Posted onAugust 1, 2023|Comments Off on State aid to Medfield up $166K (2%)
The state budget was finally agreed upon by the legislature this week (a month into the fiscal year and long after the town had to set its own budgets at the annual town meeting (ATM) at the beginning of May).
The following are the Town of Medfield state aid amounts for FY24 that were just released – our state aid is $8,550,556, up $166,430 over FY23 (the last fiscal year):
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Posted onJuly 31, 2023|Comments Off on Hinkley Helpers reports status
Mon, Jul 31 at 11:00 AM
Hinkley Helpers Reveals Fun, Inclusive Playground Design to be Built
$10,000 left to fundraise, final deadline to buy a brick is August 31st
Medfield, MA, July 31, 2023 — Zipline! Friendship swings! Ninja Wall! Oh my! Nearly a year since launching its fundraising campaign, Hinkley Helpers, an initiative of the Medfield Foundation Inc., has revealed the final playground design to become a town destination at Stephen Hinkley Memorial Park. After thoughtful deliberation between the Medfield Parks and Recreation Commission and Hinkley Helpers, the two committees selected local New England playground expert Childscapes to build a fun, inclusive playscape for generations of children, parents and caretakers to enjoy. To add the zipline, Hinkley Helpers needs to raise $10,000 and will extend its buy-a-brick campaign to a final deadline of August 31, 2023.
The playground design was chosen for the diversity of play offered for all ages and abilities and considerably updates the nearly thirty-year-old playground currently at Hinkley Park. The new playground will allow for progressive play, aging up equipment to accommodate and challenge children of all ages and abilities, which was significantly requested by the Hinkley Helpers’ initial community survey. With these modern components, accessible poured-in-place ground cover, and additional benches and tables, every child and caregiver will have the opportunity to enjoy a new town destination.
“Buy a Brick” Deadline is August 31, 2023
To buy a brick, please visit https://tinyurl.com/Hinkley-Helpers, select the $150 (4×8) or $250 (8×8) option on the “Hinkley Helper Brick Campaign,” and complete the informational form on the same site.
Mail-in forms for the bricks are also available at The Medfield Town House (459 Main Street). Please make a check payable to Medfield Foundation Inc. with a note in Memo: “Hinkley Helpers Brick” and drop it off or mail it to:
Medfield Foundation
c/o Medfield Town House
459 Main Street
Medfield, MA 02052
Bricks must be inscribed with names only (e.g., The Roberts Family, Barbara Millicent Roberts, In Honor of Barbie, In Memory of Kenneth Roberts, etc.). “Founding Family” donors ($1,000 Giving Circle) will have a special designated engraved paver denoting Founding Family, when a paver is purchased. Hinkley Helpers aims to preserve the bricks currently at the playground from when it was last built in 1996.
Donate today! $10,000 needed to fund Zipline!
Every contribution counts! Donate any amount – $10, $25, $500, join the “Playground Pals” or “Founding Families” by visiting www.hinkleyhelpers.com. Checks can be made to The Medfield Foundation with memo “Hinkley Helpers.” To date, “Gold Level” sponsors include The Blue Moon Bagel Cafe, Roche Brothers, and Park Street Books & Toys, and many businesses, individuals, and families have also kindly contributed. For donations and sponsorships of more than $5,000, please email hinkleyrebuild@gmail.com.
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About Hinkley Helpers
Founded in 2022, Hinkley Helpers, an initiative of the Medfield Foundation Inc., is driven by a mission to fundraise, plan and rebuild a safe, fun and inclusive playground at Stephen Hinkley Park. To learn more, visit www.hinkleyhelpers.com and www.facebook.com/HinkleyHelpers.
Posted onJuly 16, 2023|Comments Off on CORRECTION = SB meeting is 7/18/23
My last post with the Select Board agenda incorrectly was captioned with the wrong meeting date. The Select Board is meeting Tuesday, July 18. My apologies.
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To join through a conference call, dial 929-436-2866 or 312-626-6799 or 253-215-8782 or 301-715-8592 or 346-248-7799 or 669-900-6833 a. Enter the Webinar ID: 885 3036 6678 b. Enter the password: 637025
Posted onJuly 6, 2023|Comments Off on Office hours tomorrow, 9-10AM
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. 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.
Posted onJuly 4, 2023|Comments Off on Look for Carol’s Globe article today
Please read my lawyer colleague, attorney Carol Steinberg’s article in today’s Globe, “Finding freedom at the head of the class” that appears above the fold on the op ed page, on her work educating 4th graders about people’s disabilities. I have learned incredible amounts about disability issues in the past ten years of my working with Carol. She is currently on the ABA’s national attorney committee on disabilities and formerly served on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Architectural Access Board, which makes decisions about required standards for buildings. She has long been active about disabilities, including authoring several other Globe articles and lobbying for needed legislation.
