Monthly Archives: October 2012

Building Committee

Posted on October 31, 2012 | Comments Off on Building Committee

The Building Committee tested this selectman’s dedication today by holding its meeting at 6:30 AM this morning.

The Building Committee is geared towards presenting their proposal for a new DPW garage at the annual town meeting (ATM) next April.  The current iteration of the garage is basically the same HNTB plan from before, but with two fewer bays and a smaller generator. The HVAC is being examined as well.

This morning’s pricing estimates from town consultant, Shane Nolan of Daedalus, indicate that a block building and a metal buildings are close to same price (ca. $100,000 difference), but lifespan of the block building is substantially longer.

The committee reviewed plans showing how the current equipment would be housed in proposed garage.

This observer was impressed with the level of understanding of the issues exhibited by the committee members.

Next meeting is 11/26 at 6:30 AM.

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Posted in Buildings

Transfer station open through Sunday

Posted on October 31, 2012 | Comments Off on Transfer station open through Sunday

From: “Donna Cimeno”
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 10:14 AM
Subject: TRANSFER STATION HOURS EXTENDED

I posted on the website, but wanted you to know that we are extending the transfer station hours.

We will be open TODAY – SUNDAY  9am -4pm.

Thanks

Donna

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Posted in Recycling & Solid Waste, Town Services

ZBA’s 40B hearing tonight postponed to 11/5

Posted on October 30, 2012 | Comments Off on ZBA’s 40B hearing tonight postponed to 11/5

This email just received from ZBA’s Norma Cronin –

The ZBA meeting regarding the 40B The Parc at Medfield scheduled for this evening (Oct. 30th) is postponed until Monday, November 5, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

 

Norma J. Cronin

Planning & Zoning Administrator

459 Main Street

Medfield, MA  02052

508-906-3027

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Posted in Affordable housing / 40B

Tree down on Harding St

Posted on October 29, 2012 | Comments Off on Tree down on Harding St

DPW crews are working through the storm, and can clear trees from roads when no power lines are involved.  This was at 4:25 pm Monday.

Mike says town house was closed, but that he Ken, and the. Chiefs met to coordinate response.  Mike reported three trees down on power lines, one on Ledgetree.

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Posted in Uncategorized

School closure notifications

Posted on October 26, 2012 | Comments Off on School closure notifications

This email this afternoon from the superintendent on how to learn of school closures – I just signed up for the alerts –

MEDFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS
ROBERT CMAGUIRE
Superintendent of Schools

October 26,2012
Dear Parents

With the storm currently predicted for next week as well as preparing for the upcoming winter season, I thoughtthis would be a good opportunity to remind everyone of the process we have in place for a school closing or delay.

We call the television stations – Channels 4, 5, 7 and FOX 25. Radio stations receive the information from that call as radio stations are not individually called. We also put information on our school website when school is cancelled or delayed.

Three televisions stations have notified us that they have a free feature for notifying parents of school closings and delays. Parents have an option to sign up for a text message/cell phone call/email (whichever you choose when signing up) from the following TV stations:

WCVB/ChanneI5 at:
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/closingssignup !index.html

NBC/Channel 7 (includes Channel 56) at:
http://www.whdh.com click on “Snow Day Alert”

FOX 25 at:
http://www.mvfoxboston.com.llink/584423/school closings-text alerts

I hope you find this helpful as we head into another winter season.
Robert C. Maguire
Superintendent of Schools

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Posted in Schools

WGHB visits town

Posted on October 26, 2012 | Comments Off on WGHB visits town

From the WGBH wewbsite

 

Where We Live: Medfield

Lord’s Department Store is the symbolic heart of downtown Medfield. You can go there to buy greeting cards, or Medfield memorabilia, or a one-dollar ham-and-pickle sandwich at the lunch counter in the back. In a big-box age, Lord’s is a throwback — a term that applies to Medfield as a whole.

“It’s really a small town,” said Jim Feeney, a small businessman who owns a lighting store in town. “I know it sounds corny — you’re within 495 and the whole bit — but there’s a strong sense of community here.”

When Feeney heard WGBH was visiting Lord’s, he showed up unannounced to tout his hometown. And he wasn’t the only one.

A country feel

“I just fell in love with this town,” said Norman Gray, who moved here more than 50 years ago and runs a local landscaping business. “It still has a small-town feel to it, a country feel. … I’ve been having my coffee in the morning in this particular location probably for 50 years.”

Around the corner from Lord’s, at the Medfield Historical Society, town historian Richard DeSorgher said the pride on display at Lord’s is reflected in an unusually strong civic culture.

“There’s an incredible amount of people that volunteer,” DeSorgher said. “Whether it’s town government, or through the schools, there are all kinds of events people organize. It’s a very close-knit community of giving to the town, which I just think makes it very, very special. It’s just a great place.”

