To Select Board conference Saturday

Posted on June 6, 2019 | Comments Off on To Select Board conference Saturday

This Saturday I am attending the Massachusetts Selectmen’s Association (part of the Massachusetts Municipal Association) Leadership Conference.  I always learn something at Massachusetts Municipal Association events.

 

MMA-3

Massachusetts Selectmen’s Association Leadership Conference on Saturday, June 8 at the Sharon Community Center

This year’s program will feature a luncheon keynote presentation from Senator Jason Lewis. Senator Lewis serves at the Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Education and the Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. His presentation will focus on the state of education in the Commonwealth and the importance of local leadership.

The conference includes a light breakfast and lunch and will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Members will hear from MMA Executive Director and CEO Geoff Beckwith with a brief welcome to the organization and a robust legislative update. From there, the event turns to two tracks of programming, one for veteran selectmen and one for newly elected selectmen.

 

Topics will include:

  • Introduction to the Open Meeting and Public Records Law with KP Law Managing Partner Lauren Goldberg and Sherborn Selectman Paul DeRensis (recommended for newly elected)
  • Municipal Finance 101 with Arlington Deputy Director Sandy Pooler and ATFC President and Sharon Finance Committee Member Ira Miller (recommended for newly elected)
  • Shared Services: Your Guide to Cooperation Across Town Lines with the Division of Local Services Analyst Tara Lynch and Cohasett Town Manager Chris Senior (recommended for veteran selectmen)
  • You’re Only 1 Vote: Building Consensus on Your Board and Beyond with experts on communication and management including current Buckland Select Board Member and former town manager Barry Del Castilho (recommended for veteran selectmen)
  • Closing session speaker on education and leadership by Senator Jason Lewis

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Posted in health, Massachusetts Municipal Association, Select Board matters

SC has competing office hours tomorrow 9-10

Posted on June 6, 2019 | 1 comment

school_committee_2017

School Committee Office Hours Friday 9-10 at Dale Street

School Committee has office hours tomorrow, Friday, June 7 from 9-10 am at Dale Street School. Last of the 2018-2019 school year!

 

Not only does the School Committee schedule its office hours at the same time as my office hours, but then Anna Mae asks me to tell you about theirs!  Special points for those who get to both.

1 Comment

Posted in Schools

“Pete’s” at Lasell Village

Posted on June 6, 2019 | 3 comments

Pete's

Select Board chair Gus Murby commented at our meeting this week about learning from Medfield resident Basil McCulloch about Pete’s, the store at Lasell Village.  I was fortunate, both, to have been the chair of the Lasell Village board for about ten years while Lasell College conceived and built Lasell Village, plus to have Lasell Village name its store “Pete’s,” and finally to have the incomparable Lasell Village favorite, Basil, run Pete’s.

The caricature above hangs in my office and at Lasell Village. The plaque below is just at Lasell Village.

Pete's plaque

Also, Basil and I are two of the people to ever wear a Pete’s shirt!

I felt 20 years older after they named the store named for me.

 

3 Comments

Posted in People

Office hours tomorrow, & 6/21

Posted on June 6, 2019 | Comments Off on Office hours tomorrow, & 6/21

office hours sign

Select Board Office Hours this Friday

I hold regular monthly office hours at The Center on the first Friday of every month from 9:00 to 10:00 AM.

Tomorrow I was scheduled to be enpaneling a jury in a wrongful death trial, so I arranged to have office hours on June 21 instead.  That case just settled, and I have decided to go ahead with office hours tomorrow.  I had already committed to being there on June 21, so now I will just do office hours on both days – I will hold office hours from 9-10 AM at The Center on both June 7 and June 21.

Residents are welcome to stop by to talk in person about any town matters.

Residents can also have coffee and see the Council on Aging in action (a vibrant organization with lots going on). I can be reached via 508-359-9190 or this blog about Medfield matters <https://medfield02052.wordpress.com>/, where any schedule changes will be posted

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Posted in Select Board matters

Law Day

Posted on June 5, 2019 | Comments Off on Law Day

Massachusetts Bar Association says “thanks, but no thanks” – i.e. no high school wanted me to volunteer with them on Law Day –

law day 2019

Dear Osler Peterson:

 

On behalf of the Massachusetts Bar Association, I would like to thank you for offering to volunteer for the MBA’s 2019 Law Day Education Program.

 

We had an overwhelming response to our call for Law Day volunteers this year and couldn’t be prouder of our membership for stepping up to the plate for this important initiative. We ended up having more volunteers than schools requesting presentations and, although we tried to match up multiple volunteers with schools where we could, we unfortunately could not place everyone.

 

Regrettably, we were not able to match you with a school this year, but we expect to run this program again in 2020 and hope you will be available to participate then. Thank you for stepping up to volunteer, as our programs cannot succeed without people like you.

