Posts Tagged ‘Politics’
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 […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
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 […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
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 […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
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 […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
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 […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
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 […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: alcohol, bud, drugs, edibles, herb, Humor, legalization, marijuana, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Opinion, Politics, pot, Question 4, smoke, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, weed
Halloween, 2016 style
Halloween is Monday, and that means this would be a good weekend to stay home and avoid the throngs of giddy Deadpool and Wonder Woman wannabes clogging the roads and liquor stores as they head out to party with dozens of Donalds, hordes of Hillarys and assorted other creepy clowns. Gone are the days when […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: adults, American, children, clowns, column, costume, cowboy, Deadpool, Donald Trump, edibles, Halloween, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights Commission, Humor, Indian, marijuana, Mark Sardella, Opinion, Politics, Question 4, sombrero, THC, trick-or-treat, USA Today, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Massachusetts, Wonder Woman
Gone to pot
How things have changed. Not so long ago, it was a given that drugs were bad, the police were good and American soldiers protected freedom and liberty at home and around the world. These were universal values that served us well for generation after generation. Nowadays, expressing ideas that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow a […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays | Leave a Comment
Tags: Colorado, COPS, crime, drugs, high, Human Rights Commission, legalization, marijuana, Mark Sardella, medicine, money, music, News, opiates, Opinion, opioids, painkiller, paranoia, pharmaceutical industry, police, Politics, pot, Question 4, recreational, stoned, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, weed