By: Carrie Hsu and Simon J. Levien, Harvard Crimson, January 20, 2021 During a tumultuous four years under the administration of Donald J. Trump, local leaders have dealt with the fallout of how its policies trickled down into the lives of Cambridge residents. While Covid-19 and economic fallout raged nationally, the city’s top issues — . . . read more
By: NPR, January 20, 2021; CLF member Kari Kuelzer is featured Some Massachusetts voters hope that the Biden administration will do better on protecting the environment and managing the pandemic. But some say they fear President Biden may be too moderate. Transcript: MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Well, I don’t need to tell you that in . . . read more
By: Carey Goldberg, WBUR, January 25, 2021 In the old days, pre-pandemic, the line in the brick-walled basement bar of Grendel’s Den would have consisted of young customers waiting to have their ID cards checked. These days, says owner Kari Kuelzer, it’s made up of staff members getting checked for the coronavirus. On a recent . . . read more
By: Tracy Jiang and Davin W. Shi, Harvard Crimson, January 28, 2021 Spyce, a food service startup that uses robots in the preparation of its dishes, opened a location in Harvard Square Wednesday. By Santiago A. Saldivar Spyce, a fast-casual eatery that serves bowls and salads engineered by an automated kitchen, celebrated the opening of its Harvard . . . read more
Tens of thousands of businesses could be affected in Massachusetts By: Jon Chesto, Boston Globe, January 22, 2021 Add this to the to-do list that business groups want the Massachusetts Legislature to tackle ASAP: a tweak to state law that could protect thousands of small-business owners from getting hit with a tax for accepting federal . . . read more
Internship Overview: Join the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), the Sustainable Business Network (SBN) of MA, and Cambridge Local First (CLF) for a 13-week spring internship on bolstering resilient local economies. The internship will last from Monday, February 1 through Friday, April 30. We are seeking a cohort of highly motivated, self-directed, spring interns to . . . read more
By Marc Levy, Cambridge Day, December 8, 2020 As city councillors on Monday intensified their pressure to close indoor dining and gyms to reduce the rising tide of Covid-19 cases here, it became clearer why City Manager Louis A. DePasquale has resisted the move for weeks: The city is working with other communities to persuade . . . read more
Wondering how you can help as a consumer? Here are some ideas. By Ellen Rosen, New York Times, November 23, 2020 In the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, consumers buoyed small businesses with gift card purchases and online fund-raising campaigns. But as the pandemic persisted and restrictions constrained operating hours, many independent businesses continued to . . . read more
By Neal Gorenflo, Shareable, November 18, 2020 One of the big commitments I made when I started #LocalYear was to stop shopping online and shop as local as possible. I’ve largely met that commitment despite COVID-19 making it a mighty inconvenient time to stop shopping online. While I haven’t been able to completely avoid chain . . . read more
Massachusetts is moving back to the first step of phase three of the reopening plan and instituting additional restaurant restrictions. By Mike Carraggi, Patch, December 8, 2020 MASSACHUSETTS — The state is rolling back its reopening plan and instituting some new restrictions as a surge of coronavirus infections threatens to overwhelm the state’s health care . . . read more