Obituaries
by Mark McDermott Mayor Bill Brand knew the finish line was approaching. He’d had a frank conversation with a palliative care doctor not long after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in both his brain and lungs. Brand was an engineer and thought like one, both in his unlikely political career and in his approach to cancer. He wanted facts. “Look,” Brand asked the doctor. “Just between you and me…if this were you, what would you be thinking — how…