Charter Changes Needed?
Selectmen discuss the charter.
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Saturday, June 15, 2013
Markey or Gomez: Who Gets Your Vote?
If the special election were today, who would you choose as our new U.S. senator?
A week from Tuesday, Massachusetts voters will decide who to elect in the special election to fill the seat vacated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. What we at Patch want to know is - if the election were today - who would you vote for? Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Gabriel Gomez have been pullling out all the stops in the last two weeks as the latest polls show the gap is narrowing between the two. After weeks of relative quiet, the negative ads have started to clog the airways and both candidates have had high-profile folks stumping for them. Rudy Guiliani was in town last week putting his support behind Gomez and President Obama came to Boston this week showing his support for Markey. So tell us, if you had to vote today who…
State House News Service Weekly Roundup: Olde Home Days
Recap and analysis of the week in state government.
His was not the story of Deval Patrick, or Mitt Romney or Bill Weld. Argeo Paul Cellucci started local on the Board of Selectmen in his beloved town of Hudson and worked his way up: state representative, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor, ambassador. He was the Calvin Coolidge of his time, according to former Minority Leader Richard Tisei, and Democrats, Republicans and Canadians, alike, loved and respected him for it. Cellucci passed away last weekend after a battle with Lou Gehrig's disease at the age of 65, and on Thursday he became the 13th public figure to lie in state under the State House rotunda. The memorial service and public viewing for the former governor drew a who's-who to Beacon Hill, including Romney, Michael …
Friday, June 14, 2013
Want to Serve on a Town Board?
Advisory finance committee has a one-year opening, and other town boards also have vacancies.
Westborough Town Moderator Joe Harrington has taken what he called a "somewhat unusual step" to fill an advisory finance committee opening. Harrington has told selectmen he expects the committee will have a vacant one-year term in about a month. "While I have several names already in hand, I would be interested in any that you might have to suggest," Harrington said. "Thus, I'm taking the somewhat unusual step of asking publicly like this so that more will hear it, not just yourselves." Selectmen said Westborough also has these vacancies:
Is West Nile Virus Coming to Westborough?
Patch offers mosquito prevention tips, and the map below shows the number of West Nile cases last summer.
After a particularly tough year for the West Nile virus in 2012, Massachusetts health officials are bracing for what could be another busy summer for the mosquito-borne illness. Although, with so many factors playing into the problem, the track of West Nile is not an easy one to predict, said Kevin Cranston, director of the Bureau of Infectious Disease for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. “We can’t pin down all of the elements that go into why one season is bad and another season is not,” Cranston said. But if this summer is similar to last summer—marked by extended periods of very hot weather—some parts of the state could see a high number of cases as occurred in 2012. To give residents a sense of West Nile’s prevalence in …
Thursday, June 13, 2013
New Fire Station Reaches Planning Board
The board plans site plan review for Tuesday night.
Westborough's new fire station faces site plan review by the planning board next week. The board will discuss the project, at 42 Milk St., at 8:50 p.m. in Forbes Municipal Building Suite 23, according to the agenda. Voters at the Oct. 15 special town meeting authorized $11.2 million to design and construct the new station next to the current one at 42 Milk St., which will be demolished. Voters agreed to borrow $10,008,000 and allocate $1,200,000 from free cash. The new station should be ready for occupancy in January or early February 2015, Town Manager Jim Malloy said in April.
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Evacuation Plan Discussed
Several Westborough department heads met with a MEMA representative in May.
Do Westborough residents know how to evacuate the town during a major storm? Several department heads, including Director of Public Health Paul McNulty, discussed an evacuation plan with a Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency representative in May. "We discussed the various routes out of town," McNulty told the board of health in his May report. "I believe that this was a preliminary meeting that will eventually end with an evacuation plan for the town." Meanwhile, McNulty said board of health meeting minutes dating back to the 1960s are "now searchable for key words." The documents were scanned by Roberta Walker, the senior worker assigned to health department office, McNulty said. "She will be doing (the) director's monthly reports …
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Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Liquor Store's Tobacco Permit Suspended
Westborough health board's seven-day ban at HighPoint Wines starts July 1.
A 2 Connector Road liquor store can't sell cigarettes for a week, starting July 1. The Westborough Board of Health voted 3-0 Tuesday night to suspend HighPoint Wines' tobacco sales permit for seven days, as directed in the board's tobacco regulations, Director of Public Health Paul McNulty said today. A HighPoint clerk sold a cigar and cigarettes to a girl under age 18 during a Worcester Regional Tobacco Control Collaborative youth compliance check on April 11, health officials said during a May 21 public hearing at the Forbes Municipal Building. The regulations call for a seven-day suspension, and a $200 fine, which HighPoint owner Devinder Rekki has paid. It was HighPoint's second alleged violation of the board's regulations this year. …
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Who's the Boss in Westborough?
Looking at Westborough's town charter has two members of the Massachusetts Municipal Association's Form of Government Committee asking that question.
Who's the boss in Westborough? Looking at Westborough's town charter had two members of the Massachusetts Municipal Association's Form of Government Committee asking selectmen that question Tuesday night. "I looked at this and said, 'Who's in charge?'" Franklin Town Administrator Jeff Nutting said. "Rarely in a charter would you say specific committees, because committees come and go." Selectmen Chairman Ian Johnson said the board will discuss its next steps at its July meeting. Having some sort of government study committee is an option, and selectmen would need to give it a direction, Johnson said. Selectmen met with Nutting, Wellesley Executive Director Hans Larsen and Marilyn Contreras of the state for about an hour at Westborough Town…
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Heather Kane
2:29 pm on Saturday, June 15, 2013
I'm surprised there are no comments on this article. This seems like a big deal to me and I can't believe that this kind of change can be decided w/o the town voting. more ›
Fire Dept. in Roughly $75K Hole
November hurricane, February snowstorm contribute to deficit, Perron says.
The November hurricane and the February snowstorm have helped put the Westborough Fire Department budget in a roughly $75,000 hole, Fire Chief Nick Perron told selectmen Tuesday night. Perron said he will ask the advisory finance committee for a reserve fund transfer. "It may be less," said Perron, adding that he is awaiting budget information. "We have enough to cover the next payroll, but it's the last payroll of the year we're about $75,000 short," he said. Perron said he raised the issue with the advisory finance committee in February, during their discussion of his budget that starts this July 1. "I told them that we would try to control the wage accounts that we could," he said The November hurricane cost the department $14,532, he …
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Jeffrey Rivard
3:23 pm on Monday, June 17, 2013
Supporting a Libertarian or a Green is a good first step in shaking up the establishment and would send chills through the federal establishment in our Congressional system which breeds a two-party system election after election and into the future. I get what your saying though, Gomez has no experience, painted himself a pansy at first and now is a solid right wing Republican. Illegal immigrants… more ›