Our January newsletter promised an analysis of Magliacane v. City of Gardner, an important decision from the Supreme Judicial Court...

A recent Berkshire County Superior Court decision, Stockbridge Bowl Association, Inc. v. Town of Stockbridge Conservation Commission,...

New IGR Regarding Community Preservation Fund The Community Preservation Act has been the subject of considerable interpretation and...

Clamping Down on PFAS: MassDEP Finalizes Waste Site Cleanup Standards and Proposes Drinking Water Standards MassDEP’s march forward on...

The State Ethics Commission recently issued a new advisory on the kinds of gifts and gratuities a public employee may receive under...

Municipalities Maintain a Substantial Degree of Control over Adult Use Cannabis Establishment Licensing Through the Host Community...

The Appeals court, in Murchison v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Sherborn, recently clarified the circumstances under which a plaintiff will...

Emily and Ruth are denizens of the City of New Bedford’s Buttonwood Park Zoo; they are Asian elephants. A citizen sympathetic to their...

Information on Sale of Hemp-Derived Products Hemp is a variety of cannabis but without the levels of THC found in marijuana. Hemp is...

Die-hard Red Sox fans recall when the Red Sox were not terribly successful in reaching the pinnacle of Major League Baseball competition...

A recent Federal District Court decision highlights the distinction between the supermajority vote of a Special Permit Granting Authority...

Town Meeting Time– the go-to guide for Town Meeting – states that, “[i]n King James’s day debate may have been properly classified in the...

In our March newsletter, we reported on a statement by the Supervisor of Public Records that municipalities require her authorization to...

EPA: The Clean Water Act Does Not Apply to Groundwater On April 15, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an...

Every municipality has, at one time or another, faced the problem of deciding whether to adopt a particular requirement as a general...

The Public Records Law permits a Record Access Officer to assess reasonable fees for the production of a record. However, the requestor...

As municipal boards and committees are increasingly aware, Open Meeting Law complaints must be filed with the public body within 30 days...

Check out the New Department of Revenue's 2019-1 Bulletin (available here) Regarding Short-Term Rentals, Marijuana Revenues, and PEG...

On January 25, 2019, the Attorney General found that the Kingston Board of Selectmen violated the Open Meeting Law (OML) by failing to...

A person must be licensed to carry a gun under M.G.L. c. 140, §131 in order to preserve the public health, safety and welfare. The...