To The Editor: The April 9, 2013 Town Election Ballot includes two Ballot Questions which involve administrative changes to the Town Charter. By law, all changes to the Charter must come before the voters. Residents have recently received a mailing about these proposed changes, and some have asked why these changes are being considered. State law requires the Town to distribute this mailing, but prevents the Town from fully explaining the reason for these charter changes. The Board of Selectmen and other town officials are not prohibited from explaining and advocating for (or against) these …
To the editor, My name is Brett Rhyne, and I’m running as a write-in candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in the April 30 primary. Why? Because I need a job. That’s only a little facetious. Since I stopped teaching at Salem State College in 2009, I’ve been unemployed or underemployed two-thirds of the time. Put another way, I haven’t been able to provide for my five-year-old boys for half their lives. Thankfully, family, friends, our community and the state have helped greatly, and for that, I’m extremely grateful. As a teacher and a journalist, I’ve always worked to make …
The following was written and submitted by Natick resident Lisa Doiron: As a Natick resident I am EXTRA proud to be from Natick today!!! On Monday, MLK Jr. Day, I was home with my young son and dog. We let our dog out around noon that day and for whatever reason our gate wasn't latched and Buster escaped through the gate. He's a timid chocolate lab and is afraid of his shadow!!! But yet he went out on a wild adventure!!! Two lovely ladies found him along rt 27-looking scared!!! They called me because of his tags/collar. Buster was returned to me and my 4 1/2 year old. Both of us were …
Hello Friends and Neighbors, Between the devastation left by Superstorm Sandy, the intensity of the coverage pertaining to the national, state and local elections and other pressing issues to many to count, you may or may not be aware of a very local situation of our own which took place last week in our neighborhood and is still unfolding as of today. This situation involves a serious house fire at 3 Franklin Street in which one of our neighbors, Laura Kajkut, heard the cries for help coming from the upstairs apartment and bravely came to the aid of Gabriela Gonzalez (15 yrs old) while her …
Our government’s solution to a crumbling economy, staggering unemployment, and inflation is $1.5T in new taxes, primarily from the ‘rich’, and $580B in cuts to programs including Social Security. Career politicians continually threaten to gut education, medical research, layoff police and firefighters if they don’t get their way. Is this acceptable to you? In 2009, the combined gross income of Americans earning at least $500,000 per year was ~$1T, accounting for $257B in federal income taxes. That same year, our national debt increased by $1.6T. Confiscating every penny of disposable income …
Julie Baker, the parent of a student at the Riverbend School in Natick, shares her experiences with the school: The assignment was “Mystery Mystery.” Each student had to choose something – anything – and come up with 5 clues about it, ranging from hardest to easiest, and see if their classmates could guess what it was. My daughter and I talked about a few possibilities, and she settled on one – the Eiffel Tower. She sat down at the computer, looked up “Eiffel Tower” on Wikipedia, read through the information, and printed out 4-5 pages of interesting facts. She went through the printout …
For seven years I resided at Cedar Gardens. During that time I helped organize the tenants so that there might be a way for us to get the many problems we were having addressed properly. Under the laws and regulations of the Commonwealth, we established the Cedar Gardens Tenant Organization (CGTO) and developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) together with the NHA. The MOU was signed by the Executive Director, the NHA Board of Directors, and the CGTO. It was later accepted as valid and binding by the DHCD. Now the tools to achieve effective cooperation between the NHA and the residents …
To Whom It May Concern: My name is Dr. Gerry Dembrowski and I am a 2012 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 7th congressional district. Please find my letter to the editor below for review and printing. Thank you for your time. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs… Where Are They? No new jobs added in August… the last time total payrolls were unchanged was 1945! Currently, the real unemployment rate is 16.1%, and over 25M citizens are out of work! Times are extremely tough, even here in Massachusetts. In July, a record 42M Americans received food stamps in the US. In our own backyard, the …
Last year Americans worked 99 days to pay taxes, this year we’ll work 102. We will pay more in taxes than we spend on groceries, clothing, and shelter combined. Evergreen Solar received $58M taxpayer dollars, then cut 800 jobs, moved manufacturing to China, and just this week filed for bankruptcy. Boeing recently created 3,000 jobs and invested $750M in the South Carolina economy, and now Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is suing Boeing for creating jobs and investing in the US economy. The July 2011 real unemployment rate, including part time workers and those given up looking …
I am not transgender, but some people are, and they need our help. I am urging my neighbors to support passage of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill so that they can enjoy the same basic rights and privileges the rest of us enjoy and, quite frankly, don’t give much thought to. On June 8, the Joint Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on the bill, which would prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit lending, and public accommodations on the basis of a person's gender identity or expression. As a proud ally, I would like to think that my transgender friends who live…
