Author: Gabby Galbadis

Saugus River Watershed Council Honors

William Leuci and Stephanie Shalkoski were given Stewardship Awards for their years of environmental activism in numerous organizations in town at the Saugus River Watershed Council’s annual dinner this month. Debra Panetta, president of the council and former awardee, heralded Leuci as an “unsung hero” and Shalkoski as “deeply committed” to environmental issues and civic engagement at the March 16 event, which took place at The Marina Restaurant & Bar at the Wharf in Revere.

“It’s a big deal to be recognized by your peers as someone who goes over and above,” said Panetta, in an interview days before the dinner.

The award ceremony is held every year to honor Saugus residents and members of the council who advocate for local environmental issues.

Nearly four dozen people gathered for the dinner, which included the awards ceremony, silent auction, and a recap of the council’s 2025 accomplishments. The keynote speaker was local engineer and outdoorsman Steve Fantone. Many members of town government were present, including multiple Town Meeting members.

Panetta presented the awards and shared the history and accomplishments of the two recipients. Leuci, who is devoted to bettering Saugus, was born in 1938 in Everett and attended Everett High School. He earned a degree in education from Fitchburg State College, Panetta said in her speech.

Leuci met his wife, Janet, in 1963 when they were both teaching at Woburn High School. The two got married in 1965 and after moving to Saugus in 1968, the first of their four sons were born. Leuci continued to teach. He later joined the board of directors of the local teacher’s association and was later elected president.

Janet was a member of the group Saugus Action Volunteers for the Environment and was a Town Meeting member representing Precinct 4 for 22 years before she passed away from cancer in 2013, Panetta said. Leuci took his wife’s place at Town Meeting for the remainder of that year and for the next 10 years. Leuci is a former School Committee member, is a current member of SAVE and the Conservation Commission and has been chair of the Aggregate Post Closure Committee for the past five years.

Leuci said it was nice to get the recognition. He explained that Janet’s generous involvement in the community was what pushed him to be the same way. “She taught me a lot,” Leuci said, laughing.

Shalkoski was unable to attend the dinner due to delays caused by traveling, Panetta said, but her parents accepted the award on her behalf.

Shalkoski earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston College and a public leadership degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Panetta said in her introduction of Shalkoski. Shalkowski now serves as the senior associate director of alumni relations at Harvard Business School.

She has been a property owner and Saugus resident since 2014, said Panetta. Shalkoski is a Town Meeting member, representing Precinct 4 since 2023. She is the co-president of SAVE and a regular volunteer for community cleanup groups and other environmental initiatives.

“She advocates for anything that is environmental in town,” said Panetta.

The watershed council, founded in 1991, has 675 members and hundreds of volunteers who work to protect the natural resources of the Saugus River watershed. Members promote public access and enjoyment of the waterway, advocate for improved water quality and work to restore river habitats. They also prioritize educating people about the environment through numerous community programs.

During the event Mary Lester, director of the council, highlighted the council’s top accomplishments in 2025 and said efforts to protect the watershed have resulted in more people and animals enjoying it in the past year. She chronicled the council’s numerous upcoming initiatives, such as working collaboratively with nearby communities on watershed issues, boosting federal grants for water quality testing and working with agencies for additional sediment sampling. She said the council is collaborating with McAllister Engineering to continue improvements through a federal water quality grant that would, among other things, allow them to explore areas for stormwater treatment along Fenton and Southside Avenues, to capture and treat runoff before it enters the Saugus River.

Lester shared that the Saugus council has been collaborating with neighboring cities, such as Revere, Malden, Everett, and Lynn, to combat threats to the watershed. “It’s the first time I’ve seen individual towns and cities come together for the betterment of the watershed,” Lester said, later adding, “In the watershed there are no borders.”

March 26, 2026
A Push for Public Art in Saugus

As co-chair of the Saugus Cultural Council, Victoria “Tori” Darnell is pushing to introduce public art in Saugus, even though the town’s zoning bylaws prevent it. Others on the council, joined by local business owners and Saugus residents, say public art would be a welcome addition to the town’s landscape, but the Saugus zoning bylaws place limitations on signage, specifically on size, color, location and illumination.

“I want to create policy. I don’t want to just change the bylaw, because I understand what the bylaw serves,’’ Darnell said in a recent interview. “It’s just that signage and art are not necessarily the same thing.”

Darnell’s efforts for a new public art policy have faced several roadblocks. While Saugus is a close-knit community, she said residents whose families have not lived in Saugus for generations have had a harder time getting their voices heard, particularly around public art.

They often get the run around, she added. For instance, when she previously expressed her public art ideas to precinct members, they directed her to the town manager and the Select Board. “When I go down those avenues, it’s just crickets,” Darnell said.

