City adopts strict sex offender measure

The Marlborough City Council passed a measure last night banning convicted sex offenders from living and working in most of the city, one of the strictest ordinances of its kind in the state. The City Council voted 6 to 5 in favor of the measure, which forbids sex offenders from living and working near schools and places where children, the mentally retarded, or seniors congregate. Sex offenders living in the city can remain in their homes. However, the ordinance bans sex offenders from visiting or working at dozens of public parks, restaurants, and the Solomon Pond Mall. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has called the measure unconstitutional and raised the possibility of a lawsuit.

BOSTON

The Boston Herald announced plans yesterday to file a request with the Supreme Judicial Court for reconsideration of the libel decision against the paper, reached earlier this month, according to a statement released by the paper. On May 7, the SJC upheld a $2.01 million libel verdict from Suffolk Superior Court in 2005 that found that the Herald and its reporter, David Wedge, maliciously published false and defamatory material in a series of stories in 2002 about Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy, portraying him as soft on crime and critical of a 14-year-old rape victim. A statement by the paper called its appeal an opportunity "to raise questions and correct the errors that we believe were made when the SJC arrived at their opinion."

A judge refused to grant a mistrial yesterday for a man who punched a juror as other jurors watched in court. Richard Glawson, 46, is on trial in Suffolk Superior Court on a list of charges stemming from a crime rampage in 2001 that allegedly included shooting a Dedham police officer in the hand. On Friday, as jurors were filing out of the courtroom at the end of the day, Glawson punched an elderly male juror in full view of the 15 other jurors hearing the case. The punch knocked the juror to the floor, but he was not hurt, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. Glawson's lawyer, Joseph Griffin Jr., asked Judge Patrick Brady to declare a mistrial, but the judge refused. Brady said Glawson should not be allowed to benefit from his own disruptive behavior, Wark said. The judge dismissed the juror who was punched by Glawson. Brady ordered Glawson to be shackled during the remainder of the trial. (AP)

The state is seeking public input on the search for a new education commissioner to replace David P. Driscoll, who retires in August. The National Association of State Boards of Education, hired to run the search, is asking the public for advice on education issues facing the state and skills the new commissioner will need to address them, requesting e-mail suggestions to masearch@nasbe.org by June 15. The comments will help guide the State Board of Education, which chooses the commissioner. Deputy Education Commissioner Jeffrey Nellhau will become acting commissioner until a replacement is named.

CHELSEA

The task of painting the 2 1/4-mile-long Tobin Bridge resumed yesterday, as crews picked up where they stopped last fall, gradually covering the girders and trusses with 23,000 gallons of green paint. "That's enough paint for a double line from the Tobin all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco," said Richard Walsh, a spokesman for Massa chusetts Port Authority, which operates the bridge. The project began in 1992 and is slated to be completed in roughly three years. For motorists in the 76,000 vehicles that traverse its span each day, the project means long-term lane closings from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. From today until November, the closings will include two outer lanes on the upper deck after the toll plaza and on the lower deck from the Charlestown tunnel to the old toll area.

RANDOLPH

Town Meeting approved a level-funded budget last night for the Randolph Fire Department, countering concerns that the department's $3.6 million budget would be cut, Randolph Fire Captain Rob Cassford said. The budget was passed without debate after being recommended by the town's Finance Committee, Cassford said. The Randolph Fire Department's budget was called into question Thursday when firefighters said that having additional personnel would have made a significant difference in the response to a two-alarm fire that killed two.

(Correction: Because of an editing error, the surname of the state's deputy education commissioner, Jeffrey Nellhaus, was misspelled in a New England in Brief item yesterday about the search for a new education commissioner.)