Posts Tagged ‘Opinion’
Name that board!
Right on the heels of the plastic bags crisis, the latest issue to rock Wakefield is what name we should use for the town’s executive body. For the past 370 years, “Board of Selectmen” has done quite nicely, but no more. The position contains the word “man” (and in the plural, “men”). In 2017, this […]
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Tags: attorney, Board of Selectmen, Cyrus Wakefield, gender neutral, History, humpr, lawyers, man, Mark Sardella, men, Opinion, Politics, select board, selectboard, selectman, tradition, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Warriors, Xena Warrior Princess
Town Meeting highs and lows
Let me be the first to say it. Hot enough for you? I know, it’s barely 70 degrees, but after the February weather we had earlier this week, today feels like Death Valley. It doesn’t get reliably warm around here until the summer solstice. Then it’s summer until about the Fourth of July, and it’s […]
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Tags: attendance, Bill Carroll, democracy, Humor, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Open Town Meeting, Opinion, Politics, Reading MA, Representative Town Meeting, solstice, Special interest, summer, sun, taxes, Town Moderator, vote, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
Zoned out
I know some people don’t like me to write about marijuana, but the subject has been in the local news a lot lately and it’s kind of my job. So this constitutes a trigger warning for those delicate flowers of the Cannabis Community whose heads tend to explode when I write about pot. (Rest assured […]
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Tags: Board of Selectmen, business, cities, drugs, election, hemp, herb, Humor, legislature, maijuana, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Opinion, Politics, pot, prohibition, Pulitzer Prize, Question 4, referendum, Town Meeiting, towns, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, weed, zoning
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
My War on Winter
The older I get, the more I hate winter. I hate Old Man Winter almost as much as CNN hates the President of the United States. I have no proof, but I’m convinced that winter is a Russian plot to turn the United States into Siberia.
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Tags: battle, birds, blizzard, carbon, cars, Climate Change, CNN, disrupt, election, Global Warming, Humor, hybrid car, Mark Sardella, Mazda, normalize, oil, Opinion, petroleum, President Donald Trump, Prius, recount, Resistance, Russians, science, shovel, Siberia fossil fuels, snow, solar power, storm, Wakefield Daily Item, war, winter
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
Green day
Thursday was a big day for the Massachusetts Cannabis Community. December 15, 2016 – a day that will live, if not in infamy, then certainly in idiocy. At 4:20 p.m., thousands of senile hippies and their millennial grandchildren shared a bong hit to celebrate the fact that decades of oppressive “prohibition” has come to an […]
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Tags: alcohol, bud, drugs, edibles, herb, Humor, legalization, marijuana, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Opinion, Politics, pot, Question 4, smoke, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, weed
The joy of giving – to me
I was relieved the other day when my L.L. Bean Christmas Gift Guide arrived in the mail. Not that I plan to buy any gifts from it. In fact, I’m at a bit of a loss as to why I’m even on their mailing list. I can only guess that I must have purchased something […]
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Tags: Berkshires, catalog, Christmas, coffee, column columnist, essayist, farmers' market, fireplace, firewood, gifts, giving, gloves, holidays, Humor, journalist, Joy of Giving, L.L. Bean, Mark Sardella, Opinion, pundit, reporter, scribe, Tanglewood, Trader Joe's, travel mug, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Massachusetts, winter, writer
Mark Sardella 