Article Source: State House News Service

Author: Matt Murphy

 

The same day Massachusetts recorded its single largest daily COVID-19 case count since April, President Joe Biden stood in the State Dining Room of the White House and acknowledged the country was going through a “tough stretch.”

It was no longer enough, the president said, to just encourage the unvaccinated to take the shot. He would start requiring it of all federal government employees and contractors, of all health care workers, and of 80 million private sector employees working for companies with 100 or more workers.

The task of developing and implementing this new policy now falls to a familiar face – U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh – and takes some of the pressure off Gov. Charlie Baker, lawmakers and many employers who might have been wrestling with the decision.

And the Legislature doesn’t need any more decisions to make. With its fall agenda growing longer by the day, hearings resumed into how the Legislature should spend nearly $5 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds.

At this point it’s clear the House and Senate are not going to move quickly to get that money out the door, but that didn’t stop Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides from trying to drive home the administration’s point about urgency.

The secretary testified from the banks of Merrimack River in Lawrence where she said Tropical Storm Ida caused 130 million gallons of untreated water and sewer overflow to spill into the river, and record rains this summer have led to more than 1 billion gallons of untreated sewage flowing into water bodies since May.

The capacity of water and sewer systems to handle increasingly severe weather and the need to upgrade that infrastructure commanded a lot of attention at the ARPA hearing, just as the need to shore up sensitive networks against increasingly severe cyberattacks had the attention of the new Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity at its first hearing a day earlier.

But just as Walsh found himself at the center of the biggest story in the country this week, back at home in Boston it was the competition among the candidates who want his old job taking center stage.

Voters will settle the preliminary election for mayor next Tuesday, whittling the field from five to two. But before those final votes are cast, the candidates got on stage for two evening debates this week as City Councilor Michelle Wu emerged the clear frontrunner in a number of new polls.

The battle for that second spot on the November ballot remains tightly contested and it showed as Acting Mayor Kim Janey and City Councilor Andrea Campbell traded jabs this week over outside super PAC spending and Councilor Annissa Essaibi George – the “moderate” in the race – tried to carve out her own lane, which includes being the pro-public safety (i.e. police) candidate.

At the State House, many of Rep. Jon Santiago’s colleagues had been willing to follow him as he made a bid of his own for mayor, but since he dropped out they are no longer taking their cues from the South End Democrat.

Santiago came out in support of Janey this week, commending the job she has done over the last few months in charge, but Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz announced he would ride out the race with Wu as his choice for mayor, assuming she makes it to the final.

The North End budget chieftain joined a pair of assistant majority leaders in the House and Senate – Rep. Michael Moran and Sen. Sal DiDomenico – on team Wu, as the leadership on Beacon Hill is no longer united behind a single candidate, and members of the Boston delegation are spread around, or taking pass on the race altogether.

Wu has another powerful Democrat in her corner – her former teacher U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren has been amping up her activity as election day draws near, helping to raise money and headlining a get-out-the-vote rally in Chinatown on Saturday for Wu.

Warren was also in Boston this week to endorse the Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights in their effort to defeat a proposed ballot question that would allow rideshare and food delivery app companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to classify their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

The ballot question, according to Warren and opponents, would allow these gig economy employers to skirt state labor and wage laws, and would hurt not just those who work for them, but employees in the hotel, grocery and retail industries as well.

Warren’s involvement in both campaigns will test her clout and ability to organize around local, and not just national, issues in Massachusetts ahead of a gubernatorial election cycle in 2022 when Democrats will be looking for a better showing than in 2018.

While Baker appears to be no closer to announcing his decision on 2022, Democrats in the race came out of the Labor Day holiday weekend ready to talk policy.

Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz on Tuesday rolled out an education plan that included publicly funded pre-school, a cap on family child-care spending and debt-free public higher education. The same day, former Sen. Ben Downing detailed a transportation agenda that included fare-free MBTA service, including commuter rail and ferries, by the end of his first term and East-West rail from Boston to Albany by 2030.

