With the opioid addiction problem at epidemic levels, knowing what to do in the event of an overdose is more important than ever.
Area residents recently had an opportunity to learn what to do in the event of an opiate overdose and to receive training in the use of Narcan, a drug that can reverse an opiate overdose in a matter of minutes if given in time.
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Tags: drug abuse, drugs, Heathy Streets Outreach Program, heroin, hydrocodone, Mark Sardella, Mary Wheeler, Massachusetts, morphine, Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition, Naloxone, Narcan, opiate, opioid, overdose, oxycodone, oxycontin, WAKE UP, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Unified Prevention Coalition
Gloucester Stage‘s current production, Out of Sterno, is unlike any comedy you’ve seen, and one that you’re almost guaranteed to like.
While teetering on the edge of theater of the absurd, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s play hangs on to just enough realism to make the audience believe in and care about its central character, Dotty, who lives up to the dictionary definition of her name as “amiably eccentric.”
Dotty (played by a brilliant Amanda Collins) lives happily in a cluttered, junk-strewn apartment in the city of Sterno with her husband, the dangerously sexy bad boy, Hamel (Noah Tuleja). For the seven years of their marriage, Hamel has forbidden Dotty to leave the apartment or to speak to anyone, even her family.
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Tags: Amanda Collins, David Wilson, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Elisabetta Polito, Gloucester, Gloucester Stage, Jennifer Ellis, Jon Savage, Mark Sardella, Meg Tracy Leddy, Noah Tuleja, Out of Sterno, Paula Plum, play, Richard Snee, Russ Swift, theater, theatre
Prohibitionist’s Journal
by Mark Sardella
If you still buy into the myth that potheads are mellow, live and let live types, try suggesting that weed might not be the next penicillin. To paraphrase an old saying, hell hath no fury like a stoner scorned.
Oppose legalization of marijuana and, if you’re lucky, the worst they’ll call you is a “prohibitionist.”
But if historical Prohibition has taught us anything it’s that once a drug is legal, it’s over. Even if legalization proves to be an utter disaster, you’re stuck with it. You can’t go back and make it illegal again.
So we should think long and hard before legalizing another substance that has one purpose and one purpose only: intoxication.
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Tags: alcohol, cannabis, children, cigarettes, Colorado, drugs, education, legalization, marijuana, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, OD, overdode, pot, prohibition, prohibitionist, stoner, substance abuse, tobacco, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, weed
A League of Their Own
As you may have noticed, protesting is back in vogue.
Beyond the immediate complaints, it’s hard to know exactly what has spawned the recent resurgence in this trend of seeking redress of grievances by “singing songs and carrying signs,” as The Buffalo Springfield once sneered.
Maybe part of it is aging Baby Boomers and their grandchildren nostalgic for the idealism and camaraderie of The Movement.
Except, through the normal evolution of human society many of the social ills that were protest targets in the middle of the 20th century are at least being addressed. We’re far from perfect, but we’ve come a long way in the last 50 years.
So what’s left for the modern-day seeker of social justice? Have all of the forces of evil been defeated?
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Tags: Assisted Living, Baby Boomers, Brightview Senior Living, Buffalo Springfield, demonstration, Koch Brothers, Mark Sardella, protest, Shelter Development, social justice, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Zoning Board of Appeals
Through June 20, 2015
The Apple Family moves to Gloucester Stage for Sweet and Sad, part 2 of Richard Nelson’s quartet of plays that explore major events or anniversaries through the eyes of an ordinary family. Part 1, That Hopey Changey Thing, was produced at Stoneham Theatre last winter.
If That Hopey Changey Thing, was more focused on politics, the second installment delves deeper into the personal and emotional lives of the six characters as they share a meal at the Rhinebeck, New York home of Barbara Apple (played by Karen MacDonald).
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Tags: 9/11, Apple Family Plays, Bill Mootos, Crystal Tiala, David Wilson, Gail Astrid Buckley, Gloucester Stage Company, Joel Colodner, Karen MacDonald, Laura Lautreille, Mark Sardella, Marsha Smith, memorial, memory, Paul Melendy, Rhinebeck NY, Richard Nelson, Russ Swift, Sarah Newhouse, stage, Stoneham Theatre, Sweet and Sad, theater, theatre, Weylin Symes
Commencement Address
Greetings parents, guardians, students, faculty and other stakeholders.
