After more than two decades on the job, Peter Lowitt, who has led the staff of the commission that regulates commercial and residential development at Devens since 1999, will retire as director this summer.

When voters gather for a Special Town Meeting next month, they will be asked to approve four articles, including an increase in a tax surcharge, money for a water connection to Devens, and a change to town center zoning.

Prospective candidates for elected, volunteer positions in town government will be pleased to know they have plenty of time to prepare for a run.

The School Committee and the Harvard Educators Association (formerly the Harvard Teachers Association) negotiated throughout 2022 in an effort to reach a three-year contract to take effect next September. But those negotiations apparently reached an impasse last month, and the HEA filed a complaint with the state Labor Relations Commission.

The state’s decision to commandeer the Bob Eisengrein Community Center at Devens for use as a place to process and find emergency housing for homeless people in Massachusetts was controversial when it was announced. But on Monday night, MassDevelopment’s acting executive vice president for Devens was ready to declare the center’s operation a success.

When at the end of November the drawdown at Bare Hill Pond revealed previously submerged debris, Harvard’s harbormaster, Bob O’Shea, knew that timing its removal could be tricky. 

When the Select Board sent the Planning Board a proposed one-sentence amendment to add entertainment to the bylaw that defines allowable agricultural uses four months ago, the Planning Board made it clear that it wanted more substance. But that substance has yet to materialize.

At its meeting in mid-December, the Capital Planning and Investment Committee discussed the schools’ capital requests for fiscal 2024, which included several large maintenance projects for the Bromfield School. 

This February residents will weigh in on whether they would be willing to pay more taxes every year to support open space and recreation, conservation, and affordable housing in Harvard. 

At a special hearing Jan. 5, the Select Board granted Carlson Orchards its annual pouring license, allowing it to serve Carlson’s hard cider in the Cider Barn on its Oak Hill Road property for another year.

Devens voters last week cast ballots to fill three seats on the Devens Committee and two on the Devens Educational Advisory Committee.

The board of directors of MassDevelopment has voted to extend the contract of the agency’s CEO, Dan Rivera, for three more years, assuring that he will remain leader of the quasi-state agency overseeing development at Devens well into the first term of the incoming governor, Maura Healey.

The School Committee unanimously approved a budget for fiscal 2024 at a very brief special meeting Thursday, Dec. 15, and sent it on to the Finance Committee and Select Board for review. But even as they did so, School Committee members acknowledged that further revisions were likely.

For residents over the age of 60, working for the town to receive a reduction in property taxes just became a little more attractive.

Neighborly kindness, social media, and high technology all combined in the search for a missing dog in Devens last weekend.

Select Board members agreed at their Dec. 20 meeting that it would make sense to raise the CPA surcharge to 3%, the maximum allowed by the state, to help fund a possible athletic field complex.

The state’s temporary center at Devens to help homeless people in Massachusetts find emergency housing is now open and receiving clients.

The Open Space Committee was hoping to have $1 million at the ready to purchase a suitable parcel of land for a multifield athletic complex, should one suddenly become available. But at its Dec. 8 meeting, the Capital Planning and Investment Committee said that’s not how it works.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, falling test scores in math and reading have alarmed parents and educators nationwide, and rightly so. But the 2022 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) results show that Harvard students’ scores have held up well and remain among the highest in the state.

It’s been nearly three years since a feasibility study determined that the town’s fire station, built in 1976, was unsafe, too small, and didn’t meet current codes. The study concluded that a new, larger station should be built at a different location, for an estimated cost of $17.8 million, not including the cost of purchasing land.