Darnell said she first noticed the town was void of public art after moving to Saugus in 2021. While walking through Saugus, she said, her son, who was five at the time, asked, “Where’s the art?”

Darnell said her previous communities, Revere and Boston, are filled with public art in the parks, public squares and various sites in neighborhoods. “I sort of took it for granted,” she said. “It takes … a child’s mind to recognize that something is missing and how important it is.”

Joseph “Dennis” Gould, the council’s other co-chair, who backs Darnell’s efforts, said art has a rightful place in town. “If you look at Lynn, where they’ve done murals,’’ Gould said, “it’s a great thing.”

Darnell also noted that Lynn has its own mural program and arts commissioner. “They’re in it,” she said. “They made an investment.”

But getting public art in Saugus has been challenging.

Both Gould and Darnell recalled the pushback that a Saugus businessman faced in 2019 after he had a mural erected on Cap World Truck Accessories & Trailers that pays homage to Route 1. The mural shows the iconic restaurants and businesses that line the major thoroughfare. At one point, town officials wanted him to cover the mural. At another point, they pressed him to take it down, but eventually they relented.

“We saw it as a mural. They saw it as a sign,” said Cap World manager Andrew Scott, who said the mural created a lot of problems in town and for the company.

The town’s zoning bylaws do not make a distinction between signage and murals. At the 2022 Town Meeting, Joseph Vecchione, who was on the town’s planning board, presented an article that if passed would separate the two and therefore allow murals. When precinct members voted on the matter, it was an overwhelming no.

“They were going to make him take it down because it was art,” Gould said about the Cap World mural. “It was crazy, so I got involved then.”

The mural got to stay. Scott said the mural has finally been classified as a nonconforming sign that was “grandfathered” in.

Since then, other Route 1 businesses have approached Darnell seeking artists to do murals for them, she said, but she has had to express to them that the town must approve it first before they invest their time and money. She added that she recognizes that there is an existing appetite for public art, but not enough action towards making change anymore.

She said she plans to resurrect the issue of public art at the annual Town Meeting in May. She wants to talk with Town Meeting members who have shown support for public art and address the lack of responses she and others have been receiving on this issue.

Residents in surrounding communities have also offered to help the public art effort in Saugus. “Art should be everywhere,” said Jason Sheridan DeMasi, a Revere artist who works at Kane’s Donuts in Saugus.

Darnell is conceiving community art workshops that highlight public art, and she is seeking to create a space for dialogue so people can discover what art could do for Saugus.

“People recognize the strength art has for the community,” Darnell said. “It’s just getting people to try and look at it from a different perspective. Because to me, I see art as an economic booster.”

Gabriella Galbadis is a student journalist in the Boston University Newsroom program. She is a student in Meghan Irons’ Reporting in Depth class. This story is part of a partnership between The Saugus Advocate and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom program.

March 20, 2026
Celebrating the Super Bowl

Gabby Galbadis

Joseph “Dennis” Gould has been at the New England Patriots’ most iconic moments in Super Bowl history.

He was in New Orleans when the Patriots had their very first big win in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002.

He watched Malcolm Butler’s famous game-winning interception in Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 in Arizona.

And he was there to witness the team’s overtime comeback in Super Bowl LI in 2017 in Houston.

For the past 10 Super Bowl games that the Patriots have competed in, Gould and his wife, Janice Gould, have made the trip.

“Every time the Patriots went to the Super Bowl, I’d look at her and tell her, ‘You know, if they go we go,’ ’’ he said in a recent interview.

But this year the Goulds, like most of Saugus, will be watching the Patriots face off against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX at home. Ticket prices for the game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, are upwards of $7,000 — out of reach for the Goulds, who are in their 70s.

Still, that won’t stop Gould and the rest of Saugus from reveling. At Kane’s Donuts, for instance, the company has been in full Patriots mania since the playoffs.

“I’m so happy the Patriots are back in the Super Bowl. It’s been a tough two years for Boston sports not being in a championship,” said Courtney Beaulieu on Saturday after walking out of the Kane’s on Route 1 with her donuts. “Couldn’t be more excited.”

Gould has long been a Patriots fan. He’s lived in Saugus his whole life aside from his time serving in active-duty in the military from 1969 to 1973. Gould has been retired for more than 11 years from his job as a project program director at General Electric, a job he held for 40 years.

The couple’s Super Bowl tradition began back in 1990, when Gould got Janice to join him at a Patriots’ game. She enjoyed watching the game as much as he did, so Gould began buying season tickets in 1991.

They attended their first Super Bowl in 1997 when the Patriots played the Green Bay Packers. It was the Patriots’ second-ever Super Bowl appearance, and they lost.