One thing the two plans had in common was that they were pricey. While Chang-Diaz suggested she would seek federal support and draw on the revenue expected from the “millionaires’ tax” to pay for her plan, Downing said he would do that and more.

The East Boston resident proposed congestion pricing in metro Boston, and said he would propose a gas tax increase of 10 to 15 cents to go along with a new sales tax on Uber and Lyft rides.

The third Democrat in the race, Danielle Allen, didn’t have a policy plan to release this week, but she did call on Baker to mandate that all public school students age 12 and older be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Baker has already mandated that all executive branch employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, and this week the Public Health Council approved his request to require vaccines for home care workers and rest home, assisted living, and hospice program staff. The governor previously mandated vaccines for workers in skilled nursing facilities.

But schools are where Baker has thrown up his hands.

Even with Biden urging states to mandate vaccines for teachers and staff and unions in Massachusetts saying they would support it, Baker has insisted that the decision rests with the local districts.

“The Baker-Polito Administration agrees that all teachers should be vaccinated and agrees with the President that the vaccines are the best possible tools to get life back to normal,” the governor’s press secretary Terry MacCormack said in a statement.

MacCormack said that Baker had “recently directed all cities and towns to require all municipal employees, including their school employees, to be vaccinated,” and would work with cities and towns to accomplish that goal.

Directed? Maybe “encouraged” would be more accurate. But potato, potahto. The point is Baker isn’t going there.

Nor is he going back to remote learning for K-12 students.

“I think our view at this point is in-person learning is where we should be and where we should stay…,” Baker said, when asked about an outbreak in the Melrose public schools.

The governor said that as long as people are unvaccinated, COVID-19 infections will be a part of life, but fewer people are being hospitalized or dying as a result.

The Baker administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for home care workers and staff at rest homes, assisted living residences and hospice programs got a green light Wednesday from the Public Health Council, which unanimously approved regulatory changes to implement the requirements.

The regulations were approved on an emergency basis and will be subject to a public comment period.

Introducing the measures to the council, the Department of Public Health’s Marita Callahan described caregiver vaccinations as “critical” to protecting the health of vulnerable individuals.

The Baker administration announced last week that it would seek the council’s approval to extend an existing vaccine mandate on certain long-term care staff to include additional caregivers and facilities, in an effort to protect older people from COVID-19.

Council member Mary Moscato, the president of Hebrew SeniorLife Health Care Services and Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, described the mandates as a step that “really does protect our seniors and patients.”

The policy will apply to up to 100,000 home care workers, 62 freestanding rest homes, 85 hospice programs and 268 assisted living residences, according to the administration. The affected workforce will have until Oct. 31 to get vaccinated, unless they qualify for a medical or religious exemption.

Kathleen Carey, a professor of health economics at the Boston University School of Public Health, said the state should keep an eye on the mandates’ potential impact on staffing levels. She said there have been cases nationally of hospital staffing shortages that have been “somewhat exacerbated” by vaccination requirements.

The council also voted 9-4 to finalize the repeal of universal mask mandate regulations that are no longer in effect.

The council repealed those regulations on an emergency basis in June, and since then some members have raised concerns around the message it would send to formally strike the mask rules while the more infectious Delta variant has led to increased spread of the coronavirus.

The widespread masking mandate in place in Massachusetts earlier in the pandemic has been replaced by an advisory for people to wear masks in indoor public places if they or someone in their household is vulnerable to the disease, along with targeted mandates applying to specific settings like schools, transit and health care settings.

“I don’t think we’re really protecting the public to the full extent if we have a piecemeal, incremental approach,” said Dr. Edward Bernstein, an emergency medicine professor at the BU medical school.

He said dynamics around the virus have changed since the June vote.

Bernstein said he was voting no “until we have something in place that proposes masking in all public spaces where you can’t maintain distance,” and Lisette Blondet, director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers, said she cast her vote against the repeal “in order to protect the entire state population.”

Blondet said that she lives on Cape Cod, where there is a large senior population, and that she sees most other shoppers unmasked when she goes to the grocery store now that face coverings are not mandated.

