Good morning,

This week’s actions by our federal administration have led to a stunning decline in eggs.

Nest eggs, that is.

Markets experienced a massive meltdown yesterday, even as the president said everything was going “very well.”

Just before this week’s logic defying “Liberation Day” rollout, we asked chamber members: “How important will tariffs be to your business’ ability to be successful in 2025?”

Over 65% of respondents in our online survey said tariffs would be a “critical” or "important” factor in determining success this year.

Only 10% said tariffs were “not important.”

The concerns were even higher among local companies with 50 or more employees: 76% of our large employers said tariffs were “critical” or “important” to their success.

(Let me know how tariffs are impacting your business.)

Sorry procrastinators, Spring Seasonings is sold out!

Did you catch Joe Prestejohn from Cabot’s Ice Cream on NBC10 yesterday talking up Spring Seasonings?

Hopefully, you’ve purchased your tickets for our chamber’s biggest community event of the year before it aired.  

We’re now sold out, although we’ve created a wait list.

Needham crowns new town manager

Deputy Town Manager Katie King has been selected to become the second town manager in Needham’s history

King will succeed Kate Fitzpatrick — the town’s top administrator since 2001 and a town employee for 35 years — who will retire July 5.

After an extensive search, the select board voted 4-1 to hire King, reports Peter O’Neil at the Needham Observer.

King had been Fitzpatrick’s deputy since 2020. Before that, she was director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for Mayor Marty Walsh. She also worked for American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association of the Northeast.

Welcome home Commodore Builders

After spending about a decade in Waltham, Commodore Builders has moved back to Newton.

Commodore had been looking for office space in Newton since before the pandemic, CEO Joe Albanese tells the BBJ’s Greg Ryan.

This week Albanese closed on the purchase of the three-story, 96,000-square-foot building and adjacent parking garage at 1210-1230 Washington St. in West Newton (the former Rockport Shoes HQ) from The Davis Cos. and Marcus Partners for $23.8 million.

“This is a building I’ve always had my eye on. I know the building,” Albanese told Ryan. “It’s in a unique position on the Mass. Pike. It’s centrally located for employees coming from the north, south and west. There’s easy access to Boston. We have a lot of amenities right outside our door.”

Panera Bread’s corporate offices and video production company AVI-SPL VideoLink are tenants on the property.

Commodore has about 240 employees and is one of the state’s largest construction companies and a long-time chamber friend.

Friday grab bag

• During her address at our event on Monday, Gov. Maura Healey noted how Austin, Texas managed to dramatically reverse years of rapid rent increases by creating more housing.  Forward this link to any skeptics in your orbit who still don’t believe the answer to more reasonably priced homes is to increase supply.
  
  
• Healey also announced Monday that Wellesley’s MBTA Communities Act plan is now fully compliant.
  
  
• The Needham Observer is all over next Tuesday’s town election, including a story contrasting the two select board candidates (incumbent Heidi Frail and first-time candidate Vikram Kaul) and two other critical contests where the contrasts also couldn’t be any different: Planning Board and Housing Authority.  
  
  
• The 60-member Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators has identified its top-five priority bills and three strategic priorities to guide the caucus's work during the current session.
  
  
• Babson College hosts “What Will Become of the Green Economy in 2025?” with Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao and Trustees of Reservations CEO Katie Theoharides on Tues. (April 8) at 5 p.m.
  
  
• The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office hosts a webinar on the state’s new wage transparency laws. Tues. (April 8) at 11 a.m.  
  
  
• The Asian Business Empowerment Council is launching “Ignite,” a free multilingual webinar and coaching program to support Asian-owned restaurants.
  
  
• Apply for Round 2 of the MA250 Grants to support events, programs, and initiatives that commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution across Massachusetts. Deadline is April 11.
  
  
• The Mass. Business Alliance for Education hosts a virtual briefing on the state of Massachusetts' public education system, Tues. (April 8) at noon. RSVP|.
  
  
• Check out the Globe’s fascinating profile exploring the evolution of 28-year-old Newton native Jeremy Lewin.  He was a member of Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and now heads efforts to dismantle USAID.

Our recommendations to Wellesley Town Meeting

Wellesley Town Meeting kicked off this week. The chamber has taken a position on three of the warrant articles up for consideration.

• “Yes” on Article 34, which would transition the obsolete Wellesley Housing Development Corporation into an industry-standard Affordable Housing Trust. Read our letter.
• “Yes” on Article 35, which introduces a Skip-the-Stuff bylaw, requiring restaurants to provide single-use items like utensils and condiments only upon request.  Read our letter.
• “No” on Article 42, which would gut the town's Residential Incentive Overlay (RIO) bylaw. If passed, this change would make it much harder to zone for and build multi-family. Read our letter.

‘History is being stripped from us’

Finally today, libraries and museums across the commonwealth are in limbo after yet another executive order placed the entire 70-person staff of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on leave Monday.

Local libraries are primarily funded by local property taxes. But they depend on federal dollars for many popular services including interlibrary loans, e-books and access to databases, reports WBUR.  

Then there’s the state’s museums, which received $4.4 million in IMLS grants in 2024, reports Maddie Browning.

Among those was Historic Newton’s Jackson Homestead and Museum, recipient of  a three-year $135,754 grant in 2024 through LMLS to streamline, catalog and preserve its unique textile collection.

Historic Newton has yet to receive the majority of the funds and anticipates the need to lay off the human it hired to execute the initiative, says Executive Director Lisa Dady.

“This executive order harms Newton in small and large ways. First, a member of the community no longer has work. Second, the collection at Historic Newton is the physical manifestation of over 350 years of history; without funding to care for and maintain this collection, essential stories risk being lost to time,” says Dady.

“And, we as a society face the idea that history is being stripped from us.”

Lend your voice here.

And that’s what you need to know for today — opening day at Fenway Park — unless you need to know how many losses in a row it takes for baseball fans in different states to lose faith in their baseball team. (Spoiler: We edge out Yankee fans on this one.)

Be back next week. Please support local.

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

I value your feedback.