Highlights of this Weekly Update:
| Registration for Summer Recreation begins February 1st – details available on that date. |
| Gardner Fire Department has advice on ways to prevent freezing pipes during the cold winter weather. |
| Christmas Lights can be put in the regular trash. |
| On Sunday, January 19th at 1pm the Gardner Elks will host “Bingo for a Cause. |
| Police Department reminds everyone that January is National Stalking Awareness Month |
| Levi Heywood Memorial Library to have a series of Saturdays beginning January 11th on decluttering. |
| Library has a Hot Cocoa Party on Saturday February 1st at 11am for ages 3 to 7 |
| Congratulations to new City Council President George Tyros and School Committee Vice Chair Rachael Cormier. |
| Parking meters set to go live on January 13th. Meters will take change. Credit card users will need a cell phone app called Park Mobile. |
| Weekly Updates to end in favor of monthly updates. |
UPDATE: 1-11-25: Mayor Nicholson was asked about this on WGAW’s Hotline Saturday January 11th. Host Steve Wendell informed the Mayor that WGAW airs the update every Saturday morning. The Mayor then left the door open to bringing back a Weekly Update. Here’s the exchange. Listen on any device.
Gardner Mayor to END Weekly Updates – Plans Monthly Video Instead
In a move which will surprise Gardner Magazine readers, Gardner Mayor Michael Nicholson has announced a transition to less frequent updates. Weekly Updates have been CANCELED in favor of monthly updates. Listen to this week’s update on any device. CLICK PLAY.
The Mayor stated, “We’ll have this one that goes out for this week, and then we’ll have one the last week of January, and then you can expect it the last week of every month from here on out for the rest of 2025. If we find that there’s something that comes up that requires a special edition update, and there’s something that we want to get information out to the public, that’s certainly on the table and something that we’ll have going forward, particularly around the budget season. That’s probably when we’ll have those special edition updates that we already know are coming. But at least from now until those special circumstances arise, we’re going to transition to those monthly updates.”
As for why the decision was made the Mayor stated, “Based off of a significant amount of feedback that we’ve received from some of the viewers of these weekly updates, we’ve decided in 2025 to transition these from weekly updates to monthly updates. The reason being for that is a lot of the feedback we were getting is that it’s a lot of the same information week after week.”
Our Opinion – a Bad Decision
Publisher’s Note: We are not sure where the Mayor is getting his data, but there simply have been very few viewers each week with generally much less than 100 views per week on YouTube and most likely a small number on cable. However, the updates draw thousands of listeners on Gardner Magazine. The Mayor’s Update of December 6th drew 4,636 listeners, December 13th 2,873, and the Mayor’s November 22nd update still drew 1,720 listeners in December in addition to November listenership. While at times the updates have been repetitive with respect to local events, that is in fact a recent development with the majority of the updates previously having more to do with Gardner issues in general. In our opinion, the Mayor should revert back to the original content model rather than abandoning what has become a weekly message both eagerly anticipated by the public and great PR for the City in general. This is, in our opinion, a decision based on erroneous data and/or assumptions, likely fueled by a very small group. After all, the 99% who are loyal listeners and like the weekly updates aren’t likely to express their opinion.