On Sept. 5, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health raised the risk level for Eastern equine encephalitis to “high” in Harvard and the Middlesex County towns of Ayer, Boxborough, Acton, Littleton, and Carlisle. 

If Gov. Maura Healey’s economic development bill passes later this month with its provisions for more housing at Devens, the state will seek to build first in areas already zoned for residential development, not in Vicksburg Square—which is not.

The warrant for the second session of Annual Town Meeting, to be held in the Cronin Auditorium at the Bromfield School at noon on Sept. 28, sparked some controversy at the Sept. 4 Select Board meeting.

For the next 18 months, Depot Road will be an active construction site as the $7 million project to connect town water to the Devens water supply begins. Starting the week of Sept. 16, contractors will begin installing a water main along the full length of Depot Road, from Ayer Road to the railroad tracks. 

The Nashoba Valley Medical Center closed last Saturday, Aug. 31, after serving 16 central Massachusetts communities for more than 60 years. The hospital’s operator, Texas-based Steward Health Care, announced July 26 that it would close both Nashoba and Carney Hospital in Dorchester on the same day, giving barely 36 days notice.

No one is sure why, but the sewage pipes under the old library building, home to the community arts collaborative Fivesparks, are functioning again. The restrooms in the building have been reopened, and there are no further plans for investigation or repairs.

Just under a quarter of Harvard’s registered voters cast ballots in this year’s state primary election. And only a third of those who did vote cast their ballots in person last Tuesday at the new location in the Hildreth Elementary School gymnasium.