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🌂Showers likely, with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 8:01 p.m.
Terry Gentile Sauro opened her water bill this quarter to see a truly eye-popping charge: $4,566. She called the city, where workers told her the water was constantly running in her home in Newton’s Nonantum village from May 17 through the end of June.
“Constant water running? How could that be?” she told GBH’s Marilyn Schairer. “I live in the house. I would hear the water running.”
Turns out, her irrigation system had a cracked valve. In previous years, if a home’s water usage suddenly spiked like that, someone in the city’s water department would get in touch with the homeowner to let them know something was amiss. But last year the city installed new meters through Neptune, a company based in Alabama. Neptune will only notify residents of changes in their water use if they sign up through the company’s online portal first. Sauro said she didn’t even know that was an option.
Sauro’s gotten her leak fixed, submitted the receipt to the city and filed an abatement asking them to reconsider the bill. Now she’s waiting for a response. Schairer has more on the drip, drip, drip of money going toward increasingly high water bills here.
Four Things to Know
1. U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Boston visited the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas last week and came away from the experience saying the people being held there are “low-level non-criminals,” including children. “Why are they here at all?” Pressley told GBH’s All Things Considered. “We have to close Dilley, free the families and abolish ICE.”
The privately-owned center first opened under President Barack Obama’s administration, then closed during Joe Biden’s presidency and reopened in 2025 under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. “I think that’s the thing that really incenses me: this harm is not naturally occurring, it’s manmade and it’s also financially incentivized,” Pressley said. “People are profiting off of the unlawful detainment and deportation of children and families, and this for-profit system is for the separation of families, [and] is for child neglect, abuse and trauma.”
2. Chris Osgood, who worked as Boston’s chief of streets under former Mayor Marty Walsh, is back on the job following the death of Louisa Gag, a transportation planner who was killed last month when a truck driver hit her as she rode her bike. Mayor Michelle Wu appointed him to the role on an interim basis and assigned Tali Robbins, deputy chief of policy, to the streets cabinet.
This comes after advocates said the Wu administration had paused transportation projects, including one on Tremont Street where Gag died. “It’s a bittersweet reality that this movement is happening in the wake of the loss of Luisa Gag,” said Tiffany Cogell of the Boston Cyclists Union. “Every crash fatality deserves to be uplifted and amplified, and we are all pushing and looking forward to Vision Zero, where there will be no more crash fatalities.”
3. Brandeis University is home to the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities, the only federally-funded research center in the country that studies parenting among people with disabilities. But the federal money that funds the organization, a $5 million grant, is scheduled to run out at the end of August, and center officials don’t yet know if it will be renewed. Without it, the center will likely have to close.
“You’re not just removing another grant,” said Monika Mitra, the Lurie Institute’s director and a professor of disability policy. “It’s dismantling a national resource that’s [used by] thousands of disabled parents in the United States, service providers, researchers, policymakers, the families of disabled people [and] prospective parents.”
4. The Boston Society of Architects used Harwich’s first firehouse, which has since been converted into apartments, as one of their case studies showing how cities and towns can repurpose older buildings to create much-needed housing.
“When this was a firehouse — active firehouse — the space was all wide open,” Retired Fire Chief Norman Clarke said. He said he hoped the apartments can go to people who work on the Cape but aren’t able to find affordable housing there. “We’re hoping that all three will be local preference. We already have … a new police officer who commutes from Falmouth every day that’s ready to go.”
Tonight at 7 p.m.: Ed Markey and Seth Moulton debate for Senate nomination
Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Seth Moulton, the two Democratic candidates for the Senate, will meet tonight at 7 p.m. for a debate moderated by GBH News’ Adam Reilly and Boston25's Kerry Kavanaugh. The primary election is Sept. 1, and the winner will go on to face Republican candidate John Deaton in November.
You can watch the debate online here tonight at 7 p.m.
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