The couple stayed in a hotel near the Louisiana Superdome for about a week, since prices were much more affordable at the time. The trip cost them roughly $800 each.

That included the game tickets, hotel, and their commute, Gould recalled.

“We were on TV because we were one of the few Patriots fans there,’’ said Gould. “The Packers had a lot of fans, but the Patriots didn’t.”

Gould has many highlights from his years of attending the Super Bowl.

He and Janice watched the Patriots defeat the St. Louis Rams at the Louisiana Superdome in 2002. He fondly remembers hearing the Boston Pops, the Creedence Clearwater Revival, and U2 play as part of the many special tributes to 9/11.

At Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 at the University of Phoenix Stadium, he got a “rush” from Butler’s famous game-winning play against the Seattle Seahawks.

And in 2017, Gould stood in NRG Stadium at Super Bowl LI when the Patriots charged back from a 25-3 deficit with 8:31 left in the third quarter to defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in overtime. That game became the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.

Gould witnessed all six of legendary Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s Super Bowl wins during his 20-season career with the Patriots.

For the vast majority of their Super Bowl trips, it was just Dennis and Janice. “We went by ourselves which was great. We loved it,” Gould recalled.

The Super Bowl tickets were always expensive, even for a Patriots season ticket holder like Gould. He said he never had an opportunity to purchase those tickets at face value.

Season ticket holders get the chance to enter a lottery to purchase tickets at face value, but there are few winners.

“This year, I got about 66 chances to win, but we’ve never won the lottery in 30-something years and 11 Super Bowls now,” said Gould.

He has had to buy the tickets at a higher price each time. On average, the Goulds would spend about $15,000, including all travel expenses for each Super Bowl trip. One time it was $18,000, he said.

He said he was able to save up the money, thanks to his “great job” at GE and his drive to keep the tradition alive.

But now that he’s retired and on a fixed income, traveling to the Super Bowl to see his beloved Patriots became out of reach.

“I’m gonna miss this one, though … unfortunately,” he said.

Even though they won’t be making the trip to the Super Bowl this year, Gould has found ways to show up for the Patriots. He attended the recent Patriots’ playoff games in Foxborough. He watched the AFC Championship last week at his house in Saugus, and even though he described it as a strange game, he said the outcome was obviously awesome.

Other Saugus residents are displaying their passion for their home team before the game on Sunday.

At Kane’s Donuts in Saugus the Patriots fever was on full view in the display cases where donuts, decorated with red, white, and blue had writings like “Go Patriots” or “I love Drake Maye” on them.

One of the Kane’s Donuts owners, Peter Delios, said they have challenged Raised Doughnuts & Cakes in Seattle to a wager based on Sunday’s game. If the Patriots win, Delios said, Raised must send a dozen of their best donuts to Kane’s and vice versa.

This bet is part of a series of “donut-football” wagers Kane’s has been making, which also challenged shops in Los Angeles and Denver during the playoffs.

Katherine Rushfirth sat in the Kane’s on 120 Lincoln Ave. with her two sons, Benjamin, 3, and Henry, 6, who were enjoying a Patriots-decorated donut.

“We are very excited that the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl because they haven’t been alive for a Patriots Super Bowl yet,” Rushfirth said, referring to her children.

Rushfirth said that her sons’ grandfather is a huge Patriots fan so they will be spending the Super Bowl with their grandparents.

Beaulieu, another Kane’s patron, praised quarterback Drake Maye and coach Mike Vrabel for turning the team around, sounding like a lot of fans in town.

“I love Drake Maye, I love his wife,’’ Beaulieu said. “So I’m rooting for both of them.”

Gabriella Galbadis is a student journalist in the Boston University Newsroom program. She is a student in Meghan Irons’ Reporting in Depth class.

February 12, 2026
Celebrating the Super Bowl

This Saugus fan will cheer the Patriots from afar at the Super Bowl; Dennis Gould followed the team to the big game for years.

Joseph “Dennis” Gould has been at the New England Patriots’ most iconic moments in Super Bowl history.

He was in New Orleans when the Patriots had their very first big win in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002.

He watched Malcolm Butler’s famous game-winning interception in Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 in Arizona.

And he was there to witness the team’s overtime comeback in Super Bowl LI in 2017 in Houston.

For the past 10 Super Bowl games that the Patriots have competed in, Gould and his wife, Janice Gould, have made the trip.

“Every time the Patriots went to the Super Bowl, I’d look at her and tell her, ‘You know, if they go we go,’ ’’ he said in a recent interview.

But this year the Goulds, like most of Saugus, will be watching the Patriots face off against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX at home. Ticket prices for the game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, are upwards of $7,000 — out of reach for the Goulds, who are in their 70s.