On behalf of this professional learning community and its educators, it is a pleasure to welcome you to today’s commencement exercises. I am pleased that you were able to leverage your resources in such a way as to join us today.
Our strategic plan for this afternoon is for you to invest your attention in several empowering speeches, followed by the distribution of diplomas in a sequential format. Our data-informed target is to complete implementation of today’s action-items in time for all stakeholders to arrive at their individualized celebrations in a timely fashion.
And now, I should like to address our soon to be former stakeholders, our graduates.
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Tags: commencement address, diploma, education, educator, eduspeak, faculty, graduate, graduation speech, jargon, learning, lingo, Mark Sardella, pedagogy, school, schools, student, teacher, Wakefield Daily Item
Honoring Fallen Heroes
Wakefield, Massachusetts pays tribute on Memorial Day
The morning fair skies that greeted those attending 2015 Memorial Day ceremonies at the West Side Social Club gave way to increasing clouds by the time the town’s afternoon program got underway on Veterans Memorial Common. But Monday’s 
summer-like weather helped to draw large numbers of Wakefield citizens to honor those who died in service of their country.
The WSSC observance got underway promptly at 10 a.m. at Moulton Park with Sean Curran presiding. Curran, a US Marine Corps veteran of Desert Storm and a Lieutenant with the Wakefield Fire Department, told of the “extremely emotional experience” he had when visiting Pearl Harbor while he and his wife were honeymooning in Hawaii.
“How would our country and this world be different,” Curran asked, “if everyone remembered that our freedoms come at a very high price.”
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Tags: Adam Tarpey, Alicia Reddin, American Legion, Donald Wong, Gold Star, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Memorial Day, Paul Brodeur, Phyllis Hull, Purple Heart Community, Sean Curran, Tom Collins, veterans, Veterans Services, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, West Side Social Club
The Simple Art of Voting
Every time there’s a low-turnout local election or Town Meeting (or both, as we recently had in Wakefield) talk inevitably turns to ways to improve voter turnout and participation. On the surface, it seems like a noble idea.
“How can we make voting easier?” people wonder, as if voting were a task akin to climbing Mt. Everest. All kinds of ideas are proposed. Allow online voting, some say. Others advocate “early voting.” Instead of one Election Day, people could vote any time that’s convenient for them over a period of a month.
Our recent annual Town Meeting drew 320 voters, which seems like a lot by recent standards. But the number was greatly inflated by those who came only to vote for the school budget increase and then quietly slipped out once that passed. By the time the meeting was winding down at 10 p.m., the usual 180 or so regulars were left doing the grunt work.
I’m now convinced that there’s nothing wrong with that.
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Tags: apathy, elections, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Politics, Town Meeting, vote, voting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Size Matters
Does size matter?
Yes, it does. But if you’re a member of the Wakefield Zoning Board of Appeals, there’s a limit to the number of hours you want to spend talking about it.
Size is the biggest issue for many opponents of the Brightview Senior Living facility that Shelter Development is proposing to build on Crescent Street. They think that the 130-unit combined assisted-living, independent-living and memory care facility is just too big for the site.
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Tags: Assisted Living, Brightview Senior Living, Charles Tarbell, David Hatfield, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Shelter Development, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, ZBA, Zoning Board of Appeals
The Big Ask
Wakefield School Department officials have acknowledged that their requested 11.4 percent budget increase for FY 2016 is “a big ask.”
The largest piece of that increase is $1,176,875 (3.8 percent) for “contractual salary obligations.” Another $658,174 (2.1 percent) is for SPED tuitions and $628,218 (2 percent) goes to fund salaries related to the newly instituted full-day kindergarten. An additional $378,956 (1.2 percent) is slated for other new positions. A combination of amounts for items like curriculum, technology, transportation and utilities make up the remaining 2 percent of the requested budget increase.
In return, what Finance Committee chairman Gerard Leeman and other FinCom members wanted was a comparatively small “ask.” They wanted a commitment – or at least an affirmative statement – from someone in the School Department leadership that they would hold budget increases to 4 percent for each of the next three years.
Evidently, that was too much to ask, because School officials couldn’t quite bring themselves to utter those words.
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Tags: Big Ask, budget, Christopher Callanan, Daniel Sherman, Dr. Stephen Zrike, Edward Dombroski, Finance Committee, Gerard Leeman, Mark Sardella, school, School Committee, schools, Wakefield Daily Item, William Boodry
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