 

If you are interested in additional volunteer opportunities, please click here for information regarding other MBA programs, or you may email the MBA directly at communityservices@massbar.org.

 

Sincerely,

 

Grace V.B. Garcia

MBA Secretary and Civics Task Force Chair

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Posted in Uncategorized

LED streetlights are in

Posted on June 4, 2019 | 3 comments

LED streetlight

It is done! The town now has new LED streetlights and also owns those new LED streetlights, that Facilities Director, Amy Colleran, just had installed.  Payback from the energy savings was less than three years, from memory, given that the town used a state grant to make it even more economical to do.

The notice from Amy below received just now –

******************************************

As of yesterday, all the new streetlight have been installed. The project is complete.

Amy Colleran

Director of Facilities

Town of Medfield

3 Comments

Posted in Energy Committee, Green

MGC’s nice thanks

Posted on June 4, 2019 | Comments Off on MGC’s nice thanks

The Board of Selectmen awarded the Medfield Garden Club $2500 towards its work maintaining garden sites around the town, such as the planters in front of the Town House, Meting House Pond, at the Medfield Memorial Library, and at numerous traffic islands.  Just imagine the cost to the town if Medfield instead maintained those sites via DPW employees, like Wellesley for one does.

For extra credit, what flower is depicted on the Medfield Garden Club logo below:

MGC

June 4, 2019

 

Dear Selectmen Marcucci, Murby and Peterson

 

On behalf of the Medfield Garden Club, we would like to thank you for your approval of our request for funding in the amount of $2500 for ongoing maintenance and renovation of our TASC civic beautification sites. Your heartfelt and public praise for our volunteer efforts and your financial support are important incentives for our thirty-three TASC volunteers in twenty-three community sites as we work to create a four-season garden welcome to all who come to Medfield.

 

Thank you so very much from all of us in the Medfield Garden Club.

 

Yours in bloom,

 

Michele Feinsilver Hoye

President, Medfield Garden Club

 

Carroll Noel-Mozer

Incoming President, Medfield Garden Club

 

Molly Sliney

Incoming President, Medfield Garden Club

 

Nancy Tella

TASC Chair, Medfield Garden Club

 

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Posted in Garden Club, Select Board matters

Fringe tree at MSH

Posted on June 3, 2019 | 5 comments

The unusual fringe tree, part of the arboretum of interesting trees at the former Medfield State Hospital site, is in full bloom now, and is worth a visit.

fringe tree-20190601

Former long time Town of Medfield Tree Warden, Ellis Allen, prepared and shared the tree map that appears below.  He did not note the fringe tree, so I added it.  When the fringe tree is not in bloom it is totally unremarkable.  There were two more much smaller fringe trees at the site, but they were cut down.  Ellis also did not include the interesting line of larch trees along the Charles River Link Trail path that he told me about.  That trail runs along the Charles from the Overlook to a hemlock grove high above the river.  That area just was not on Ellis’ map.  a row of many towering larchs line the path on the right just after crossing the brook.  Larchs look like evergreens, but are deciduous.

