No means no
Wakefield has now joined the growing ranks of Massachusetts cities and towns that have decided to “just say no” to the state meddling in local zoning. Town Meeting voters outright refused to comply with the state’s mandate forcing MBTA communities to allow multifamily housing as of right near public transportation.
Last week, Town meeting rejected three different compliance models: the Panning Board’s model that went way beyond the state requirements, a minimum compliance back-up plan quietly prepared by the Planning Board, and a different minimum compliance model from a citizens’ petition.
Town Meeting voters said, “Thanks but no thanks” to all three plans.
And the Planning Board has no one to blame but themselves.
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 5 Comments
Tags: citizens petition, development, housing, law, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MBTA, MBTA Communities Act, multifamily, News, Opinion, Planning Board, Politics, public hearings, public transit, residents, state, town, Town Meeting, transit, voters, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, zoning
Hate globally, act locally
I’ve never been so glad that I got to experience Wakefield as a normal, working-class town, before the Home of the Warriors turned into the home of the social justice warriors.
Wakefield’s official slogan used to be “the most enterprising community north of Boston.” (Try to imagine a time when capitalism was considered a good thing.)
Back then, everyone, whether descended from immigrants or Yankee founders, valued their shared American experience. All town officials were proud to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
In those days, locals would roll their eyes when an elite People’s Republic like Cambridge, Amherst or Concord would take an official position on some national or international issue. We didn’t have the luxury of engaging in such meaningless gestures. We were too busy making a living and tending to local affairs.
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 11 Comments
Tags: Amherst, anti-Semitism, Cambridge, Climate Leader Communities, colonizers, Concord, Gaza. Middle East, Hamas, housing, immigrants, Israel, Mark Sardella, October 7, Opinion, Palestine, petition, Pledge of Allegiance, Politics, social justice, Specialized Energy Code, terrorism, Town Council, Town Meeting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Human Rights Commission, Wakefield MA, Wally Moccia, war, Warriors
Fire engine green
In her second to last Town Council meeting before she rides her bike into the sunset, Julie Smith-Galvin has cemented her legacy.
She may have also sealed the town’s fiscal fate for decades to come. And not in a good way.
By pushing the Wakefield Town Council to literally buy into the latest radical climate scheme known as Climate Leader Communities she succeeded in committing the town to eliminate fossil fuel use in all municipal buildings, move toward an all-electric vehicle fleet and adopt a “municipal decarbonization roadmap” (whatever that is).
Like the MBTA Multifamily Zoning mandate, which aims to get rid of cars by crowding people around public transit, the Climate Leader Communities program is an exercise in central planning by the state.
As Town Councilor Mike McLane pointed out at Monday’s meeting, the cost of an electric fire engine alone is twice that of a traditional, diesel-powered pumper. (And electric fire engines need to have a diesel back-up for when the battery runs out.) That doesn’t even get into the higher cost of electric police cruisers, DPW trucks and other heavy equipment.
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Tags: budget, Climate Change, climate denier, Climate Leader Communities, decarbonization, diesel, Edward Dombroski, electric vehicles, environment, existential issue, finances, fire engine, fossil fuels, green, Humor, Julie Smith-Galvin, Mark Sardella, Michael McLane, net-zero, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Town Council
Walking the walk
They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
The anti-car sentiment couldn’t be any more glaring from those who believe that fossil fuels are destroying the planet rather than the empirical truth: that fossil fuels have done more to improve the quality of life on earth than just about anything.
Examples of this disdain for automobiles are all around us. One recent manifestation is the MBTA Communities Multifamily Zoning mandate. It’s ostensibly about increasing housing, but it’s dripping with contempt for motor vehicles. The stated goal is to crowd everyone into multifamily housing around public transit so people will take the bus or train instead of driving.
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Tags: autombiles, bicycle, bike, bus, cars, Climate Change, drivers, Edward Dombroski, election, EOHLC, fossil fuels, Galvin Middle School, Greenwood, housing, Humor, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Master Plan, MBTA, Mehreen Butt, multifamily, Opinion, parking, pedestrian, planet earth, Politics, polling place, primary, schools, Stephen P. Maio, teachers, Town Council, train, transit, transportation, voting, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, walk, walkable, zoning
Designing density
We haven’t seen this level of hubris in an elected board since the Wakefield School Committee got rid of the Warrior logo even as a solid majority of residents voted in favor of keeping it.
Now, the Wakefield Planning Board is doing its best to ignore the huge public outcry against its plus sized MBTA Communities Multifamily Zoning compliance plan.
The Planning Board has rightfully been taking the bulk of the heat for creating their outsized multifamily housing district, but there’s plenty of blame to go around for this impending calamity.
The Planning Board went way beyond the state mandate when designing a compliance plan for Wakefield. But their expanded plan wouldn’t exist at all without the Massachusetts Legislature, which decreed that all MBTA communities must create a zoning district near public transit where multifamily housing can be built as of right (meaning no Special Permits or other relief needed from the Zoning Board of Appeals).
The Wakefield Planning Board just decided to supersize it, despite the vocal public opposition that has dominated all four public meetings held to discuss the plan.