Still, that won’t stop Gould and the rest of Saugus from reveling. At Kane’s Donuts, for instance, the company has been in full Patriots mania since the playoffs.

“I’m so happy the Patriots are back in the Super Bowl. It’s been a tough two years for Boston sports not being in a championship,” said Courtney Beaulieu on Saturday after walking out of the Kane’s on Route 1 with her donuts. “Couldn’t be more excited.”

Gould has long been a Patriots fan. He’s lived in Saugus his whole life aside from his time serving in active-duty in the military from 1969 to 1973. Gould has been retired for more than 11 years from his job as a project program director at General Electric, a job he held for 40 years.

The couple’s Super Bowl tradition began back in 1990, when Gould got Janice to join him at a Patriots’ game. She enjoyed watching the game as much as he did, so Gould began buying season tickets in 1991.

They attended their first Super Bowl in 1997 when the Patriots played the Green Bay Packers. It was the Patriots’ second-ever Super Bowl appearance, and they lost.

The couple stayed in a hotel near the Louisiana Superdome for about a week, since prices were much more affordable at the time. The trip cost them roughly $800 each.

That included the game tickets, hotel, and their commute, Gould recalled.

“We were on TV because we were one of the few Patriots fans there,’’ said Gould. “The Packers had a lot of fans, but the Patriots didn’t.”

Gould has many highlights from his years of attending the Super Bowl.

He and Janice watched the Patriots defeat the St. Louis Rams at the Louisiana Superdome in 2002. He fondly remembers hearing the Boston Pops, the Creedence Clearwater Revival, and U2 play as part of the many special tributes to 9/11.

At Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 at the University of Phoenix Stadium, he got a “rush” from Butler’s famous game-winning play against the Seattle Seahawks.

And in 2017, Gould stood in NRG Stadium at Super Bowl LI when the Patriots charged back from a 25-3 deficit with 8:31 left in the third quarter to defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in overtime. That game became the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.

Gould witnessed all six of legendary Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s Super Bowl wins during his 20-season career with the Patriots.

For the vast majority of their Super Bowl trips, it was just Dennis and Janice. “We went by ourselves which was great. We loved it,” Gould recalled.

The Super Bowl tickets were always expensive, even for a Patriots season ticket holder like Gould. He said he never had an opportunity to purchase those tickets at face value.

Season ticket holders get the chance to enter a lottery to purchase tickets at face value, but there are few winners.

“This year, I got about 66 chances to win, but we’ve never won the lottery in 30-something years and 11 Super Bowls now,” said Gould.

He has had to buy the tickets at a higher price each time. On average, the Goulds would spend about $15,000, including all travel expenses for each Super Bowl trip. One time it was $18,000, he said.

He said he was able to save up the money, thanks to his “great job” at GE and his drive to keep the tradition alive.

But now that he’s retired and on a fixed income, traveling to the Super Bowl to see his beloved Patriots became out of reach.

“I’m gonna miss this one, though … unfortunately,” he said.

Even though they won’t be making the trip to the Super Bowl this year, Gould has found ways to show up for the Patriots. He attended the recent Patriots’ playoff games in Foxborough. He watched the AFC Championship last week at his house in Saugus, and even though he described it as a strange game, he said the outcome was obviously awesome.

Other Saugus residents are displaying their passion for their home team before the game on Sunday.

At Kane’s Donuts in Saugus the Patriots fever was on full view in the display cases where donuts, decorated with red, white, and blue had writings like “Go Patriots” or “I love Drake Maye” on them.

One of the Kane’s Donuts owners, Peter Delios, said they have challenged Raised Doughnuts & Cakes in Seattle to a wager based on Sunday’s game. If the Patriots win, Delios said, Raised must send a dozen of their best donuts to Kane’s and vice versa.

This bet is part of a series of “donut-football” wagers Kane’s has been making, which also challenged shops in Los Angeles and Denver during the playoffs.

Katherine Rushfirth sat in the Kane’s on 120 Lincoln Ave. with her two sons, Benjamin, 3, and Henry, 6, who were enjoying a Patriots-decorated donut.

“We are very excited that the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl because they haven’t been alive for a Patriots Super Bowl yet,” Rushfirth said, referring to her children.

Rushfirth said that her sons’ grandfather is a huge Patriots fan so they will be spending the Super Bowl with their grandparents.

Beaulieu, another Kane’s patron, praised quarterback Drake Maye and coach Mike Vrabel for turning the team around, sounding like a lot of fans in town.

“I love Drake Maye, I love his wife,’’ Beaulieu said. “So I’m rooting for both of them.”

February 5, 2026