Of course, what you may or may not accept has nothing to do with other peoples observations. In fact, its rather difficult to dispute what someone else states they observed. And my read of the notes is simply other people reporting their observations. I appreciate your passionate support of our DPW - I concur that these folks deserve all that support and more. However, all the cheerleading in the world does not do anything to improve an organization. View Comment

I think it should be possible for people to post critical comments in this thread without those comments being seen as an attack on the meen and women of our DPW or the folks contracted to plow the roads. The fact of the matter is, ANY organization can be full of dedicated, hard working, competent people doing the absolute best job possible, but the organization as a whole comes up short becuase of poor planning/leadership/funding/equipment/etc. If neighboring towns seem to do a better job with snow removal, that doesn't mean the men and women of our DPW are doing a bad job. View Comment

And I'm reading it on the Grafton page... View Comment

So would you prefer that we do nothing? Are you against McGovern's proposed amendment? Right now, by way of of the Citizens United decision, there can be NO regulation of campaign finance. Unions can spend as much as they want and there isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it. As I've said, lets get rid of Citizens United first because until we do, all of this concern over McGovern's position in regards to Unions or Corporations is just wasted time becuase NEITHER can be regulated and we the people remain powerless. View Comment

Harpoon - Read the resolution. Read up on Citizens United. It is non discriminatory, it speaks to allowing controls on contributions and expenditures. It doesn't say just corporations, or just unions, it doesn't specify any source - it allows Congress to control contributions from all sources, including foreign sources. View Comment

GrayGhost - Where exactly in http://mcgovern.house.gov/uploads/Campaign%20Finance%20Amendment%20Text.pdf does it mention corporate entities? (It doesn't) Look - the first step is to get rid of Citizens United. I'm not going to get in an argument over McGovern's politics or what laws he might to try to pass should his amendment pass - we can argue over that when the time comes. Anyone who is not an extremist (either left or right) should be thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of Citizen's United. I don't care who puts forth the resolution - I'm just happy someone is trying to get rid of it. View Comment

To "Read My Lips..." - Perhaps you should "Read Citizens United". The decision gave equal rights to both corporations and unions. Anything that repeals Citizens United would affect both the left and the right, equally. Term Limits would be nice, I would support that 100%. But the first step has to be finance reform, and if we can restrict the flow of money into the process, then we might find terms to be more self limiting. A Balanced Budget would be nice too, but there are special interests that benefit from not having a balanced budget. Those special interests can flood the process with money to prevent balanced budgets or an amendment from happening. Get Citizens United corrected, get the money out of the system and then we might have a fighting chance of fixing our fiscal problems in a manner that benefits the population and not just the special interests/corporations/unions. I don't know if he can get the 2/3 needed or if we could ever get another amendment passed by the states. That in itself is testimony to just how broken our system is. BUT, I am not willing to give up on it yet, and I applaud any national politician for trying. View Comment

I applaud Representative McGovern. The flow of cash from big corporations and big special interests into the political process has taken the power away from the voters and shifted the power to those who supply the money. No longer are the elected officials focused on pleasing their constituents in order to get votes - they are focused on pleasing their donors in order to insure they get more $$ during the next election cycle. Unfortunately, big donors seldom represent mainstream America, they susually represent either the far right or the far left, which explains the "digging your heals in" deadlock we see in Congress today. I intend to let my Congressional Representatives know of my support (http://www.contactingthecongress.org/ to find contact information) View Comment

We were told at Town Meeting that spraying was a last resort - as if to say spraying wasn't a significant part of the control effort. Most of the discussion against joining focused on spraying. Can we participate in the Mosquito Control Project with a condition that there will be no spraying? View Comment

StevieP65 - Will you please stop trying to inflict your personal definition of a specific word onto the rest of us, please. This is not the first time you've posted this non sense about the work accident. You were wrong before and you are wrong now. Look up the word "accident" - no where does it mention "act of God". "act of God" is a figment of your idle imagination. Here are some of the definitions from Merriam Webster online: "an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance" "an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance" What happened on Route 20 was an accident. View Comment

Town Vote, but not at Town Meeting. Hmmm... I am not familiar with that form of government. Perhaps you could get yourself onto the Charter Review Committee next time it comes up and propose your "Town Vote but not Town Meeting" form of government. If enough folks like your idea, it will be adopted. We could call it the "JoJo" form of government. Oh - I'm sorry, I forgot, you want changes but you don't want to participate. Never mind. View Comment

What was disappointing was the presentation and promotion of this article by the BOH. I don't recall any other article where the first few people to speak were the opposition, and then the sponsors of the article finally spoke up. Did the BOH really expect to just place the article on the warrant and everyone fall in line and support it? The scientist who spoke was pretty good - I just wish his presentation was more prepared and organized. The executive director person (who I suspect is also the primary "sales" person) was not much more than an after thought. He should have been on stage with a detailed presentation of what the program was about, the documentation saying it was safe, etc. This article was reminiscent of the first Honeywell proposal - poorly presented and naturally it lost. Lastly - I wonder if it would be possible or useful to be part of the program but with a prohibition on spraying? Would that satisfy some of those who spoke against it? View Comment

