Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Voter fatigue

02Sep16

You’ve got your work cut out for you this fall. It’s called voting, and you’re going to have to do it not once, but twice. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Hopefully you’ve recovered from voting in the local Special Election on July 19 and have spent the summer resting and building up your strength […]


To paraphrase the late, great Dan Hicks, “How can we miss them when they won’t go away?” Just when you thought it was safe to go to the Post Office on Saturday morning, they’re back like a bad penny – or three or four of them. The Wakefield Civic League, those guardians of our local […]


By MARK SARDELLA We all know how social media has affected our own lives. We see it every time we check Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and a host of new networks springing up every day. Even those who have succeeded in resisting social media can’t avoid it entirely. But how is social media impacting the corporate […]


Fine print

05Aug16

Lately, I don’t feel like my week is complete until I’ve been lectured by a millennial about one thing or another. Usually it’s about the evil of plastic bags or how many genders there are or how the Founding Fathers all smoked hemp, dude. The usual venue for these sermons is social media, where I’m […]


Now that July 19 is behind us, can we finally admit that all the hand-wringing over the Special Election had nothing to do with it costing the town $10,000 and everything to do with politics and the person who filed for the Special Election? After Phyllis Hull collected the 200 signatures needed to force the […]


Things like the recent Independence Day celebration and the upcoming Festival Italia remind me that civic groups that actually do things are a lot more interesting (not to mention fun) than the ones that exist just air grievances and self-promote. If it’s true that after July Fourth, the summer flies by, then why do I […]


By MARK SARDELLA WAKEFIELD — With Lake Quannapowitt as the backdrop, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan stood shoulder to shoulder with a host of local officials yesterday to convey a life-saving message about water safety this summer. And to hammer the point home, the Wakefield Fire Department conducted a simulated drowning rescue, swimming far […]


By MARK SARDELLA They came to celebrate life and they came to reaffirm a commitment to defeat cancer. And they came to walk. More than 1,000 people made their way to the athletic field at Northeast Metro Tech on Friday, June 17, 2016 for Wakefield’s Relay For Life. They included cancer survivors, caregivers and participants […]


The town recently held an event called “Wakefield 101,” an orientation session for new residents to give them a chance to talk to representatives of town departments, community organizations and local businesses. The idea was to help new residents get the lay of the land and to give them a heads up on how we […]


As of this writing, we have eight people (and counting) running for Selectman in the July 19 Special Election to fill the nine months left on former selectman Betsy Sheeran’s term. This sudden surge of interest in public service is truly a wonderful thing to behold. My only question is, where were some of these […]