Natick Report

More than you really want to know about Natick, Mass.

Please help fund our Natick Report summer internship

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We’re looking forward to having our first intern this summer.

Our intern, who we’ll introduce soon, will report and write stories, and learn about how Natick Report works. Among the assignments planned are to write about accessibility issues in town, cover events, and perhaps write about a few area activities that go beyond Natick.

We’ll be providing our intern with a stipend, but would love to get contributions from businesses and readers to help us better fund this position.

If interested in helping, please select the “Donate” button below. Thank you…

Entering Natick Sign, Natick

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Contrarian Boston newsletter takes notice of Natick Report

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Thanks to Mark Pickering of the Contrarian Boston newsletter for interviewing Deborah (my co-editor at Natick Report) to write about our local news venture.

Contrarian Boston is a paid subscription publication, so I can’t link you to the article (“Natick news outlet finds room to grow”), but Mark captured our story—and Natick’s—well: “Natick itself is almost like a tale of two towns. There’s the neat downtown with its handsome brick commercial buildings. Then there’s a sprawling shopping district along busy Route 9, which includes the Natick Mall.”

contrarian boston

’60 Minutes’ segment on Natick couple’s harassment by eBay execs airing Sunday, March 26

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CBS’s “60 Minutes” takes its turn telling the well documented and awful story of eBay executives who in 2019 cyberstalked and harassed the Natick couple that publishes the eCommerceBytes newsletter.

The crimes, sparked by anger over coverage of eBay in the publication, have led to jail time for some of the former eBay execs.

The teaser for the segment raises the question: “Why would senior management at eBay, the popular Silicon Valley ecommerce giant want ‘terrorize’ a couple from a tiny town in Massachusetts who ran a website out of their home? That’s our story tonight…” (Hey, Natick’s not that “tiny”!)

In addition to interviewing the couple, David and Ina Steiner, “60 Minutes” spoke with Natick police officers on the case.

“60 Minutes” aired at 7pm on CBS locally on March 26, 2023. Watch the full segment.

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Fall in Natick: Signs of the season

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We’ve reached peak color in Natick this fall. The yellows and oranges, the reds and browns. The blacks and blues, the purples and greens. Yes, lawn signs are everywhere, both on private property and on public land, where they shouldn’t be.

You know the hot spots, along the stretch of Rte. 135 near the dog park, in South Natick at the intersection of Union/Pleasant/Eliot, and even on school grounds.  The offenders are many, from political campaigns to private schools to realtors to companies that yes, sell yard signs. Extreme signage displays have been seen in town of late, such as those urging people to slow the @!(#% down, but hey, do what you will on your own property.

 

wilson school sign and yard signs

 

Section 6               Signs in Public Ways or on Public Property

No person shall place any unauthorized or non-conforming sign within the right-of-way of any street or on public property. The Building Commissioner is authorized to take down and remove such an unauthorized or non-conforming sign. Such sign shall be retained by the Building Commissioner for a period of thirty days after its removal. The owner of such sign may reclaim it within thirty days of its removal by submitting satisfactory proof of ownership to the Building Commissioner. If such sign is not claimed within such thirty day period, the Building Commissioner may cause such sign to be destroyed without incurring any liability to the Town or any of its Agents.

The issue even came up during the South Natick dam discussion at the Oct. 3 Select Board meeting (about 1 hour and 24 minutes) when a Save Natick Dam proponent said that some of their signs had been removed. That led to a brief discussion about when the town will take down signs put up on public land. We’ve heard Select Board pleas to the public in the past to at least remember to remove such yard signs after events being promoted have taken place.

yard signs

Need to get your message across without cluttering the town? Clutter our local news site instead by advertising on Natick Report and reaching our growing readership.

We’ve got thousands of monthly readers of our posts about everything from town government to family activities. We’ve built a daily email newsletter subscriber base of about650, and have attracted nearly 3,000 social media followers.

Keep up on Natick happenings by subscribing to our email newsletter, which we send most weekdays, once in a while on the weekend

Natick Report growth a focus of Google News Initiative Startups Lab

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The Swellesley Report—parent company of Natick Report—is 1 of 16 independent publishers selected to take part in the 2022 GNI Startups Lab on Managing Money and Risk.

The program, a collaboration between the Google News Initiative and the LION Publishers trade group that we belong to, is designed to help outfits like ours build sustainable news operations. In our case, this includes both Swellesley, which has been around since 2005, and our newer Natick Report, launched in 2020.

The program, which kicked off for us earlier this month, will provide training, funding and coaching on:

  • Navigating risk and uncertainty
  • Financial management
  • Setting goals
  • Developing key business and financial documents
  • Growth opportunities

Thanks to everyone who has supported our independent news sites to this point, via contributions, advertising, sharing news tips (natickreport@gmail.com), engaging with us on social media, or reading the site/subscribing to our email newsletter.