But it’s also a place that’s wrestling with change. Two big housing developments — including one at the old Medfield State Hospital grounds — could dramatically increase the town’s population and strain its treasured school system.

Boffo for Brown?

Medfield’s anxiety about those changes and its embrace of small-town culture could help Scott Brown here as he seeks re-election to the US Senate. Two years ago, Brown crushed Martha Coakley here, 63 percent to 37 percent.

Some of that margin may have been attributable to the fact that Brown used to represent Medfield in the state Legislature. But there may also be a natural affinity between Medfield’s Mayberry-esque feel and the small-town-everyman persona that Brown has embraced. Most of the people we met at Lord’s certainly seemed to be big Brown fans.

“I voted for Scott Brown when Massachusetts did its thing a couple of years ago,” Gray said. “I think he’s a wonderful family man. And I plan to vote for him again.”

But Warren might do better here than many people expect. Nearly two thirds of Medfield residents are independent voters — and in the past several presidential elections, the town has voted for the Democrat. (Medfield also voted for Deval Patrick during his first run for governor, but backed Charlie Baker by a wide margin four years later.)

Susan Bernstein is Warren’s Medfield town coordinator. She said the Warren campaign was taking the town seriously.

“She has great field operation in place, where we’re going out every weekend to canvas,” Bernstein said. “Phone banks all through the week. We’re doing visibilities — trying to do visibilities — where we’re standing there with her signs a couple of nights a week.”

Bernstein doesn’t expect Warren to beat Brown in Medfield. But she thinks a 50-50 split is a possibility. If that happens, she says, women’s issues will be pivotal.

“Elizabeth stands up for the women,” Bernstein said. “She’ll vote for equal pay; she’ll vote to protect Planned Parenthood; she’ll vote for our right to contraceptives. And [these issues] are playing very well in Medfield.”

Conservative — except when they’re not

For his part, DeSorgher believes that Medfield is more complicated than it seems. Voters prize community and fiscal discipline — but also education and the environment.

“There’s a battle, I think, between those two forces sometimes,” he said. “And that’s why we have so many people here who don’t necessarily follow the party line — but look at the individual.”

That’s a trait that both Brown and Warren hope works in their favor on Election Day.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Beacon Communities LLC buys Wilkins Glen

Posted on October 26, 2012 | 1 comment

MassHousing Finances $50.6 Million to Preserve Affordable Housing in Boston, Beverly, Maynard and Medfield

(Source: MassHousing) — MassHousing announced today that it has closed $50.6 million in financing for the acquisition and preservation of four affordable housing developments in Boston, Beverly, Maynard and Medfield.

Beacon Communities LLC of Boston used the MassHousing financing to help purchase the four affordable apartment communities from their former owner, Equity Residential.

The 351 apartments involved in the transaction will remain affordable for at least 40 years under the terms of the financing and the four developments will receive varying amounts of capital improvements.
“These loans will help keep 351 apartments for working families and seniors affordable for at least the next 40 years,” said MassHousing Executive Director Thomas R. Gleason. “We worked hard with Beacon Communities under a tight deadline to complete these loan closings and make sure this quality housing remained affordable for the long term.”

The properties purchased and preserved by Beacon Communities with the MassHousing loans are:
 Conway Court in Boston: $3.3 million in short-term acquisition financing and long-term construction and permanent financing for 28 units of affordable family housing.
 Jaclen Tower in Beverly: $11.7 million in short-term acquisition financing and long-term construction and permanent financing for 100 units of affordable elderly housing.
 Summer Hill Glen in Maynard: $17.8 million in short-term acquisition financing and long-term construction and permanent financing for 120 units of affordable elderly housing.
 Wilkins Glen in Medfield: $17.7 million in short-term acquisition financing and long-term construction and permanent financing for 103 units of affordable family housing.

“Beacon’s acquisition and renovation of these properties will enable us to continue to provide high-quality affordable housing in these communities,” said Mark Epker, President of Beacon Communities Investments LLC. “MassHousing’s responsiveness and dedication to get these transactions done demonstrates the Agency’s continued commitment to preserving affordable housing in the Commonwealth.”
MassHousing Closes on $50.6 Million in Financing for the Acquisition and Preservation
of Affordable Housing in Boston, Beverly, Maynard and Medfield

About Beacon Communities LLC
Beacon’s team of highly experienced residential real estate professionals develop, own and manage over 70 communities and 12,000 apartments throughout New England, PA, NY, VA and MD. We have a proud 40-plus year history of providing exceptional, award-winning residential communities that serve a diverse cross-section of society and make enduring contributions to the vitality of the cities and towns where they are located. The diversity of our portfolio speaks to our ability to form joint ventures with an array of partners including landowners, community groups, colleges and equity investors, as well as our ability to work cooperatively with public officials and concerned citizens. For more information about Beacon Communities LLC, please visit www.beaconcommunitiesllc.com.