Daily emails from Mass Humanities are often fascinating, and always interesting. This is the one from today:
June 24, 1675 King Philip’s War Breaks Out
On this day in 1675, Wampanoag warriors killed seven colonists in Swansea in retaliation for a series of injustices suffered at the hands of the English. This raid is generally considered the beginning of King Philip’s War, a bloody conflict that would involve every New England colony and Algonquian peoples throughout the region. Over the next year, members of the Abenaki, Narragansett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag tribes attacked more than half of all the settlements in New England and reduced about a dozen towns in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies to ashes. By August of 1676, more than 600 settlers had died and 1,200 homes had been burned. An estimated 3,000 Native Americans died at the hands of the English. By the 1670s there were more than 50,000 English colonists living in New England, and they were steadily encroaching on land held by Native people. In 1662 the governor of Plymouth Colony summoned Wamsutta, the young sachem, or chief, of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe, to meet with him. Distrustful of the Englishman’s intentions, Wamsutta refused and was forcefully escorted to Plymouth by armed settlers. Days later, Wamsutta’s men carried their leader home, dead. Inexplicably he had become ill shortly after his conference with colonial officials. Wamsutta’s brother Metacom, called Philip by the English, succeeded him as sachem. Metacom firmly believed white settlers had poisoned Wamsutta; many Wampanoags agreed, further heightening tension. By the 1670s there were more than 50,000 English colonists living in New England, and they were steadily encroaching on land held by Native people. Decimated by diseases Europeans brought to America in the early 1600s, the Algonquian population had fallen to about 20,000. The settlers and Native Americans were no closer to understanding each other and their respective cultures than at the beginning of the century. The Reverend Increase Mather captured English sentiments toward Philip and the Indians when he described the Wampanoag leader as one of the “heathen people amongst whom we live, and whose Land the Lord God of our Fathers hath given to us for a rightful Possession.” Time and again, ill-trained and poorly-prepared colonists found themselves thwarted by Native warriors . . . In June 1675 simmering hostilities erupted into open warfare. Early in the month, following a highly questionable trial, Plymouth authorities hanged three Wampanoag men for the alleged murder of John Sassamon, a Native American who had been raised and educated among the Puritan elite. Metacom was enraged. On June 20th, Wampanoag warriors burned several farms in Swansea. Three days later, a Swansea man shot and mortally wounded a Wampanoag. The attack on the 24th was the Native warriors’ revenge. Terrified Swansea settlers abandoned their farms and took refuge in garrisons. Plymouth Colony sought help from Massachusetts Bay Colony and together their militias tried to corner Philip. He eluded them and fled to his Nipmuc allies in central Massachusetts. In the month that followed, Wampanoags attacked Taunton and Old Rehoboth; they burned much of Middleboro and destroyed the village of Dartmouth. Time and again, ill-trained and poorly-prepared colonists found themselves thwarted by Native warriors who used guerilla-type tactics, were far more skillful marksmen, and could easily pick up and move their camps. While the Native peoples’ tactic of remaining constantly on the move prevented the English from counterattacking, it made it impossible for the them to grow and harvest food. The Narragansett, feared and respected for the prowess of their warriors, had initially stayed out of the conflict, but in the late fall of 1675 rumors circulated among the English that the tribe was preparing for war. On December 19th the English staged a pre-emptive strike. A combined force of 1,000 men from Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut colonies attacked a fortified Narragansett village. (Rhode Island, under Roger Williams’s leadership, declined to participate.) In what became known as the Great Swamp Fight, Englishmen slaughtered approximately 600 Narragansett men, women, and children. The English declared it a huge victory — a questionable conclusion since the Narragansett immediately joined the alliance of Native warriors and subsequently killed scores of settlers and destroyed hundreds of homes. By the spring of 1676, the English had abandoned Springfield, Deerfield, Northfield, Brookfield, Lancaster, Groton, Mendon, Wrentham, Swansea, Rehoboth, and Dartmouth. Algonquian warriors staged raids in Chelmsford, Andover, Haverhill, Woburn, and as close to Boston as Braintree. While the Native peoples’ tactic of remaining constantly on the move prevented the English from counterattacking, it made it impossible for them to grow and harvest food. Algonquian food supplies began to run low, a fact their enemies were quick to notice. . . . the English staged an offensive and forced the Indians to abandon their newly planted fields. In July colonists resumed their pursuit of King Philip. In May 1676 the Nipmuc established camps along the Connecticut River, about five miles north of Deerfield, to fish and plant crops. Flush with recent victories, they let down their guard. The English had good intelligence and, when word reached them, 150 men staged a dawn attack. They killed primarily women, children, and old people as they slept. The Nipmuc warriors regrouped, fought back and then pursued the English, killing 39 of them. The Nipmuc’s losses were estimated at 200. The following month, the English staged an offensive and forced the Indians to abandon their newly planted fields. In July colonists resumed their pursuit of King Philip. They captured his wife and nine-year-old son and sold them into slavery. King Philip was betrayed by one of his own men, who shot and killed him on August 12, 1676. Englishmen decapitated and quartered his body. They placed his head on a stake and marched it through the streets of Plymouth, where it remained in public view for years. Colonists systematically hunted down the other Native American leaders, killing some of them on sight and convincing others to surrender with promises of amnesty, then executing them. In September, Massachusetts Bay Colony declared that any Native person responsible for English deaths would be killed and all remaining Indians sold into slavery. Most of the enslaved were shipped to the West Indies, an almost certain death sentence. By late 1676, English settlers had effectively cleared southern New England of its native inhabitants. A small number of King Philip’s people — Metacom’s Wampanoags — managed to survive. They sustained their culture in Mashpee on Cape Cod and on Martha’s Vineyard.
Due to the streamflow of the Charles River gauge being under the Town’s threshold based on Medfield’s Water Management Act Permit, we are required to implement a Tier 2 Streamflow Triggered Restriction. For more information: https://town.medfield.net/1893/Water-Conservation-Restrictions…
I started this blog to share the interesting and useful information that I saw while doing my job as a Medfield select board member. I thought that my fellow Medfield residents would also find that information interesting and useful as well. This blog is my effort to assist in creating a system to push the information out from the Town House to residents. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how it can be done better.
For information on my other job as an attorney (personal injury, civil litigation, estate planning and administration, and real estate), please feel free to contact me at 617-969-1500 or Osler.Peterson@OslerPeterson.com.