THE BAD news with the dry weather is that the lack of rain is exacerbating the drought conditions statewide.

The good news is that major construction projects like the Lowell High School rebuild/renovation and various housing developments are able to stay on or ahead of schedule.

Nowhere is that dynamic more evident than with the Rourke Bridge replacement project. As of last week, construction platforms stretched from the north side of and out to the middle of the Merrimack River.

Beautiful blue skies dotted with fluffy white clouds provided a picture-perfect showcase to the project with the green shoreline, yellow cranes, the rust-colored pilings and the red Poseidon equipment barges.

The new bridge’s construction started on the north side of the river off Pawtucket Boulevard by Old Ferry Road in Pawtucketville, and will work its way south past the eastern corner of the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell’s athletic field closest to the Wood Street entrance of the current bridge off Middlesex Street in the Highlands neighborhood.

The $303 million new bridge will run west of the existing span, which will be removed once the new bridge is operational.

The summer 2026 update from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation said the temporary access platform on the north side of the river off Pawtucket Boulevard was complete, allowing construction crews to focus on the initial three temporary pier cofferdams. It looks like those projects are well underway.

This is a magnificent feat of engineering. Being able to watch it happen in real time, from several outstanding vantage points, is a thrill.

Get yourself down to the riverfront to take in this marvel yourself.

— Melanie Gilbert

BELVIDERE RESIDENTS Jamie Armstrong and Aga Bereznicka became Mug Club members as soon as they heard that a Sea Dog location in Lowell was planned.

The couple happily purchased the membership that allows patrons several benefits throughout the Sea Dog chain, including a 20-ounce mug of beer for a pint price. A membership was $75 per person sign-up fee, and a $65 annual membership renewal.

It was while they were dining at another Sea Dog location that they heard from an employee that the Lowell location wasn’t happening, and they decided to reach out to the paper. Armstrong said the Mug Club membership was a consumer rights issue, and the money shouldn’t “go to waste.”

“I really wanted to get this to you so folks knew to get after their refunds,” Armstrong said by email Thursday.

By Thursday afternoon, the Sea Dog homepage posted, “To our Lowell Community, if you would like to contact us for any info about Mug Club, please email us directly at: info@seadogbrewing.com.”

— Melanie Gilbert

SEA DOG took over the former space of El Jefe, which shut down in 2024 for renovations, but never reopened.

El Jefe’s December 2024 liquor license renewal fee of $2,750 was not paid, and the Lowell License Commission unanimously voted at its October 2025 meeting to revoke the restaurant’s license, opening the door for Sea Dog to take over the space and apply for a new license.

Lowell’s commission approved Sea Dog’s license in December, but the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission denied the brewpub’s state application this July.

It’s the latest disappointment for brewpub aficionados.

In 2023 Navigation Brewing expanded from Lowell to Chelmsford, ultimately closing their longtime location at Western Avenue Studios this past October.

Thanks to an almost $1 million investment and buildout, Sea Dog’s space is ready to go — if another applicant can get the state to issue a license, that is.

— Melanie Gilbert

ACCORDING TO the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, at least 80 police departments across the commonwealth have taken up use of Flock Safety automatic license plate reader cameras.

If that estimate of 80 departments was correct before, it sure doesn’t look like it is anymore.

Opposition to Flock cameras has been growing louder by the day, and all of a sudden a number municipalities throughout the state are reconsidering their contracts with the surveillance company, or dropping their product entirely.

By the end of July, at least six Massachusetts communities had dropped Flock’s ALPR camera system: Framingham, Natick, Cambridge, Watertown, Salem and Attleboro. At that time, the town of Littleton had believed its six cameras were temporarily shut off after the town hit the switch in May due to resident concerns with the cameras, but the town would soon learn Flock had switched them right back on without informing anybody.

That news led to Littleton joining the list of towns outright getting rid of Flock, and four of their six cameras have since been removed with the final two set for a takedown next month.

After Littleton though, the list grew larger still.

Earlier this month the city of New Bedford suspended its use of Flock cameras after it was discovered that one of its police officers had allegedly been using the system to track the movements of her ex-girlfriend. A similar accusation was levied against a police officer in Stow, where the department is charging him with using the town’s Flock cameras to obtain information about his ex-girlfriend. As a result, Stow, too, stopped using Flock’s cameras.

Then on Thursday the town of Hopkinton announced that its police department had terminated its contract with Flock. In a joint statement from Town Manager Elaine Lazarus and interim Police Chief Scott van Raalten, they said the termination of the Flock contract was done after a legal review “found that statutory deficiencies make the agreement unlawful under Massachusetts law,” and that Flock is being asked to remove the cameras by Sept. 30.