About MassHousing
MassHousing (The Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency) is an independent, quasi-public agency created in 1966 and charged with providing financing for affordable housing in Massachusetts. The Agency raises capital by selling bonds and lends the proceeds to low- and moderate-income homebuyers and homeowners, and to developers who build or preserve affordable and/or mixed-income rental housing. MassHousing does not use taxpayer dollars to sustain its operations, although it administers some publicly funded programs on behalf of the Commonwealth. Since its inception, MassHousing has provided nearly $14 billion for affordable housing. For more information, visit the MassHousing website at www.masshousing.com, follow us on Twitter @MassHousing, subscribe to our blog and Like us on Facebook.

Media Contacts
Eric Gedstad: 617.854.1079 | egedstad (at) masshousing (dot) com
Tom Farmer: 617.854.1843 | tfarmer (at) masshousing (dot) com

Source: MassHousing

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Posted in Affordable housing / 40B

Energy Committee

Posted on October 26, 2012 | 2 comments

Exciting and fascinating information at Energy Committee last night –

  • Town administrator of Dartmouth was the guest, and he explained how that town, for a small investment (he estimated it at $35K) encouraged private third party development of seven solar photovoltaic installations, most on privately owned land, with the town reaping major economic benefits via the town entering into power purchase agreements. As a result, Dartmouth will be saving an estimated $7 m. over 20 years.  The town merely zoned to allow the PV arrays anywhere in town, and then just issued RFP’s to third parties to provide PV generated power to the town via the power purchase agreements.  Private developers then approached the town to provide the power on privately owned sites (15-20 acres) via the power purchase agreements.  The town then contracted with those third parties to obtain the PV power for 20 years at 8 cents/KWH, which the utility is required to buy at 12 cents/KWH.  The utility issues credits to the town for the PV electricity, enough credits such that the town pays for its own electric needs via those credits.  It works because the town’s long term stability  and credit worthiness is an essential element for the third parties looking to contract for the power purchase agreements – private parties in place of the town would not allow the deal to happen.  $35K invested, plus time of town officials, and it returns $7 m.  The Dartmouth town administrator left us all the documents they used to make it happen.  Mike Sullivan wants us to start by pursuing a PV array on 2 acres of town owned land next to the Waste Water Treatment Plant and questions whether we have any 15-20 acres sites on which private PV arrays could be built.
  • Mike Sullivan reported that the big news from the DEP review of the Waste Water Treatment Plant energy efficiency was that Medfield was already the most energy efficient of the 23 plants they had audited.  Kudos to those running the WWTP for what they have already done for the town.

2 Comments

Posted in Energy Committee

Town’s Sandy planning underway

Posted on October 26, 2012 | Comments Off on Town’s Sandy planning underway

Email yesterday afternoon from Mike Sullivan –

FYI, Will forward additional information as received. Meeting tomorrow with Chiefs, Ken and Bob Maguire at 12;30 p.m. to get latest update from Taunton NOAA meteorologist and to plan for storm. Started cleaning culverts and lowering boards on dams today and getting equipment ready for use. Talked to NSTAR and they are bringing in additional crews for power restoration and clean-up. Mike

From: “Mannion, James A (CDA)”
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:53 PM
Subject: Situational Awareness Statement #4

Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency

Hurricane Sandy Situational Awareness Statement (SAS) #4

Date:  October 25, 2012

Time:  4:30 PM

Situation:

Hurricane Sandy, currently a Category 2 hurricane, is located in the Bahamas and is projected to move northward off the eastern Florida coast tomorrow into Saturday. It remains too early to determine Sandy’s precise track for early next week, but the probability of Sandy going out to sea is now very low. Current computer models are showing an increasing degree of confidence that Sandy will impact northeastern United States as a strong tropical storm, with a current projected landfall between Monday night and Tuesday morning. It is important to note that Massachusetts is still well within the margin of error for the predicted track.

 

National Weather Service now has a high degree of confidence that New England will experience significant impacts from Sandy regardless of the location of the landfall.  With landfall south of New England, Massachusetts is still likely to sustain significant impacts from this storm including damaging winds, associated power outages, and freshwater and coastal flooding.

 

A landfall in New England will bring a 3 to 5 foot storm surge to south- and east-facing coasts of Massachusetts. These storm surge totals are in additional to normal tide levels (although we are not expected to see astronomically high tides during this event). A landfall in New England will bring even greater impacts to the region, with Massachusetts potentially experiencing a historic degree of freshwater and coastal flooding, wind damage, and associated power outages.