“We are making decisions based on what’s true for the entire state and leaving out pockets of very, very vulnerable populations who are very confused, and I think that repealing these regulations will continue to leave these people out, will fail to protect the public the way I feel we are charged to do,” she said.

Dr. Larry Madoff, the medical director for the DPH Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences, said the state’s current policy “normalizes mask-wearing” by requiring or recommending it in many situations. He said the state is “balancing risks and incentives” while keeping the importance of protecting the vulnerable “paramount in our thinking.”

“We think that the incentive for the unvaccinated to get vaccinated so that they are no longer recommended for mask-wearing in most situations is really an important component of our strategy to maximize vaccination and to maximize the protection of the community and those most vulnerable,” he said.

DPH staff said they would continue to monitor the data around COVID-19, and that the official repeal of the prior regulations would not prevent them from bringing forward any new precautionary measures in the future.

State epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Brown said evaluating that data will be particularly important as the seasons change and temperatures drop.

“As people come indoors, we’re really going to have to watch and see what happens,” she said. “We absolutely need to continue to monitor the data, literally on a daily basis, and to adjust and adapt the recommendations and requirements as needed.”

In August 2017, Sean Kelly, Aaron Birt, and Diran Apelian from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), combined their expertise and together, formed Solvus Global to bridge the innovation gap through the creation of next-generation technologies.

According to their website’s timeline, Solvus Global built out their first office space and laboratory on Rockdale Street in Worcester back in 2018. CEO Aaron Birt secured their first subcontract award from the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) as a result of the team’s expertise in cold spray and existing partners in the research community, which he established during his days at WPI. In continuation of his PhD dissertation, COO Sean Kelly was able to obtain project funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Starting out with two employees and only a handful of customers to its name; Solvus Global has since expanded their staff, facilities, and customer base.

“Now Solvus [Global] has approximately forty employees across Central Massachusetts. And we recently opened our new 32,000 sq. ft. Manufacturing site in Leominster.”

At Solvus, employees harness the power of a creative and multi-disciplinary team to develop and commercialize next-generation technology in the materials and advanced manufacturing sector.

“Solvus [Global] exists to solve technological problems that are impactful on society, the environment, and everything in between. We aim to solve the most prevalent problem at the right time with the right team,” said Kelly.

The intuitive company has a current model that houses multiple business units within Solvus to assist with bridging the gap between material consumption and production, in a sustainable way. The goal is to transition each unit to become its own standalone entity. Commercialization of these brands is not far from reality.

Solvus Global business solutions include but are not limited to:

• Powders On Demand – Quality-controlled, inertly packaged metal powders for cold spray repair and additive manufacturing
• Build It Gigantic (B.I.G.) – Cost-effective additive manufacturing of large specialty material parts utilizing techniques
• Kinetic Batteries – 3D printed solid-state Lithium-ion batteries for dense energy storage with custom-fit electrode cells
• Augmented Process Ecosystem for X (APEX) – Manufacturing Intelligence for advanced manufacturing processes that coalesces data from OEM equipment, advanced sensors, process models to one place
• VALIS – Machine learning model for optimized non-ferrous metal scrap sortation with real-time adaptive algorithms to maximize the value of recycling

For the future, Solvus Global will continue to develop business enterprise units to serve as multi-faceted solutions for the greater community. In adaptation to the ever-evolving world, Solvus tailors each solution to support the marketplace for many years to come.

Keeping up with the fast-pace COVID-19 pandemic landscape, Solvus has taken on a hybrid working model to prepare for the “new normal.”

Kelly stated, “We’re flexible. We’ve done our homework – complying to the regulations and recommendations from the CDC and the state of Massachusetts. With our 3 locations and remote option, we tell our employees to work where it makes the most sense at the current moment based on their workload and projects.”

He also added that it was important to stay informed on current COVID-19 procedures and guidelines, as health and safety is a top priority for Solvus employees and families. They have also created a COVID council so that the company has eyes and ears on the situation at all times.

In April 2021, Solvus Global became a new member of the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce. Solvus immediately saw the local impact of joining the Chamber with their expansion to Nashua Street in Leominster amid the pandemic.

