Posts Tagged ‘Wakefield Daily Item’
Idle thoughts
From the front lines of the War on Gas-powered cars This week, the Town Council decided that Wakefield should comply with a virtually unknown, 15-year-old state regulation requiring “No Idling” signs to be displayed on school grounds. The issue came up after Councilor Bob Vincent did one of his signature deep dives into the legal […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: automobiles, bike lanes, cars, DEP, drivers, Fight Hate, fossil fuels, gasoline, Humor, idling, laws, Lt. Joseph Anderson, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MassDEP, motorists, No Idling, Opinion, parking, Politics, Robert Vincent, schools, signs, Stop signs, Thomas Mullen, Town Council, Traffic Advisory Committee, trucks, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Public Schools
Happy Columbus Day!
This may shock some of you, but within living memory the discovery of America was regarded as a good thing. Now, instead of learning about an adventurous explorer who discovered a whole New World, school children are taught that they live on stolen land and are descended from genocidal colonizers. And we wonder why kids […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: America, Christopher Columbus, colonizers, Columbus Day, education, exploration, explorer, First Peoples, Franklin D. Roosevelt, History, holiday, human sacrifice, Humor, Indians, Indigenous peoples, Italian-Americans, land acknowledgement, Mark Sardella, Native Americans, New World, North America, Opinion, Politics, Samuel Eliot Morison, schools, slavery, tribes, United States, Wakefield Daily Item, war
Greens gone wild
Things got a little hot for representatives of Wakefield’s Environmental Sustainability Committee at last week’s Town Council meeting. But for once, they couldn’t blame climate change. The leading ladies of the ESC must have been a bit dumbfounded by the criticism leveled at them. After all, they’re the good guys (or gals) who are “doing […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, Nature & Wildlife, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 10 Comments
Tags: climate, Climate Change, Climate Leader Communities, conservation, cost, Edward Dombroski, energy, environment, Environmental Sustainability Committee, environmentalism, ESC, Global Warming, Humor, Julie Smith-Galvin, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Melissa Eusden, Michael McLane, mission statement, Opinion, planet, policy, Politics, recycling, Specialized Building Code, Tiana Veldwisch, Town Council, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA
A simple plan
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, the old saying goes. And willful ignorance of the law combined with arrogance is inexcusable. Exhibit A: the recent ruling by the Attorney General’s Office that the Wakefield Planning Board violated the Open Meeting Law. The Planners convinced themselves that the superiority of their MBTA Multifamily Zoning compliance […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: activists, agenda, Attorney General, board, Climate Change, committee, commuter rail, housing, Humor, James Hogan, magical thinking, Mark Sardella, Masschusetts, Matthew Lowry, MBTA, MGL Chapter 40A, multifamily housing, open government, Open Meeting Law, Opinion, Politics, public transit, public transportation, secret, Theo Noell, Town Meeting, train, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Planning Board, walkable communities, zoning
Decarbonization roadmap to ruin
My new favorite town board is the Environmental Sustainability Committee and its countless offshoots. The ladies have been busy this summer, meeting 10 times in the months of June and July alone! Such a frenzied pace befits a group tasked with saving the planet. As the chairwoman called a recent meeting to order, she hoped […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: automobiles, bicycle, bike lanes, block party, climate, Climate Change, Climate Leaders, decarbonization, electric vehicles, environment, Environmental Sustainability Committee, EV, fossil fuels, Global Warming, heat, heat pump, housing crisis, Humor, lawn, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MIT, Opinion, Politics, school bus, schools, solar energy, Specialized Energy Code, summer, SUVs, taxpayers, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, weather, Wentworth, zero emissions zone
Summer climate alert!
As we sweat our way through yet another “hottest summer on record,” it is important to remember one thing: it’s all our fault. If we hadn’t defiled Mother Earth with our damnable human penchant for invention, technology and civilization, the planet would have remained a Garden of Eden with a temperature that’s 1.5 degrees cooler […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, Nature & Wildlife, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 8 Comments
Tags: 1816, animals, birds, civilization, climate, Climate Change, crops, drought, earth, Eden, electricity, environment, famine, fossil fuels, frost, gas, gasoline, Global Warming, heat, hospitals, Humor, ice, internal combustion engine., invention, Keith Heidorn, Labor Day, lights, Mark Sardella, nature, New England, oil, Opinion, Paradise, planet, Politics, rain, Red Sox, seasons, sheep, snow, summer, sustainability, technology, temperature, Wakefield Daily Item, weather, wind, winter
Minority leaders
The vast majority of people use cars to get around. Only a tiny minority ride bicycles. So naturally, Wakefield is in the process of taking nine feet of driving lane away from motorists in order to create a separate lane for bicycles on North Avenue.
Filed under: Art, Columns & Essays, Community, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: 18-wheelers, Art, automobiles, ballot question, bicycle lanes, bike lane, cars, climate, Climate Leader Communities, cyclists, ecology, environment, golf, Humor, majority, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MBTA, museum, Opinion, pickup, Politics, roads, Stonehenge, sustainability, SUV, truck, two-wheeler, vote, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Warrior
Green gurus
There is a group in Wakefield that wants very much to tell you how to live your life. And if you run a business, they’ve got plenty of ideas they’d like to “share” with you on that as well. No, I’m not talking about the Opera Club of Wakefield. I speak, of course, of the […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: business, Climate Change, Climate Leader Communities, commercial, compost, developers, education, electric vehicles, Environmental Sustainability Committee, ESC, EV chargers, EVs, fossil fuels, Gobal Warming, green, Humor, kechup, landlords, Mark Sardella, natural gas, Opera Club of Wakefield, Opinion, planet, recycling, residential, social equity, sustainable, taxpayers, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, waste reduction
No means no
Wakefield has now joined the growing ranks of Massachusetts cities and towns that have decided to “just say no” to the state meddling in local zoning. Town Meeting voters outright refused to comply with the state’s mandate forcing MBTA communities to allow multifamily housing as of right near public transportation. Last week, Town meeting rejected […]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 5 Comments
Tags: citizens petition, development, housing, law, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MBTA, MBTA Communities Act, multifamily, News, Opinion, Planning Board, Politics, public hearings, public transit, residents, state, town, Town Meeting, transit, voters, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, zoning
Mark Sardella 