u/dustycreports

Tara Jacobs has built a progressive reputation for herself in her four years representing western Mass on the Governor’s Council, a unique-to-Massachusetts elected council of eight that confirms judges and Parole Board appointments. But former Springfield City Council President Michael Fenton argues she has pushed too hard against the governor, jeopardizing the region’s representation in state courts and leaving too many vacancies locally.

In a race that one advocate for the incarcerated called “the most important race no one’s ever heard of,” the two will rematch after Jacobs defeated Fenton four years ago by only 2,300 votes. Read this first installment in The Shoestring’s 2026 election coverage, reported by Dylan Vrins.

The second part of The Shoestring's deep dive into automated license plate readers, and the opposition to them, in western Mass.

A new series from the news outlet The Shoestring, titled “The Brady Bunch,” digs into the police misconduct records — known as Brady disclosures — that independent journalist Andrew Quemere obtained through a years-long lawsuit against the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.

The first installment follows former Granby Police Lt. Gary Poehler, who recently voluntarily agreed never to work in law enforcement again rather than submit to a hearing before the state’s police oversight board. This comes after an investigation found he had paid a subordinate to do academic coursework for him so he could attain higher pay and repeatedly made sexual comments to colleagues. Later, he was found to have intimidated an officer who had previously investigated him.

Stay tuned for more in this series from Andrew Quemere, co-published at theshoestring.org and Quemere’s site, The Mass Dump.