“From top to bottom, members’ interests and needs are consistently at the [North Central] Chamber’s forefront,” Kelly said. “Everyone is always willing to help and there are plenty of opportunities to network.

“The [North Central] Chamber [of Commerce] puts their members first. They don’t just say it, they act on it,” he added.

While Solvus Global is coming up on their four-year anniversary in August, the business is looking to grow and hire more dedicated employees, both full-time and part-time.

“We’re looking to deliver more powder products and continue software testing than ever before,” said Nicole Boyson, Marketing Manager. “We are progressing toward additional funding opportunities and getting into the industries to make our mark in the world.”

Solvus Global looks to a bright future ahead of them with innovative technology at their side.

“We’re only as strong as the individuals we have on our team,” Kelly stated. “Each and every person matters from the most recent to the most senior hires.. Bottom line: Curating the right team sets us up for success.”

To learn more about Solvus Global and their solutions, or to inquire about a potential job or partnership opportunity, visit their website at www.solvusglobal.com or email them at people.matter@solvusglobal.com.

Demand for restaurant take-out and delivery food has skyrocketed, a trend that’s likely to continue into the foreseeable future. Restaurateurs who want to stay competitive are faced with some tough choices — do they link up with a third-party food delivery service, hire their own delivery driver, or simply say ‘no’ to deliveries altogether?

Third-Party Delivery is Costly

Like any business, on-demand food delivery companies charge a service fee. That fee varies depending on your location, and it can be a percentage of the total bill, a flat rate (‘bag fee’) or a combination of the two. There’s also a tip option customers can select on most food delivery apps, and some services charge extra during busy periods, a practice known as ‘surge pricing’.

The catch is that food delivery apps make money by charging fees to both the consumer and the restaurant. Contrary to what you might expect, restaurant owners also pay commissions on each order, and that can quickly eat into the already-slim profit margins in the industry.

To compensate for the extra operational costs that comes with linking up to a delivery service, many restaurants have a special, higher-priced menu just for their app-based deliveries. While this makes sense from a budget standpoint, it’s a practice that can anger customers who don’t know how popular delivery apps such as Uber Eats, Grubhub and Doordash work.

Quality Can Be Questionable

Some folks who work for food delivery apps do a fantastic job when it comes to delivering your orders quickly and with the level of customer service you’d expect, while others simply don’t.

Using a third-party food delivery service means putting your product into the hands of someone that’s been screened, trained and hired by another company. You give up the usual control you have when you recruit and hire your own delivery staff, and that can be risky.

Using a Delivery Service May Boost Your Business

While there’s a lot of cons when it comes to using a third-party food delivery service, signing up with these app-based businesses can be a smart move in the right circumstances.

Increasingly, consumers are turning to food delivery apps for everything from their working lunches at the office to Friday night meals with friends. Restaurants that sign up with a delivery service often find they’re getting orders from first-time customers, and that can translate into ongoing sales and in-restaurant visits.

Food Delivery Apps Are Cost-Effective for Some Restaurants

Food delivery apps can be a cost-effective way for restaurants to offer deliveries without incurring the costs associated with hiring a dedicated delivery driver. Food delivery services are on-demand and scalable, and that’s idea for restaurants that don’t need a full-time driver.

If you’re a restaurant owner or manager who is considering signing up with a third-party food delivery service, take the time to weigh the pros and cons for your particular situation. As with all business transactions, be sure to read the fine print and ask other restaurateurs about their experiences before deciding if partnering with a delivery app is right for your company.

How To Get Your Mindset Right When Everything Feels Wrong

You want to grow your local business and treat your employees and customers right. But sometimes it’s hard to keep your mind focused on what you know you should be doing. We understand how easy it is to fall into doubt, worry, or even mental paralysis, especially when everything around you feels wrong somehow.

But we believe in you and in your business. That’s why we’ve put together this list of tips to help you keep your mindset in the right place and stay focused on the things that matter most right now. Take a look.