Then the train kept on rolling, with two more communities, East Bridgewater and Grafton, announcing the end of their relationship with Flock. For East Bridgewater’s police the reason was that “residents have raised legitimate concerns about privacy, access to data, oversight and the safeguards needed to prevent misuse.”

“After listening to those concerns and taking a closer look at the issue, I believe ending our agreement with Flock is the right decision for East Bridgewater,” Police Chief Michael Jenkins said in a statement Friday.

With East Bridgewater came a similar statement from the Grafton Police Department, with Police Chief Neil Minardi announcing on the department’s Facebook page that it “has begun the process of deactivating all Flock devices amid growing concerns about the use of this technology in our community.”

“This decision also comes in response to vandalism and theft involving these devices,” Minardi added.

While there has been no public decision on the future of Flock cameras there, two officers in the city of Lynn were placed on paid leave this week after the police department conducted an audit that they said “identified anomalies” in their use of the system.

That is a serious surge in momentum toward Flock’s cameras vanishing from Massachusetts in just the last week, though at least some of the aforementioned police departments have said they will drop Flock, but will seek a new ALPR vendor. Based on the growing number of cases of misuse of these systems by police officers, there is a compelling argument to be made that Flock as a company is not the sole problem here, and that a new vendor will not change things.

— Peter Currier

CONTROVERSIES DON’T die down quickly in Dracut. Perhaps, they never did, but the advent of social media has enabled them to linger, percolating not far under the surface, only to erupt again.

The only two items on the agenda for Tuesday night’s quickly called meeting of the Board of Selectmen offer a case in point.

The first item calls on the board to review an Open Meeting Law complaint filed on Aug. 12 against the selectmen and to authorize the selectmen to respond.

The second item is an update from School Committee Chair Rob Sheppard on that board’s request to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for additional time to seek town approval to build a replacement for the Campbell and Greenmont Avenue schools.

The two items are not unrelated. Both involve discussions about a proposed $177 million replacement of the Greenmont Avenue and Joseph A. Campbell schools. The June 29 meeting was called to discuss next steps after voters defeated a $177 million replacement for the two schools.

The vote at the joint meeting was confusing. The motion to ask for extra time was carefully worded to be ambiguous, and the results of the roll call led to a question about how to count the results. Should the votes of the two boards be combined or counted separately? By combining the votes it would appear that the motion to ask for extra time carried on a 5-4-1 vote. By separating the vote it was clear selectmen were opposed with 3 voting against, 1 voting for and 1 abstention.

That confusion, and an apparent hot mic moment after the meeting ended, caused one Open Meeting Law complaint from Sabrina Heisey, a former member of the School Committee.

Coming out of that meeting, Selectman Josh Taylor decided to urge opponents of the school project to register complaints with the MSBA.

He also wrote a letter of complaint himself, saying in it that he was writing “on behalf of the town.” He ran the language by Selectman Chair Don Plummer, he said. But he was not expecting to see that phrase in Taylor’s email. Plummer said he’d been copied on the email. However, when he saw it in his email inbox, it was too late.

Taylor does not have the standing to write “on behalf of the town,” Plummer told The Sun. Taylor is no longer chairman of the Board of Selectmen, a position he held from May 2025 to May 2026.

The MSBA saw the contents of Taylor’s email, and an unknown number of other emails, as evidence the town was not fully behind the project and gave town officials until Aug. 31 to provide documentation that the town is committed to the project.

— Prudence Brighton

TYNGSBORO’S MEDIA Department is always on the look out for new ways to reach town residents who seem to be caught unaware when a project is about to disrupt their neighborhood until the heavy equipment arrives.

“People are busy these days,” Select Board member Eric Eldridge said of the low turnout at the recent town election. But, just as local elections are often more important than state and federal elections, local news is important, too. Just ask any reporter who writes local news stories.

Both local officials and local reporters shake their heads when residents appear at meetings and seem ill used because no one told them that a disruptive project was in contemplation. That’s despite months of public meetings, notices and news stories.

Media Director Rony Camille has turned to YouTube to produce short briefs that will give residents the highlights of what’s happening in under three minutes. Find the first Tyngsboro news brief production at youtube.com/watch?v=bFQZPWY8Wq8.

A recent broadcast featured a quick update on fire station developments, Tyngsboro revenues last year coming in about $500,000 above expectations, a new member joining the School Committee, and the Select Board looking for ways to make town finances easier for the public to understand.

Of course, this reporter hopes residents will find something interesting enough to read the newspaper — either online or in print. Spread the word. Local news, at least in Tyngsboro, doesn’t have to be a surprise.

— Prudence Brighton