Mary E. Baker
If you re a Brockton resident you might be familiar with the Mary E. Baker school. The Baker school is named after Mary E. Baker, the first African-American to work at Brockton City Hall. She was an advocate for affordable housing and racial integration in education. She helped establish two affordable housing complexes in Brockton and assisted with the integration of Brockton High School. Baker herself graduated from Brockton High school in 1941, going on to get her undergraduate degree from UMass Boston and her master s in education from Cambridge College. In 2008 the city of Brockton honored her by naming a freshly built school after her, the first African American woman to be so honored.
BROCKTON It s not every day that the city decides to spend roughly $100 million, but it especially bothered some people residents and elected officials that the funding was authorized without a hearing for residents to provide input. The comments, with all due respect, should have come before we voted on this, said Councilor-at-large Tina Cardoso. I think if we re in a position I said this before, I m going to say this again to borrow $100 million dollars, that s a lot of money. It s not every day that we vote on something like that, so I don t take it lightly.
The Brockton City Council on Monday evening voted to authorize up to $98 million for a combined public safety facility that will house the operations of the Brockton Police Department, Brockton Fire Department, Brockton Emergency Management Agency and the Brockton Information Technology Center. The building will replace a dilapidated Commercial Street police station and Pleasant Street s aging histori
BROCKTON After leading the Brockton City Council for a year amid a pandemic that presented many challenges, Ward 7 Councilor Shirley Asack has virtually turned over her gavel.
Councilor-at-large Winthrop Farwell Jr. officially became the city council president on Monday evening, two weeks after his colleagues selected him to lead the body in a private caucus.
Farwell was named the president by a 9-2 vote, with Councilors-at-large Tina Cardoso and Moises Rodrigues abstaining. It s a privilege and honor to serve as council president, Farwell said. This is one of the times in your life you wish your mom and dad were around to see that maybe that mischievous little kid that they had to try to corral actually had some degree of success.
1. COVID hits the city hard
It would be wrong not to include the coronavirus pandemic on any list of top stories this year, but that s especially true in Brockton. The city was a top coronavirus hot spot in the state early in the pandemic, long having the second-highest infection rate. The city was disproportionately affected by the highly contagious disease, striking nursing homes, the homeless shelter, businesses and young and old residents. COVID-19 has also especially impacted communities of color and Brockton has the fifth-highest concentration of people of color among cities and towns throughout Massachusetts. The city ranks fourth in household size and also has more front-line workers than any other community in the state. More than 8,000 residents have contracted the disease and at least 340 have died from it.