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: buildings, elections, houses, Humor, legislature, mandate, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MBTA, Multifamily district, Opinion, Planning Board, Politics, public opinion, School Committee, Town Meeting, voters, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Warrion, Warrior logo, zoning, Zoning Board
Zoned out
While you’ve been busy arguing over whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is the worse tyrant, our local mandarins have been busy pushing a new zoning bylaw that will alter the complexion of the town. If they can get it through the spring Annual Town Meeting, it will be an even bigger boondoggle than the Specialized Energy Code that they rammed through at last fall’s Town Meeting on a Saturday before most people had finished their morning coffee.
The local activist class knows that most people are either too busy or too lazy to attend Town Meeting. So, if they can just convince a hundred or so of their “allies” to bring their knitting to the Galvin Auditorium for a few hours and raise their hands at the appointed time, they can get the town to adopt almost any cockamamie measure.
Our central planners are hoping to drag enough people to the 2024 Annual Town Meeting to approve their scheme to make it even easier than it is now for developers to build new multifamily housing in Wakefield.
Chapter 40A of the Massachusetts General Laws inludes a new state mandate that forces all Massachusetts communities with MBTA service to create at least one zoning district near public transit where multifamily housing is allowed by right.
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: activists, Chapter 40A, Climate Change, developers, district, Donald Trump, EOHLC, housing, Humor, Joe Biden, mandate, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Massachusetts General Laws, MBTA, multifamily, Opinion, Planning Board, Politics, public hearings, Section 3A, Specialized Energy Code, three-story, Town Meeting, triple decker, voters, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, zoning
Human rights or resources?
The Wakefield Human Rights Commission (WHRC) has decided how it will respond to future human rights atrocities such as the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 Israeli civilians, including infants and children.
It will provide “resources.”
This decision stemmed from questions raised in The Wakefield Daily Item regarding the absence of a WHRC response to the cold-blooded and barbaric attacks by Hamas.
Nobody would have even noticed the lack of a local response to these atrocities halfway around the world if the WHRC hadn’t assumed a front and center role in staging a “Vigil for 
Peace and Solidarity” on Wakefield Common following the 2019 massacre at two mosques in New Zealand that killed 51.
Now, in the wake of the recent criticism, the WHRC has sought to downplay its role in that 2019 vigil, claiming that the WHRC merely signed on to the event that was put together by the local Clergy Council. But contemporaneous press releases, social media posts and a videorecording of the 2019 vigil tell a different story, clearly showing that the WHRC’s involvement was central.
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Tags: atrocities, Chabad of the North Shore, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas attacks, Holocaust, human rights, Israel, Jessica Sutich, Jewish, Jews, Mark Sardella, Menorah Lighting, New Zealand, Oct. 7, Open Meeting Law, Opinion, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, resources, Sherri Oken, terrorist attack, Vigil for Peace & Solidarity, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Human Rights Commission, Wakefield Town Council, WHRC
Do the right thing
Last Thursday’s public menorah lighting ceremony drew the largest crowd ever for this annual public celebration on the Common to mark the start of Chanukah.
It was a heartening response in the wake of the horrific Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis by the terrorist group Hamas. Most of the victims were civilians and many were children. The barbaric attack has been followed by hate marches and other displays of anti-Semitism on college campuses and in major cities.
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Filed under: History, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 1 Comment
Tags: anti-Semitism, Chabad of the North Shore, Chanukah, colleges, Hamas, Hanukkah, human rights, Human Rights Commission, Israel, Jewish, Jews, lights, Mark Sardella, massacre, menorah, New Zealand, Opinion, Palestine, rabbi, terrorism, university, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, WHRC
Sore losers
As everyone knows by now, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has overturned the Wakefield Conservation Commission’s denial of Northeast Metro Tech’s plan to build a new vocational high school
The decision means that NEMT can now proceed with plans to build a much-needed new regional vocational high school on a wooded parcel across Hemlock Road from the current school.
MassDEP’s decision to allow the Voke to go forward with its plans to build a new school was not surprising. It was rooted in science and facts.
It’s a shame that the environmental activists who opposed NEMT’s plan can’t accept the decision with a touch of grace. But humility and decorum are not in their DNA. Instead, the “Save the Forest” gang have responded with their standard cocktail of slanderous vitriol and supercilious acrimony.
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Tags: activists, appeal, ConCom, corruption, election, environment, forest, high school, injunction, Mark Sardella, MassDEP, Middlesex Superior Court, NEMT, Opinion, Politics, Save the Forest, slander, trade school, treesNortheast Metro Tech, vocational school, Voke, Wakefield Conservation Commission, Wakefield Daily Item, Wetlands Protection Act, woods, Zoom
The wrong track
The idea that if you create more housing near public transportation the masses will give up their cars and flock to the infinitely superior public transit system is an unquestioned article of faith amongst our collectivist cognoscenti.
Do these “folks” know any actual Americans?
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Filed under: Columns & Essays, Community, Humor, News, Politics, Wakefield | 3 Comments
Tags: 40A, Americans, automobiles, bicycles, bus, business, cars, central planning, Climate Change, collectivism, commuter rail, density, depot, district, downtown, education, Farmland, gridlock, Henry Ford, housing, Humor, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, MBTA, Model-T, multifamily, Opinion, parking, Politics, public, public transit, Range Rover, school, shopping, station, SUV, traffic, train, transportation, triple decker, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Planning Board, walking, zoning
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