1. Give Yourself a Break

If your mental intake is focused on doom, gloom, and uncertainty, your mindset isn’t going to be a healthy one. Instead, give yourself permission to step away from current news, and open your mind to healthier input. That might be anything from funny YouTube videos to a chapter of a novel you’ve been meaning to read for years. You’ll return to your tasks with a healthier mindset and renewed energy.

2. Focus on Helping Others

Thinking about others and what they need is a sure-fire way to get your mindset right. Whether it’s overtipping your food delivery person with a kind note, checking in with the cleaning staff at your business to make sure they’re okay, or driving by a child’s house to wave them a happy birthday, you’ll feel stronger when you express generosity and thoughtfulness to others.

3. Take Good Care of Your Body

It’s easy to think of your mind as something separate from your body, but times of crisis make it clear how very interconnected they are. Stop every hour to spend 30 seconds breathing deeply. Even if you can’t go to the gym, take a walk or do some light exercises at home. While a little comfort food is understandable, don’t neglect the veggies and fruits that give you the vitamins and nutrients you need to stay healthy. And allow yourself to go to bed a bit earlier or sleep in a bit later to help boost your immune system as well as your mindset.

4. Write Things Down

Some people use lists to stay in control of their world — and it’s also a good way to keep your mind focused. More broadly, it can also be helpful to write down how you’re feeling in a time when everything feels a bit off. Write down the best and worst-case scenarios to keep your mind from spinning in circles, or start a journal to chronicle what you’re going through. Often the act of writing something down on paper (or on a screen) can help you purge the associated feelings and get your mind back in gear.

When you adjust your mindset by focusing outward rather than on what seems wrong, you improve not only your own sense of focus but also your relationships with those around you. Bypassing the negative messages that sometimes seem to assault your mind to focus on the positive instead can help you face whatever comes next with hope and determination.

The temperatures may have suggested the dead of summer, but preparations were in full swing this week to welcome students and employees back to classrooms and offices in the fall with COVID-19 still swirling in the hot, humid air.

Gov. Charlie Baker set the bar last week with a no-alternative vaccine mandate for thousands of executive branch employees, but as his administration opened negotiations with unions on the details of that policy, other public officials and agencies used the administration’s approach as a blueprint.

Senate President Karen Spilka announced that all Senate lawmakers and staff would have to be vaccinated by Oct. 15, though the Ashland Democrat said the date for a full return to the State House — a building still closed to the public — remains undecided.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission also followed the governor’s lead and voted to require the vaccination of all its employees by Oct. 27 as it prepares to fully reopen its downtown Boston office on Nov. 1. The commission is giving its workers two weeks to either prove they have been vaccinated, schedule an appointment or make their case for a religious or medical exemption.

“I absolutely think given the state of affairs this is the way to go,” Gaming Commissioner Eileen O’Brien said, alluding to infection rates that are on the rise.

Mandating vaccinations became an easier decision to make after the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to Pfizer’s shot, no longer authorized just on an emergency basis. Still, work-from-home and hybrid models will be very much the norm as workers return from vacations and settle into a post-Labor Day rhythm.

While businesses and government agencies consider ways to structure a more flexible work environment, education officials are crossing their fingers that the days of remote learning are behind Massachusetts students and teachers.

With all schools preparing for a full reopening to start the 2021-2022 school year, Education Commissioner Jeff Riley secured the authority he needed from the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to implement a universal masking mandate.

All students, teachers and staff over the age of 5 will be required to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, to start the school year as the Delta variant has fueled a resurgence of infections and students under 12 remain ineligible for a vaccine.

The board voted 9-1 to support the administration’s school masking plan, which would allow middle and high schools to revisit the issue after Oct. 1 if schools can achieve a vaccination rate of at least 80 percent.

Board member Paymon Rouhanifard cast the lone vote against masks, calling it “just, frankly, really bad public policy” to tie the proposal to vaccination rates. He said he thinks linking it to community spread of the coronavirus would have been a “more reasonable” alternative.

Republican Geoff Diehl, who is running for governor, said he believes the more reasonable thing to do would be to let parents make their own decisions about the health and safety of their children. Diehl, a former Whitman lawmaker, labeled Baker’s latest steps to control the spread of COVID-19 “government intrusion over parental and personal choices in our lives.”

