Posts Tagged ‘Wakefield’

Total Recall

06May10

Massachusetts town solves voter apathy problem Outraged that only 145 voters showed up at Wakefield‘s Annual Town Meeting session to vote on the town’s $67 million FY’11 operating budget, a group of local citizens has filed a petition to recall Wakefield’s remaining 16,301 registered voters.


A recent incident at Wakefield High School in Massachusetts illustrates just how much our country has changed in just one generation – and not for the better. A few weeks ago, a substitute teacher at Wakefield High School, who is also the father of a soldier who gave his life in Iraq, reprimanded a student […]


Last week, I attended my first Boston Red Sox opening day, a game against the World Champion New York Yankees. My father, Steve Sardella, was born 89 years ago this week in Wakefield, Massachusetts. These two seemingly unrelated facts are linked in my mind because my father was a huge Yankee fan, despite having lived […]


Last year’s highly successful merger of the Wakefield and Melrose Health Departments has prompted officials in the two contiguous communities to explore other ways that they might cooperate for mutual public benefit. There has even been talk of consolidating the Wakefield and Melrose police and fire dispatch systems as another way to save both communities […]


The Shape of Things at QP challenges our concepts of truth, art & love Art and love: we tend to demand truth and honesty in both. But are such expectations fair or even realistic? And if love and art have the power to change lives, at what price? Those are just a few of the […]


If Martha Coakley had won the Massachusetts special election on January 19, 2010, do you think she would have embarked on a statewide post-election tour to thank the voters? We’ll never know of course, but I’m guessing she’d have been sworn in and shaking hands in Washington – not at the Kowloon in Saugus shaking […]


Memorial “pavers” to go on sale They’ve already raised over $25,000 from voluntary donations and the sale of t-shirts and sweatshirts. Now, the World War II Memorial Committee is about to embark on a major fundraising effort that they hope will bring them much closer to their goal of $200,000 – the amount that they […]


Taxing Times

26Nov09

Wakefield, Massachusetts votes itself a new tax The 2009 Regular Town Meeting proved to be a taxing one – and not just for those who hung in for the entire three and a half hours. Town Meeting backed two new local taxes: one that will bring the tax on a restaurant meal in Wakefield to […]


Veterans Day 2009 in Wakefield, Massachusetts As featured speaker at yesterday’s Veterans’ Day exercises, US Army veteran Sam Stella delivered his remarks in an auditorium lined with the photographs of Wakefield soldiers who died in battles fought in distant places long ago. He focused his comments on the roles that United States servicemen and women […]


My artist brother, Bob Sardella, painted this scene showing our chlidhood home on Spring Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts. In the foreground is Jack, the great dog we had for 15 years back in the days before leash laws, when dogs roamed free.