Westminster Board of Selectmen: November 28, 2011: Carter Road complaints, energy incentives program and dog complaints
It’s funny—this is the last Board of Selectmen meeting I’m anticipating covering for the Vine, and I’m actually curious how some of the issues left open will be resolved. In many ways this was a classic Board of Selectmen meeting, with many of the same themes we’ve been seeing for years recurring.
First off, there were the warrants to be approved. The warrants are requests to spend money for usual things like invoices that are due (accounts payable), so they’re approved perfunctorily, which sometimes glosses over the large amounts of money being spent, in this case $917,000. That at least makes our household bills look more manageable. There was also a payroll authorization for a police dispatcher to make $14 an hour or so, for working nights. That was also approved.
Then we had a presentation by Kelly Brown, our Regional Director of the Green Communities Division of the Mass Department of Energy Resources. The recurring theme here was that the state and federal governments have set up incentives for communities to install solar energy systems, and it’s, as usual, extremely complex. Kelly Brown seemed to have a handle on how the programs worked, but I found the entire process completely confusing, and it seemed the Selectmen did as well. It’s never just something easy—remember the 5” high application to build a senior center that was turned down…..in this case there are energy credits you can sell to energy companies, there are contracts to be negotiated, etc.
The main thing I took away from this was that we have to be careful signing up for 10 to 20 year plans, which is what the developers want, since technology changes every 10 or so months, and Westminster could easily get stuck with obsolete solar equipment that would have to be upgraded on our dime. The other thing I learned was that a ‘PV’ project, a term thrown around throughout the conversation, means a ‘photovoltaic’ project, referred to by your average person as a ‘solar energy’ project.
Next up were two issues involving Carter Road, neither of which was resolved. The first one had to do with a fill permit for 39 Carter Road. The owner of the property is filling in some land, and his neighbors are complaining, although not about just bringing in fill. The owner of the property had not secured a permit, a situation compounded by there being just one sentence in the Town Bylaws dealing with permits for filling in land, and also because what the owner described and what the neighbors were complaining about seemed miles apart—the owner of the property said he is just filling in a relatively small hole which a prior owner had filled with stumps, while the neighbors were complaining about multiple 18 wheelers coming in and out of the property at all hours. The conversation also digressed to things like smoke from an outdoor wood furnace causing another house to be enveloped in smoke, but that was ruled off-topic.
What this issue really boiled down to was, in my opinion, whether all this traffic was just to fill in a hole with 300 yards of clean fill, or whether an actual business was being run out of the property that was zoned residential. The entire question was put on hold for more information, and from what I could gather the Selectmen might very well issue a permit for bringing in X amount of fill, but with conditions such as time of day trucks are allowed in, and a strict end date. However, that outcome is not definite and we’ll have to see what happens at the next Selectmen’s meeting.
The next Carter Road complaint was about Verizon cutting trees on a resident’s property. I, of course, expected the issue to be that Verizon or National Grid—they are still arguing about who owns the poles since Governor Deval ‘closed the loophole’ and started taxing telephone poles--had cut down some trees and the people were mad, but that wasn’t it. The issue was that Verizon had apparently planned to cut a tree down in this resident’s yard, at the end of his driveway, but then never showed up to do so, and he wanted it cut down—it blocked the view of his driveway, making it hard to back out onto Carter Road. His concern was heightened by having a child just learning to ride a bike, and the fact that drivers wouldn’t be able to see the child if he swerved out into the road, due to the tree.This also had to be postponed until the following meeting because no one from National Grid or Verizon showed up at the meeting despite being invited.
The last interesting item on the agenda was the resolution of the dog compliant on Leino Park’s Old Oak Drive. There are two dogs, at least one of which is allegedly a pit bull/lab mix, which roam freely and are aggressive to people in the area. There have been numerous complaints (8) this past year about the dogs, and in fact there was a report that one was loose as we met. The Board of Selectmen approved the recommendation of Police Chief Sam Albert, given at a meeting chaired by our Town Administrator, that the dogs be removed from the owners and put in a shelter, and that is apparently what will happen. After that there was no executive session, and we all headed home.
Volunteers needed for an Old Town Hall assessment committee
The Board of Selectmen is in the process of forming a new committee to prepare a vision statement needs assessment for the future use of the Old Town Hall on Bacon Street.
The Board is seeking residents representing a variety of interest groups with a vision for rehabilitating the building for use as a community center.
A few suggestions from a recent town wide survey included uses such as performing arts, public functions, youth and senior citizen activities, exercise programs, meeting space, private functions, art exhibits, and other activities.
If you would like to serve on the Old Town Hall Needs Assessment Committee, please submit a letter of interest to:Town Administrator Karen Murphy, Westminster Town Hall, 11 South Street, Westminster, MA 01473 or send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Beginning in mid-March 1980, a series of earth tremors and steam explosions at Washington's Mount Saint Helens suggested that the volcano—dormant since 1857—was on the verge of erupting. Then, on May 18, the entire north side of the mountain exploded in a cloud of ash, rock, and fiery gases that collapsed a good part of it and carried debris for many miles. About 60 people were killed, and millions of tons of ash blanketed much of the American northwest. How far did the ash eventually spread? 
Four years after Ali, an Ottoman army commander, helped drive Napoleon from Ottoman-ruled Egypt, he was named wali—governor—of Egypt. He helped modernize Egypt and attempted to secure its independence. Though unsuccessful, his efforts established his progeny as the rulers of Egypt and Sudan for nearly 150 years and rendered Egypt a de facto independent state. He is thus considered one of the fathers of modern Egypt. How did Ali trick Egypt's Mameluke leaders into walking into a massacre?
Tabei founded a climbing club for women in Japan in 1969 and, by 1972, was a recognized mountain climber. When Japanese newspaper and television companies sponsored an all-female expedition to climb Mount Everest, Tabei was one of the 15 women selected to go. In 1975, after months of training and preparation, the 35-year-old mother of two became the first woman to reach Everest's 29,035-foot (8,850-m) summit. What disaster partway up the slope nearly ended the climb?