Public opinion, however, is not exactly on Diehl’s side.

The most recent MassINC poll found broad support for masking in schools, even among Republicans. Democrats running for governor would like to see the boundaries pushed even further.

Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Danielle Allen both called for vaccines to be made mandatory for school personnel, and Chang-Diaz suggested Baker start a public process now to begin developing a vaccine credentialing system as more businesses — for both workers and patrons — are beginning to require proof vaccination.

Attorney General Maura Healey, who is still deciding whether to join Chang-Diaz on the gubernatorial campaign trail, said she thinks it’s too soon to say whether vaccine passports would be beneficial, or even necessary given the ease with which some fear vaccine cards could be forged.

“If certain things need to be designed or systems created then I think we should be open to doing that. I just don’t have a sense right now, to be honest…of how pervasive this is as a problem,” Healey said during a radio appearance.

Baker was noticeably quiet this week, but also went on the radio to donate and help raise money for the Jimmy Fund, spending more time during his WEEI interview talking about Tom Brady and Charlie Watts than any public policy.

Baker did, however, record a two-part interview with Jon Keller that will begin airing this Sunday before he and First Lady Lauren Baker headed out of town for the weekend on a “personal trip” to Tennessee.

Speaking of travel, Congressman Seth Moulton made international news when he and U.S. Rep.  Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican, snuck away on a secret reconnaissance mission to Kabul in defiance of the State Department and other agencies.

Moulton and Meijer, both veterans, wanted to observe first hand the conditions on the ground as the United States continued to evacuate American and Afghan allies from Afghanistan, but the trip drew strong condemnation from many who accused the pair of staging a political stunt and distracting from the mission on the ground.

Moulton rebutted that criticism, and the pair was back on U.S. soil by the time the Kabul airport became the site of a deadly terrorist bombing that killed dozens, including U.S. soldiers.

The Bakers may be making the most of the waning days of summer, but chances to win $1 million by getting vaccinated are over.

The final two winners of the VaxMillions sweepstakes were drawn this week, with the prizes going to Leominster’s Cynthia Thirath and Gretchen Selva, a sophomore at Four River Charter Public School in Greenfield, who hopes to study music.

It may never be known how many of the 2.5 million entrants in the vaccine Lottery got the shot just for a chance to win, but Treasurer Deb Goldberg is convinced that at the end of the day it was a “win-win for everyone.”

Rep. Andy Vargas is hoping it will be a win-win just for him in the 2022 primary and general elections as the Haverhill Democrat first elected to the House in 2017 launched his campaign for state Senate this week. Vargas is running in the district currently represented by Sen. Diana DiZoglio, who is running statewide for auditor. If elected, he would be the first Dominican-American to be sworn into the Massachusetts Senate.

Long before that race is decided, a new state representative from the 4th Essex District will be seated in the House.

Rep. Brad Hill plans to leave next month to become the newest member of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, and the House this week set the election dates to replace him. The primaries will be held on Nov. 2, followed by a general election on Nov. 30 as the Republican Party — down to 30 seats in the House — attempts to stop the bleeding and hold on to a seat held by Hill since he was first elected in 1998.

Trailing in new public and internal polls released this week that showed City Councilor Michelle Wu leading the pack to become the next mayor of Boston, Mayor Kim Janey pulled back the city’s waterfront redevelopment plan, casting fresh doubt on plans for 600-foot tower on the site of the Boston Harbor Garage next to the New England Aquarium.

There’s intense interest in what happens to Boston’s waterfront, and understandably so, but Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni wishes just a little more attention could be paid to properties not along the eastern seaboard.

Gulluni pulled his staff from the Roderick Ireland Courthouse in Springfield on Wednesday where he said the conditions of the building had deteriorated so much that visible mold was growing in parts of the structure.

Until a remediation team could conduct a thorough decontamination of the building, Gulluni said prosecutors would only work inside on an as-needed basis for trials and other proceedings, but he also said it was time to put a more permanent solution on the books.

“I believe that if we were farther east this building would have been replaced a long time ago,” Gulluni said.