The Cook House 1828
The Cook House 1828
For Annual Reports (starting with 2007) see the archive and the Town Documents section.
FIRE DEPARTMENT NEWS
by Ron Gates
Hi everyone,
I would like to start out by saying that in my last news letter I sounded a little discouraged about the new station. However, things look much brighter now. We have looked into building the station out of wood vs. steel. We believe we have enough money to put up the structure only and make it weathertight. Which will, at least, house all of the trucks and one police cruiser. We will need to raise more money to finish the project. We are hoping to start building this spring. After the foundation is placed we will be looking for volunteers to help us build.
As you may know the department has been raising money for about 10 years. The price of things has gone up a lot since then. The fire department is doing all we can to get this done without the help of the town's budget . We greatly appreciate any and all donations this far.
The Fireman's association has paid for a new floor for the current station. There were questions as to why we would spend money on the floor when we are trying to build a new station. My view is that we will still be in this building for awhile. The floor was so old you could not even clean it.
Special thanks go out to Bill Lyman Brian Miner, and Nadia Marti for installing the floor. (And to all that helped to prepare the area for the installation) It looks awesome!
We only had one fire call this month, it was a mutual aid to the big fire in Athol at the old N.D. Cass building.
We are sponsoring a spaghetti supper on Feb. 4th at 6:00 (Town hall) Tickets are $8.00 (adults) $4.00 (children under 12)
That night we will be raffling off a Champion generator (3500 watts) $10.00 per chance Contact me or any firefighter for tickets
As always if you have any questions do not hesitate to call me. Stay Safe!
Fire chief Ron Gates
978-544-8052
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT NEWS
by Tim Kilhart
The highway department spent the latter part of December and the beginning part of January cutting brush along Orange Rd. in cooperation with the Tree Warden. We are almost done with that road. We had a tree hearing on Jan. 18th and received approval to cut 50 or so trees on Orange Rd. We also received approval to do brush cutting along Hastings Heights Rd. and Beech Hill Rd. We will begin work on these roads when time permits us. We appreciate all the people who stopped to say what a great job we were doing on Orange Rd. We gladly accept your compliments as we work to make the roads safer.
The snow, sleet and freezing rain have begun. We have been dealing with some breakdowns of which the worst is the 2001 GMC one-ton truck. The weather has certainly been awkward this winter to say the least.
President Obama declared a Major Disaster Declaration for parts of Massachusetts on Jan. 6, 2012 relating to the Oct. 2011 snowstorm. I am working with MEMA to claim as much money from that storm as possible.
We will continue to trudge along during these winter months having warm thoughts and hoping for an early spring. As always, the highway crew continues to maintain and make improvements to our roads. Drive safely and have a nice day.
The Selectboard on Monday Dec. 13, 2010 voted a wood policy that allows highway department personnel to leave wood they cut on the roadsides. The Selectboard voted to prohibit any highway employees, Selectboard members, Town Coordinator or their relatives from picking up any of the wood the highway department cuts. The highway department's past practice has been to allow abutters to have the wood if they desire. This past practice will continue. The highway department has always encouraged the residents to take the wood which helps clear the roadsides. The highway department will post on the Warwick-L and on the highway department office door the location of where we are cutting only if we are actually cutting that day. Residents can also call the highway department at 978-544-6349 any morning between 6:00 and 6:20 A.M. to find if and where we are cutting wood that day.
I went to a National Grid storm preparedness meeting and they suggest that when anyone loses power they should call 1-800-322-3223 or 1-800-465-1212 to report it. They isolate the problem by referencing the calls they receive to narrow down the location of the problem in order to fix it promptly. If you take the time to call in an outage then hopefully it will be fixed in a timely manner.
