A collection of cities on the North Shore (and across Massachusetts) have historically combined sewer systems where both wastewater and stormwater come through shared pipes. During heavy rains, the excess flow bypasses the treatment plants where it is supposed to be cleaned and is instead discharged into local bodies of water to prevent backups in people’s homes.
Lynn
Posted inEducation
‘Climate of fear’: Student enrollment declining amid Trump’s immigration crackdown
Overall, public schools across Massachusetts — which has become a target of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration — lost over 15,000 students from fall 2024 to fall 2025, according to state data released in January. That brings total enrollment in the state to its lowest level in over three decades.
Posted inThe Codcast
What do cities and advocates want from the Legislature in 2026?
This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith talks Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson; Jennie Williamson, the state director of The Education Trust in Massachusetts; and Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. They break down what has and hasn’t been a lawmaking priority; dive into the current relationships between cities, the state, and the federal government; and discuss their legislative wish list for the second half of the two-year cycle.
Posted inGateway Cities
Our top five Gateway Cities stories of 2025
This year, CommonWealth Beacon ramped up its coverage of Massachusetts’ former industrial cities by adding a new Gateway Cities reporter role in its newsroom. Our reporting in 2025 shed light on major policy issues both new and old that have rattled cities like Holyoke, Leominster, and Lynn.
Posted inGambling
‘It couldn’t come at a worse time’: Legislature strips casino mitigation funds amid municipal budget woes
The move falls in line with the Legislature’s penny-pinching efforts to alleviate state budget pressures amid a host of federal funding claw backs nearly a year into the second Trump administration. Gateway Cities with budgets already nearing a breaking point will now lose out on funds they have used for nearly a decade.
Posted inOpinion
In Lynn, new ‘Calm Team’ offers alternative to police response
We are joining the growing number of communities across the US that are exploring ways to handle calls for help other than by sending police officers.
Posted inThe Download
The Download: Lynn, Swampscott team up to clean Greater Boston’s dirtiest beach
New from CommonWealth Beacon OPINION: Military strikes against Iran and the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act deepen the moral fault lines Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us […]
Posted inUncategorized
Biotech’s next destination: Why not Lynn?
AFFECTIONATELY KNOWN as an industrial hub hundreds of years ago, Lynn became known as the “shoe center of the new world” by the 1800s, thanks to the establishment and growth […]
Posted inPolitics
Lynn’s new mayor, Jared Nicholson, vows to oversee ‘inclusive growth’
One in a series on newly elected mayors across Massachusetts. WHEN PEOPLE TALK about Lynn as an immigrant-rich city, they don’t have Jared Nicholson in mind. The city’s new 36-year-old […]