Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

Thanks to ‘Wakefield Main Streets’ program By MARK SARDELLA WAKEFIELD — You’ve seen the flower barrels currently along Main Street in the downtown filled with colorful plantings from spring through summer. Starting in May, look for some new additions to that downtown beautification effort. The Wakefield Main Streets program will be providing four new self-watering […]


When audiences arrives at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Wakefield, MA for future concerts at the Linden Tree Coffeehouse, something will be missing. The majestic linden tree that lent its name to the coffeehouse 31 years ago and has graced the front of the church for longer than anyone has been alive, was taken down on […]


We’ve arrived at the Put Up or Shut Up Season. Monday, Jan. 4 was the first day that you could pull nomination papers to run in the April 26 Town Election. For those who for the past year have been have been telling anyone who would listen that you could do a better job running […]


This month, Wakefield Community Access Television celebrates its 25th anniversary as Wakefield’s public access television operation. It’s hard to believe that WCAT has been around for a quarter century. What’s even harder to believe is that public access television has been around in Wakefield, MA for even longer than that. WCAT was formed in December […]


by Mark Sardella (Wakefield Daily Item) Who did she think she was – this outside consultant with her studies and her facts and figures – coming in and telling us that our downtown isn’t the economic Death Valley we’ve been led to believe it is? How dare she suggest that revitalization doesn’t happen overnight and […]


Fantasy League

20Nov15

The irony of the moment was not lost on acting Planning Board chairman Bill Spaulding. “I do find it interesting that you’re questioning the parking – the amount of it,” Spaulding told Bronwyn Della-Volpe at hearing last week on Town Meeting Article 12, which was aimed at revitalizing the downtown with more mixed-use, residential-above-retail development. […]


By Mark Sardella (Wakefield Daily Item) Is there a parking problem in downtown Wakefield? The answer can depend on whom you ask. Some blame empty storefronts on a lack of downtown parking, while others say that parking in downtown Wakefield isn’t really a problem if you’re willing to walk a couple of blocks. But even […]


by Mark Sardella (Wakefield Daily Item) Wakefield resident Joanne Lima has a uniquely altruistic hobby, and among the principal beneficiaries are those that patronize the Wakefield Interfaith Food Pantry. “I’m a big couponer and I’m able to coupon at little or no cost,” she says. Whatever she thinks the Food Pantry could use and her […]


The Right Stuff

04Sep15

Wakefield’s long human rights nightmare is over. No more need to tell your stockbroker to divest from companies doing business in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Last week, the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee voted to endorse the establishment of a “Wakefield Human Rights Commission.” You didn’t know that human rights abuses were rampant in Wakefield? […]


The newest addition to last weekend’s Festival Italia was by far the best part of the event and should immediately be made a permanent fixture of this annual celebration. No, I’m not talking about the Wakefield Civic League booth.