Archive for the ‘History’ Category
After the Big Bump
When the Wakefield School Department came out this week and requested a 4.84 percent increase in its FY 2018 budget, they turned a few people into prophets. In 2015, Annual Town Meeting approved a “one-time” 11.4 percent increase in the School Department budget. The Big Bump was supposed to “right size” the School Department by […]
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Tags: budget, drama, education, funding, Galvin Middle School, marching band, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, music, Opinion, Politics, School Committee, schools, students sports, theater, Town Meeting, user fees, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Public Schools
Parking garage redux
So you thought that the idea of a parking garage on the town-owned lot between and behind the Cooperative Bank and Jeffrey’s Package Store was as dead as Parke Snow’s or The Armory? Think again. The Selectmen at their last meeting talked about reviving the possibility, noting that parking hasn’t gotten any easier in the […]
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Tags: Assisted Living, Brightview Senior Living, building, construction, downtown, elderly, housing, Jeffrey's Package Store, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, memory care, Opinion, parking, parking grarage, Politics, Shelter Development, The Savings Bank, Wakefield Co-operative Bank, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
157 candles
Today would be Curtis Guild’s birthday. Who the hell is Curtis Guild, you ask? How soon we forget. He was a three-term Massachusetts governor, from 1906 to 1909. If you’ve never heard the name Curtis Guild, apparently you’re so confused by the striping on the Route 129 Rotary that you’ve never taken a right onto […]
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Tags: blueblood, Camp Curtis Guild, Charlie Baker, Cuba, Curtis Guild Jr., demonstration, governor, guns, Harvard College, Harvard Crimson, Harvard Rifle Corps, Massachusetts, National Guard, pink pussy hat, protest, Russia, safety pin, Spanish American War, Theodore Roosevelt, white privilege, William Howard Taft, Yankee
All in the timing
With the various measures they pass on the federal and state level, lawmakers come up with some interesting ideas when it comes to their own powers. They even think they can control the weather by passing climate regulations. (I wonder what the Supremacy Clause under Article VI of the Constitution says about the doctrine of […]
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Tags: adolescent, clock, day, Daylight Saving Time, government, laws, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts Legislature, night, sleep, students, sunrise, sunset, teenagers, time, time zones, timepiece, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, watch
Standing up for US
It’s cool to be patriotic again. It hit me at last week’s Veterans Day observance in Veterans Memorial Auditorium at the Galvin Middle School. I sensed that something was different when I walked in and saw the huge crowd, many of them with red poppies in their lapels. And not a single safety pin in […]
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Tags: America, Colin Kapernik, flagVeterans Day, Galvin Middle School, John Bohling, Mark Sardella, National Anthem, patriotism, Pledge of Allegiance, protest, red poppy, safety pin, soldiers, United States, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield Massachusetts
Surly voting
Call me old fashioned. Call me a slave to tradition. But I’ll be voting on Tuesday, Nov. 8, on what used to be known as Election Day.
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Tags: apathy, ballot, candidate, drivers license, early voting, election, Election Day, fraud, ID, identification, MA, Mark Sardella, polling place, Sudafed, turnout, vote, Voter ID, voting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Massachusetts
Mark Sardella 