News Briefs

By Joseph Domelowicz Jr.

Riders help save bus driver in stabbing

According to police, passengers on MBTA Bus Route 426 acted quickly in helping their female bus driver, who had been attached with a knife by a male rider, helping to prevent further attack and subduing the attacker until police arrived on scene.

According to Transit a female MBTA bus driver was stabbed multiple times Saturday at around 11:47 p.m. in the area of Boston Street and Fenton Avenue.

The driver had at least two stab wounds to her back and was taken to a local hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

According to reports, the preliminary investigation showed that a 53-year-old Lynn man, Gustavo Merida, traveling on the bus attacked the driver without provocation. Other passengers on board stopped the attack, and detained the suspect until police arrived, transit police said.

Merida was arrested for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and was scheduled to be arraigned in Lynn District Court Monday morning, according to transit police.

 

Council unanimously approves late fee hike for late tax payers

According to Lynn’s Chief Financial Officer Peter Caron, a proposal approved by Councilors Tuesday night to double late fees for local residents who pay their excise and property taxes late, could raise as much as $960,000, if the same number of people choose to pay their bills late again this year.

The Council voted to approve a double of the late fee for excise and property taxes from $15 to $30 per taxpayer. Last year, the late fee added $480,000 to the city’s general fund.

“The call was put out to department heads to review their fees as a way to increase revenue,” said Caron. “That was one of the marching orders from the mayor.”

The Ways & Means Committee voted to approve the measure without debate and the City Council followed.

Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy supported the fee hike, but she vetoed the local option meals tax that would impose a .0075 percent tax on top of the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax on meals.

The City Council is expected override the mayor’s veto at a special meeting next Tuesday.

 

Beaches Commission to meet

The Metropolitan Beaches Commission’s (MBC) May 30 hearing at the Lynn Museum, 590 Washington St., starts at 6 p.m. and is scheduled for two hours. A second hearing is scheduled for June 12, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the State House, room 222.

Topics will include water quality improvements throughout local beaches this summer, as well as algae removal. According to an MBC press release, the hearings will also focus on potential budget cuts affecting free events and state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) beach operations in Lynn and Nahant.

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