A yearlong attempt by the Fourth of July Committee to ban political and other speech that some bystanders might find offensive from the town’s annual parade came to an end last Thursday.

The town needs an additional $2.3 million for the project that will connect its town water system to the Devens water supply, leaving the Water Commission and the Select Board with few good options.

In about two years, if all goes well, the town’s public water will come from the treated wells in Devens. 

A 16-court badminton facility and two landscaping businesses are slated for the commercial district on Ayer Road.

The history of fires in Still River has left neighborhood residents with admiration for the Harvard firefighters who extinguished those blazes. But it has also left some residents reluctant to let the Fire Department burn a house in Still River as a training exercise.

Last week the Environmental Protection Agency set a nationwide standard for PFAS—more commonly known as “forever chemicals”—in drinking water. The latest tests on Harvard’s town water, supplied by two wells on Pond Road, passed all the new regulations, although one of the regulated substances passed by only three-hundredths of a milligram per liter.

Town Administrator Tim Bragan, set to retire July 1, has already left the building, but the search for his replacement is just beginning.

Bids for the water main portion of the project to connect Harvard to the Devens public water system were opened April 16, and the news was not good.