·~ s-Pecte-s o '1=-r-'RGz:-s A-r Mt:::JJ~f~ ~~. U.d5 .. Pc.T .• .P ..t L,. .. .. ' £ = Pfkfng lot I . . ,.. , .. '• ., ~ .,..h.., __ .. ,.. . r .t . ' __.._/ --- (._ __,. ... _______ ~~ :_TO ROUTE 27 ,_,·-0-S"r""P-IT-Ar. ROAr; ~ .. 'I ·.·· .• .. ·::: ·: ·~ • • • • ••• • • • 0 ' , •• ·-.•=·. .. • . . •.. • . . . . . ... ·•· ........ ~ .. : ,· .·. ,. I ~ ...· .; . :~;:~~· .·..· .·., (:~ "'·· f{)(')r.- I : SPECIES OF TREES AT MEDFIELD STATE HOSPITAL TREE# CO!vnviON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME 1 American Beech Fagus grandifolia 2 American Elm Ulmus americana 3 Apple Malus spp. 4 Arbotyita" Thuja occidentalis s Black Cherry Prunus serrotina 6 Black Oak Quercus velutina 7 Canadian Hemlock Tsuga canadensis 8 Chinese Chestnut Castanea mollissima 9 Coloracto Blue Spruce Picea pungens glauca 10 Eum!L~ Beech . Fagus sylvatica 11 European PI etree Platanus occidentalis 12 Flowering Che Prunus spp. 13 Flowering Crabapp Malus spp. 14 Flowering Dogwood Comus florida 15 Fraiser Fir Abies fraseri 16 Goldenchain Tree Laburnum Vossi 17 Gray Birch Betula populifolia 18 Green Ash · Fraxinus pennsylvanica 19 Horsechestnut Aesculus hippocastinum 20 Japanese Maple Acer palmatum sp. 21 Japanese Tree Lila~ Syqnga reticulata 22 Little LeafLfuden Tilia cordauf · I 23 ~ocker.nutF.ficko~ Carya spp. 24 Moraine Locust Gleditsia tricanthos inennis 25 Mountain Ash Sorbus··americana 26 Northern Catalpa Catalpa speciosa . 27 Norway Maple Acer platanoides 28 Norway Spruce Picea abies 29 Paperbark Maple Acer griseum 30 Pin Oak Quercus palustris 31 Pitch Pine Pinus rigida 32 Red Cedar Juniperus virginiana 33 Red Oak Quercus rubrum 34 Red Pine Pinus resinosa 35 Sassafrass Sassafrass albidum 36 Saucer Magnolia Magnolia soulangiana 37 Scarlet Oak . -: Quercus coccinia - --- -- 38 S.iberian Elm Ulm~ paiVifol.ia 39 Sourwood Oxydendren arboreum 40 Sugar Maple Acer saccharum 41 Sweet gum Liquidamber styraciflua 42 Tuliptree ~. Liriodendren tulipfera 43 Tupelo Nyssa sylvatica 44 White. Ash Fraxinus americana 45 WhiteOak . Quercus alba· 46 White Pine Pinus strobus 47 Yellowwood Cladrastis I utea 48 White Fir Abies concolor 49 Red Maple Acerrubrum so White Birch Betula alba l)l F~~ee~~Tree map by Ellis Allen2 _Page_2

And here is what the canoe launch along that stretch of trail looked like when it was originally constructed.  Now the flat stones in the left photo are invisible in  the river under water and mud.

 

5 Comments

Posted in Medfield State Hospital

Water & sewer rate increases

Posted on June 1, 2019 | Comments Off on Water & sewer rate increases

From Bill Harvey, Chair of Water & Sewer –

water

Medfield Water and Sewerage

Rate Setting Public Hearing

28 May 2019

 

Information Brief

 

Rates for water and sewerage services are set once a year.  The Board of Water and Sewerage, along with the DPW Director and the Water and Sewerage Enterprise Fund Committees have recommended the following increases:

Water +10% across all Tiers

Sewerage +4% across all Tiers

These rates will be effective April 1, 2019.

 

Background

  1. Water

It has been in the Master Plan to address elevated levels of natural-occurring manganese in two of our five wells.

The US EPA has not published a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), which are health-based limits, for manganese. The USEPA and the MA DEP do have a Secondary MCL (SMCL) concentration limits of 0.05 mg/l, which is for:

Aesthetic effects — undesirable tastes or odors;

Cosmetic effects — effects which do not damage the body but are still undesirable

Technical effects — damage to water equipment or reduced effectiveness of treatment for other contaminants

In the last few years, a consultant has completed a study on a treatment plant and alternatives.

One of the alternatives was to investigate all Medfield land parcels for an aquifer source of sufficient quantity and quality to avoid a treatment plant.  This investigation was conducted in 2017 and 2018.  Unfortunately, no other significant water sources were found. Also in 2018, we conducted a treatment pilot which compared different treatment options and designs, and this information will be used for designing a full-scale plant.

The Town is proceeding with detailed design and development of procurement documents for the treatment plant, which will include a re-development of one of its wells to increase the instantaneous pumping capacity.  This should relieve some of the pumping burden on our largest well, Well #6.

The capital investment for this project is currently estimated at $8 million.  We expect this project to be brought to the Annual Town Meeting in May 2021, and construction to begin in July 2021.

The 10% rate increase for this fiscal period will be followed by another rate increase the following year, projected to be another 10% to pay for the bond and additional operating costs.

 

  1. Sewerage

There are some increases in operating costs to operate our sewerage system.  The primary driver for this year’s increase is the addition of another full-time employee, which was mandated as per a Consent Order with the DEP for Medfield to increase of staff at the wastewater treatment plant.

 

 

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Posted in Water & Sewer

FMW survey

Posted on May 31, 2019 | Comments Off on FMW survey

The Foundation for MetroWest is looking to know what we think by circulating a survey –

fmw

Impact MetroWest – We need YOU
Have you taken the Community Survey yet? We need your input and insight into the strengths and challenges of our region. Be a part of Impact MetroWest—take the anonymous survey yourself and also share with your neighbors, friends, and colleagues.

In English: bit.ly/ImpactMW-EN

Em Português: bit.ly/FFMW-P

En Español: bit.ly/FFMW-SP
FMW survey

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Posted in Charity