Archive for the ‘Columns & Essays’ Category
Circle game
So, this is how it ends. All we have to show for two and a half years of rancor and division in the community is a double circle with a “W” inside it. This will surely inspire fear in our Middlesex League opponents. Predictably, this decision was made literally in the middle of the summer, […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: 4th of July, educators, Gen. John Galvin, Humor, Independence Day Parade, Indian, July Fourth, logo, Mark Sardella, Native American, NATO, Opinion, Politics, School Committee, schools, soldier, students, teachers, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Public Schools, Wakefield Warrior Football, warrior, WHS, WMHS
Flag warriors
Next Tuesday, July 18, 2023 will be a big day in Wakefield – if things go as planned. But if past is prologue, that’s a big “if.” The School Committee says that it will vote that night on a new Wakefield Warrior logo. Since this is at least the fourth time that they’ve said this […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: American Flag, education, election, Facebook, Flag Day, football, Humor, Independence Day, Indian, July 4, lightning bolt, logo, Mark Sardella, messenger, Opinion, Parade, photo, Politics, School Committee, schools, strength, students, summer, survey, team, Town Council, valor, veterans, virility, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Warrior, warrior, WMHS, Youth Council
Flagging allegiance
What happens when a community deserts its wounded warriors in favor of social justice warriors? The town of Wakefield, Massachusetts is in the process of finding out. On May 16, the Veterans Advisory Board (VAB) voted 7-0 to request that the town honor Flag Day “by flying only the American flag” from public flagpoles on […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Community, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: activists, Ed Dombroski, election, flag American Flag, Flag Day, flagpole, Jonathan Chines, Juneteenth, Old Glory, Pride flag, progressive, Stars & Stripes, Town Council, VAB, veterans, Veterans Advisory Board, voter turnout, voters, Wakefiekd MA, Wakefield Human Rights Commission, WHRC, woke
Lightning strikes twice
When I saw the two final design options for the new Wakefield Warrior logo presented at last week’s School Committee meeting, I’ll admit I was little relieved. At least they decided to forgo the hammer and sickle.
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Community, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 4 Comments
Tags: Bayrd's Indian Trading Post, Community, Daily Item, education, election, hammer & sickle, Humor, Indians, Indigenous People, John R. Galvin, lightning bolt, Mark Sardella, Native Americans, Opinion, Politics, Richard O. Bayrd, schools, vote, Wakefield, Wakefield Memorial High School, Wakefield School Committee, Warrior Logo. Wakefield MA, WHS, WMHS, yearbook, Youth Council
To be, or 40B
Let’s be clear. Something is going to be built at 119-135 Nahant St., the former location of Precision Honing. At this point, the only question is, ‘What?” Right now, it’s a blighted industrial site with a crumbling old factory building on it. Developer Jason Kearney’s new proposal to build a six-story, 120-unit, 40B affordable housing […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: 40B, affordable housing, apartment building, building development, comprehensive permit, construction, developers, equity, housing, Humor, legislature, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MassHousing, Nahant Street, Opinion, Politics, Precision Honing, private property, suburbia, suburbs, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Zoning Board of Appeals, Zoning Bylaws
The visitation
The day after the funeral for my niece Meghan, I was busying myself planting petunias in the pots that I hang from my back deck every spring. I needed a ladder to reach one of the higher pots, and when I lifted the pot off its hook, a bird flew out. I immediately recognized it […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Family, Nature & Wildlife | 4 Comments
Tags: angel, bird, dove, life, Mark Sardella, Meghan Sardella, mourning dove, nest, plant, visit
We care a lot
COVID may be over, but we still face an even more dangerous epidemic: complacency. We saw it a few weeks ago, when a whopping 18 percent of Wakefield’s eligible voters supported building a new $274 million high school. It passed anyway because 75 percent of the town’s registered voters either didn’t know or didn’t care […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays | 5 Comments
The price of apathy
Last Saturday’s Special Election, which saw 18 percent of the voters give 100 percent of Wakefield homeowners a hefty tax increase, brought back a hazy memory from about 40 years ago. As a member of the Board of Assessors in the 1980s, Paul Faler was a fierce advocate for residential taxpayers. As I recall it, […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 5 Comments
Tags: bike lanes, Blosoms at the Beebe, Board of Assessors, education, election, electorate, homeowners, Humor, Jonathan Chines, League of Women Voters, LWV, Mark Sardella, Mike Conley, Opinion, Paul Faler, People's Paradise, Phil Porter, Phyllis Hull, Politics, Proposition 2 1/2, Sam Benedetto, schools, solar panels, special election, TAW, taxes, taxpayers, Taxpayers Association of Wakefield, Town Council, townies, voters, voting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield natives, WMHS, Yes for WMHS
Schools of thought
Watching two school building projects unfold virtually side by side in time and space has provided a unique window into what happens when environmental and educational activism collide at the local level.
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: activists, Amazon Rain Forest, Breakheart Reservation, Chelsea, civics, Conservation Commission, diversity, education, environment, equity, Everett, forest, Hemlock Rd., Humor, inclusion, Malden, Mark Sardella, MSBA, NEMT, Northeast Metro Tech, Opinion, Politics, privilege, Revere, schools, Shaun F. Beasley, social justice, trade school, vocational education, Voke, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Memorial High School, wildlife habitat, WMHS, woods
Mark Sardella 