 

Potential impacts of Sandy include:

 

High Seas: Sandy is predicted to cause unusually high seas (25 feet or greater) off the coast of New England beginning Sunday and peaking Monday and Tuesday. Seas will be dangerous and potentially life-threatening, even for large vessels.  Winds are expected to be at least gale to storm force occasional hurricane force gusts.

 

Winds: Damaging winds and associated widespread power outages lasting as long as a week are likely if Sandy makes landfall across Massachusetts. Wind damage will be exacerbated in southern New England as most trees still have foliage at this time of year. If Sandy makes landfall in or tracks near southern New England, isolated wind gusts of up to Category 2 hurricane strength (96-110mph) are possible.

 

Coastal Flooding: Both east- and south-facing coasts in southern New England have a high risk of minor to moderate coastal flooding beginning Sunday afternoon and lasting through Tuesday.  Moderate to major coastal flooding (up to 3 to 5 feet of storm surge) and significant beach erosion is possible if Sandy makes landfall in southern New England.

 

Rain/Flooding: While it is still too soon to determine where the heaviest rain focus will be, confidence is rising that southern New England will see potentially flooding rainfall from Sandy.  In a worst-case scenario, southern New England could receive as much as 7.5 to 8.5 inches of sustained rainfall, with pockets of 8.5+ inches.

 

The latest 5-day forecast map from the National Hurricane Center is included below.

 

State Actions:

MEMA is actively monitoring the storm and initiating preparedness activities. This afternoon, MEMA held a coordination meeting with state agencies. Tomorrow, MEMA will start holding daily coordination calls with local public safety officials and conducting pre-incident planning with select Emergency Support Functions.  MEMA will continue to monitor Sandy’s progress and issue additional SASs at least daily until the threat to New England has passed.

 

MEMA’s Activation Status: MEMA is currently at Level IV (Steady State).

 

Information for Local Officials:

MEMA encourages local officials to monitor Sandy’s progress and predicted track closely and undertake preparedness activities such as:

 

  • Reviewing emergency plans and procedures
  • Assessing areas that may be subject to flooding and developing plans for communicating with, and potentially evacuating people in these areas
  • Updating emergency contact lists
  • Testing communications and warning systems
  • Reviewing emergency contracts and available resource inventories
  • Testing generators and ensuring emergency fuel supplies for them
  • Assessing local emergency shelter readiness and capacity.

 

MEMA also strongly urges local officials to review their Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) inundation maps to pre-identify areas particularly at risk from storm surge flooding.  SLOSH maps and other hurricane preparedness resources can be found on MEMA’s website at http://www.mass.gov/eopss/home-sec-emerg-resp/plan-prep/natural-hazards/hurricanes/.  Please note that you will need to have Google Earth installed on your computer to access the online SLOSH maps that are available through MEMA’s website.

 

Hurricane Preparedness Tips for the General Public:

  • Stay informed by monitoring the storm via the media.
  • Be sure to have a well-stocked Family Disaster Kit in the event you lose power or are isolated for a number of days.
  • Clear clogged rain gutters. This storm brings the potential for torrential rain. Providing clear drainage will help prevent misdirected flooding.
  • Secure outdoor items such as lawn furniture, trash barrels, hanging plants, toys and awnings that can be broken or picked up by strong winds and potentially become a projectile.
  • Elevate articles in your basement that could be damaged from even minor flooding.
  • Keep your vehicles fully fuelled.
  • Have a certain amount of cash available.  If power is lost, ATMs may not be working.

 

Ping4alerts!:

MEMA encourages smartphone users to download the free ping4alerts! app. This app is available free of charge for iPhone and Android phones and receives severe weather alerts from the National Weather Service and emergency information from MEMA based on the user’s location.  Learn more at http://www.mass.gov/mema/mobileapp.

 

Online Resources:

For additional information and resources, visit:

Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency at www.mass.gov/mema (Hurricane preparedness tips and other preparedness information are available through the “Hurricane” link on MEMA’s homepage).

MEMA’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MassachusettsEMA

MEMA Twitter: @MassEMA

Federal Emergency Management Agency at www.fema.gov

National Hurricane Center website at www.nhc.noaa.gov

National Weather Service/Taunton at www.weather.gov/boston

National Weather Service/Albany, NY at www.weather.gov/albany

Mass211 at www.mass211.org

 

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Posted in Planning, Safety, Town Services

Joe Kennedy is coming back to Medfield

Posted on October 24, 2012 | Comments Off on Joe Kennedy is coming back to Medfield

Joe is going to be stopping by the Blue Moon Cafe (236 Main Street) this SUNDAY – October 28th  at 11:30am.

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Posted in Elections