Have you seen Tyler? Missing 16 year old last seen in Worcester

16 YEAR OLD MISSING: LAST SEEN IN WORCESTER

Tyler Gaudet has been missing since Saturday April 23 and was last seen in Worcester.

Tyler is approximately 5’4, weighs 135 lbs. blue eyes and is 16 years old.

It is believed he may have headed to following locations: Ayer, Leominster, Springfield, or may even still be somewhere in Worcester.

Any information regarding his whereabouts should consist of notifying the police immediately at 508-799-8651.

WPI says students must choose between speaker and receiving diploma on stage

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Three weeks ago some of Worcester Polytechnic Institutes’ students and faculty criticized the school for choosing Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, as this year’s commencement speaker. Dissenters charge the company hasn’t done enough to invest in clean energy, has active air and groundwater pollution lawsuits against them in New York and Massachusetts and still hasn’t fully paid punitive damages stemming from the 1989 oil spill off of the coast of Alaska — all issues that don’t mesh with the school’s mission statement or growing “green” image. We wrote about this in our April 14 issue.

REC Earth Day Clean-ups

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

The Regional Environmental Council will host its 22nd annual Earth Day Clean-ups  this Saturday with volunteers hauling litter, garbage and illegally dumped items from 65 locations around the city.

Last year the REC says 1,000 volunteers teamed up to gather 30 tons of trash from Worcester’s streets and parks.

If you’re not signed up for a specific site there’s still time to contact the REC (earthday@recworcester.org) or click on one of the bubbles on the map below and get in touch with the site coordinator.

Worcester Mag will be out cleaning up, down and around Water Street from 10:00 to 12:00. Honk if you drive by. (Or join us.)

Online exclusives

Posted by Brittany Durgin

Best of Worcester directory – Aside from winners being listed by category, you’ll also find Google Map locations of first place winners.

Photos of metal – Ralph’s Diner celebrates five years of Metal Thursdays tonight. See a gallery of images from past shows here.

Live reading – See photos from Worcester Mag’s poetry winner celebration held at WCUW last Friday.

Six to Midnite – Hear this local rock band in WooTown Sounds.

Pride and Assimilation – The most recent profile in our series looking at multicultural leaders of Worcester.

Have a drink with us – RSVP to our Worcester Mag on Tap event in May here on Facebook.

El Paso’s street vendor ordinance rewritten

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Normally we don’t pay much attention to El Paso, Texas on this blog, except when their food vendor ordinance — similar to Worcester’s and passed around the same time — becomes the focus of a civil rights lawsuit which forces the city to change the law.

City Council live blog 4/26/11 — The “if you lived here, you’d be home by now” edition

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Agenda. Cover It Live.

No budget proposal tonight (see post below) but Mayor O’Brien (and others) will begin their push for a residency requirement to keep municipal and school workers living in Worcester.

7:15: Proclamation for Earth Day and REC clean ups.

Muni unions and city close to health care agreement?

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

Tonight’s council meeting was supposed to feature a budget presentation by City Manager Mike O’Brien detailing where the 131 city layoffs would be, assuming the municipal unions didn’t agree to moving into a new city-offered health care plan.

We heard from one councilor today who said that presentation has been postponed. When asked if it was because things had changed between the unions and the city since last week, and that there’s confidence an agreement could be reached before the next council meeting, our source replied “you could say that.”

Meanwhile, the House is still debating the final version of how the state will change municipal health care options, but questions still remain about what it will look like. More on this in Thursday’s paper.

Update: Looks like Friday is the goal. O’Brien sent a letter to the councilors today explaining the delayed budget presentation. The gist:

There continues to be positive conversations with City-side unions on the switch to the new “GIC-like” health care plans. I believe it to be prudent to allow these conversations to continue through Friday of this week to try to secure Memorandums of Agreements (MOA) with those willing to make this transition to the new health care plans and avoid lay-offs and demotions of their membership…I believe a budget presentation today detailing specifics of these lay-offs and demolitions, position by position, would create undue concern among these employees if in fact their positions can be saved by reaching agreements with these willing City-side unions within a week’s time.

Today in Worcester WTF*

Posted by Jeremy Shulkin

This, from the Telegram:

Police believe a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a car on Constitution Avenue last night. The attack comes a few days after another car on Woodford Street was damaged by the same type of incendiary device.

The incident occurred on April 20, 2011. According to one branch of the Terminator franchise on April 19, 2011 Skynet became self-aware. Two days later — so, tomorrow — it was/is our robotic overlord.

Coming soon to Worcester

*This is the first time I’ve ever typed this. I swear.