I don't get it - you want more of a voice, but, you don't want to participate? I'm sorry, I don't think our lives today are anymore demanding than oru ancesstors 100 or 200 years ago. 100 years ago, people toiled all day in the mills and then wen home to tend to their families. 200 years ago they toiled all day clearing the fields, planting and harvesting crops, etc. I don't think people today are any more busy that our ancestors. We all need to decide what our priorities are - I choose to participate in town government despite the fact that I work 50-60 hour weeks and I am active in my child's life (coaching, etc). Sure, my yard suffers, the "Honey Do" list keeps growing, I feel lucky if I get to watch a baseball playoff game on TV and I don't get to go to the latest shows and concerts, but those are the choices I make. The alternative to the 180 "usual suspects" is to just let the 5 BOS members do it all. That's the way most of the country works. No thanks. There are two Town Meetings per year, the schedule is well known, I make my plans so that I can be there and participate. View Comment

The spraying would be for the future, not this season. View Comment

JohnB - Your post has a lot of words that make the sign bylaw sound like it's really in trouble. But, after boiling it down, I'm not so sure I see what the problem is. Here are my thoughts, in response to your postL House sale signs are addressed 4.4.3.1 – the temporary regulations do not apply. New development temporary signs and balloons are not allowed and the ZEO will need to tell them to remove them. Enforcement should be easy because the ZEO and the BI are one and the same and I don’t think builders want to irritate the BI. I think there is a provision elsewhere that will allow the PB to grant a temporary construction sign which would be excepted. Banners on Church property would be regulated via the new bylaw. If St. James is not in compliance, file a complaint. Holiday displays are excepted – see section 4.4.3.1. Telephone poll signs, including lost dog signs are illegal. If they bother you, file a complaint with the ZEO. View Comment

Mr. Burke - Please understand that a NO vote at TM will not deem the current or future signs to be illegal. It will only continue their current, unregulated state. The signs are NOT illegal today and they will not be illegal after Monday's vote - regardless of the outcome of that vote. The only thing the ZEO has said is illegal is the operation of the signs - his opinion is that an otherwise static message that changes periodically (for example the way Gaudette and Koopman signs change) "runs afoul" of section 4.4.2.1. Note that two prior ZEO's did not see it the same way, nor did the ZBA when it granted dimensional variances for the Koopman and Gaudette signs. Anyone aggrieved by a decision of the ZEO can appeal that decision to the ZBA and then the ZBA gets to decide if the ZEO is correct. Yes - that would be the same ZBA that has already determined the signs in question to be legal. An aggrieved person could be someone who recieves a cease and desist order to stop using their sign, or it could be someone denied a zoning permit to build a new one. I'll leave it to the reader to connect the dots to figure out where this issue might go should it be voted down at TM. View Comment

Let's not confuse shoody workmanship with code violations. Shoddy work can still be 100% compliant with the building codes. If your neighbor's house really had state building code violations, was a complaint filed against the installer? After the hail storm, Mr. Berger was very helpful to me in getting my inusrance company to pay for what they were supposed to. They were trying to pay to replace only 1/2 my roof and Bob had the relevant state codes copied and ready to distribute to anyone for the asking (clearly, I wasn't the first one getting jerked around by his insurance company after that storm) View Comment

Great reply from BobH. Thank you for explaining the situation. Regardless of how you feel about the Zoning Enforcement Officer, citizens of Grafton should be more concerned about unenforced bylaws. I applaud the decision to allow these cases to go to court. View Comment

Continuing the reply to JLW's question "what happened...", the problem has been made worse by the Citizens United decision which essentially grants corporations and other special interests the same rights as citizens when it comes to donating to campaigns and funding Politcal Action committees. The Citizens United decision allows corporations and others with deep pockets nearly unlimited donation potential. The money flowing into the political process from these non-citizen entities has shifted all the power from the citizen electorate to the corporate treasuries and the special interests funded by the wealthy 1%. Politicians no longer need to keep the voter happy, they need to keep the corporations and other special interests happy. That's what's happening, in my opinion. There needs to be an Amendment to undue Citizens United if we want to get back to the days of politicians representing people. View Comment

I agree with grommit. Does this have any other hearings before it gets to Town Meeting? I for one am very intrerested in the Pro forma on this one. Who keeps the profits realized from this house? If the house sells at the same rate that 40B house sell for and there is no land cost, I suspect there will be a profit. Will there be an audit of the project upon completion? Who is reviewing deed riders and other documents to insure this property is held affordable in perpetuity? If the buyer is kicking in 400 to 500 hours, are they getting a discount below the price set by DHCD for families earning 80% of the mean income in the county? View Comment