Wakefield MA | Mark Sardella

Posts Tagged ‘Wakefield MA’

Many ways to care

17Apr20

Let me see if I understand. Either you want everybody to live under lockdown indefinitely (if you call that living) or you care more about Wall Street and corporate profits than human life. Have I got that about right? If you express any concern about the economy, it’s not because you hope small business owners, […]

Filed under: Columns & Essays, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: alcoholism, business, coronavirus, corporations, COVID-19, depression, drug addiction, economics, economy, employment, health, jobs, lockdown, Mark Sardella, money, Opinion, Politics, recession, revenue, small businesses, suicide, unemployment, virus, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, workers

The cost of learning

06Feb20

If there is one group of individuals about whom a discouraging word must never be uttered, it’s public school teachers. Wakefield teachers have been without a contract since last summer, which you’ve probably heard as their supporters have been using social media and other means to spread the word.

Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: budget, class size, contract, DPW, education, Galvin Middle School, Greenwood School, Humor, Mark Sardella, negotiations, Norma Rae, Opinion, police, Politics, Public Safety Building, salary, School Committee, School Department, schools, students, taxpayers, teachers, Town Meeting, union, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Education Association, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Walton School, WEA

Old school

16Jan20

Coming on the heels of the great news that the Greenwood School would at long last be getting a new roof came the even better news that the 123-year-old structure would not support solar panels on the new roof. There goes the planet.

Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: bicycle, building, carbon footprint, Climate Change, coal, construction, cycling, Envision Wakefield, Global Warming, green, Greenwood, Greenwood School, Humor, Mark Sardella, Opinion, Politics, roof, solar panels, Town Report, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Memorial High School, walking

Neutral zone violation

07Nov19

If one thing is certain in this crazy, mixed up, gender neutralized world in which we find ourselves, it’s that you can’t win. Literally. The Wakefield High School Field Hockey Team learned that the hard way last week. The local girls got bounced from the playoffs by a Wayland team — that included boys. Would […]

Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: Board of Selectmen, boys, chairman, chairperson, co-ed, coed, Ed Dombroski, female, field hockey, gender neutral, girls, Humor, Julie Scott, male, Mark Sardella, men, Opinion, Politics, sports Warriors, Town Council, Tri-Board, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wayland High School, Wayland MA, women

Teachable moment

25Oct19

“Demands on classroom teachers are now laughable,” Wakefield Education Association president Will Karvouniaris told the meeting of the “Tri-Board” last week. If any members of the Town Council, the School Committee or Finance Committee were amused, they didn’t show it. The town’s three top boards were meeting in joint session at the Galvin Auditorium last […]

Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: budget, children, class size, Finance Committee, finances, fiscal, History, Humor, Mark Sardella, mythology, newspaper, Opinion, Politics, quid pro quo, School Committee, schools, teachers, Town Council, Tri-Board, union, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Education Association, Wakefield MA, WEA, William Karvouniaris

Weekend Warrior

11Oct19

As we head into the long Indigenous Peoples Day weekend, let us take a moment from our apple picking, leaf-peeping and farmers market excursions to reflect upon the true meaning of the holiday: to show how much more virtuous and woke we are than those who still call it Columbus Day.

Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: Berkeley, Board of Selectmen, CA, Christopher Columbus, Columbus Day, Europeans, farmers' market, FDR, First Peoples, football, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, History, holiday, Human Rights Commission, Humor, inclusive, Indians, Indigenous Peoples Day, Italian-Americans, Landrigan Field, Mark Sardella, men, Native Americans, Opinion, Politics, progressives, Roman Empire, Town Council, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Warrior

Zoning out

04Oct19

So, now they want Zoning Board of Appeals meetings to be televised. The suggestion was made recently at a televised Town Council meeting. Misery loves company, I suppose. There’s nothing TV viewers would rather watch than deliberations over dimensional variances and nonconforming uses — unless you count the Watching Paint Dry Channel. To help promote […]

Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Television, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: cable TV, city, Climate Change, Community Television, Conservation Commission, developer, development, environmental issues, Envision, Greenwood Station, Humor, Mark Sardella, meetings, nonconforming use, opinion. politics, overdevelopment, public access, Special Permit, Television, Town Council zoning, variance, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Station, WCAT, ZBA, Zoning Board of Appeals

Pride of the Yankees

19Sep19

I was vaguely aware that John J. Round had been a town official way back at the beginning of the 20th century. But, like most people, I had no inkling about his more significant contributions to the town. I had no idea, for example, that he had purchased entire tracts of land in the areas […]

Filed under: Columns & Essays, Family, Feature stories, History, Opinion, Politics, Profiles, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: altruism, Anglo-Saxons, Arthur G. Walton, Bandstand, Cornelius Sweetser, Crystal Lake, Cyrus Wakefield, Galvin Middle School, Gardner Campbell, Greenwood, JJ Round Park, John J. Round, Lucius Beebe, Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Mark Sardella, money, old white men, philanthropy, Pilgrims, Protestant, Sweetser Lecture Series, trees, Wakefield Common, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Town Hall, Walton Field, Yankees

Charging ahead

22Aug19

We’ve already established that the only thing keeping you from trading in your Subaru for a Schwinn is the lack of bike lanes. Now it turns out that all it will take to get you into a new electric vehicle is for the town to install a few public electric vehicle charging stations. So, which […]

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Tags: battery, bicycles, bike lanes, capitalism, car, cars automobiles, charging stations, Climate Change, cost, electric vehicles, electricity, EVs, fossil fuels, gas, gasoline, Global Warming, Humor, Mark Sardella, Mazda, money, Opinion, planet, Politics, supply and demand, Town Council, transportation, vehicle, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, WMGLD

A simple plan

02Aug19

If you’re looking for someone to blame for bike lanes, look in the mirror. That’s in effect what the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is saying in a recently released document called the Massachusetts Bicycle Transportation Plan. MassDOT has developed the Bike Plan “to be an actionable investment strategy to guide its decision-making and bicycle […]