidenced by one Woburn family’s dedication to Wincheste…

Though a self-described empath and people person, there are times Reading native Lucky Belcamino gets a little uncomfortable when asked to approach someone for a quick meet-and-greet.

While most hunkered down in their homes and dared not even let groceries into their domiciles without first drowning the sundries in disinfectant, they patrolled Reading’s streets and rushed the community’s first COVID-19 patients to area hospitals.

The passing of legendary Celtics player Bill Russell brought up memories of a time when the Boston Celtics dominated the NBA, with Russell’s Celtics winning 11 of 13 championships (and Russell himself never losing in a game 7 - or any elimination game for that matter). 

After watching other cities and towns for years now rake in the financial benefits from retail cannabis sales, Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin is ready to make his community the first in the Middlesex East region to open a recreational pot shop.

For those residing and working in Stoneham and Woburn, the Mass. Bay Transit Authority’s (MBTA) proposed overhaul of bus routes across the state has generated predictable but disparate reactions.

In her first message on her first day as chancellor, Julie Chen credited the teamwork of the UMass Lowell community – students, faculty, staff, alumni and supporters – for creating a culture that turns aspirations into achievements.

The proposed redevelopment of a landmark restaurant site in Stoneham could prove the catalyst that catapults the community into compliance with new multi-family housing regulations imposed last year by state legislators.

With Reading’s elderly population growing and town officials years ago declaring the town’s senior center facilities as woefully inadequate, the problem is known and well-defined.

The Professional Center for Child Development (PCCD) announced that Anderson School special educator Rhonda Boudreau has been awarded the Massachusetts Association of Approved Special Education Schools (MAAPS) highest honor for excellence in teaching.

With the Montvale Avenue area site slated to become one of the largest life sciences campuses outside of Boston proper, motorists heading down I-93 southbound can’t help but notice the dramatic transformation taking place at Woburn’s old Atlantic Gelatin plant.

MIDDLESEX EAST -  Stoneham officials and state highway planners a quarter century ago first began eyeing a potential makeover of the southern gateway into Stoneham via Route 28 by the Hall Memorial Pool complex.

By RYAN LAROCHE

Few would ever make the connection

Visitors to Reading Center would be well advised to carefully read all the new parking signs.

Five years ago, Winchester made the decision to send two building projects, the Lynch Elementary School and the Muraco Elementary School, to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for help with funding. While the town knew the chances were slim the MSBA would agreed to fund both project…

Offered a chance to treat its downtown area like a blank canvas, Woburn is all but assured a $16.7 million check to completely redesign its downtown center.