Essex Heritage Events and Activities|
Essex
Heritage Annual Meeting
The Essex National Heritage Commission Invites
You to Attend its Annual
Spring Meeting
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Winnekenni Castle
347 Kenoza Avenue, Haverhill, MA 01830
8:00 AM: Continental Breakfast Reception
8:30 - 10:00 AM: Business Meeting
Participate in this free, valuable
networking opportunity that will further connect you with the work of Essex
Heritage and our partners. The 2013 grant recipients will be announced at the event.
Regional News
Danvers
Rail Trail Surface Improved
When the Danvers Rail Trail was
completed the Town laid a base coat of crushed gravel on the Trail. Now in the late Spring or early Summer of
2013 thanks to a State Grant a firmly packed base heavily compacted covering of
stone dust will be applied as a finish coat on the surface. This new surface will certainty make the
trail much more useable and maintenance of the trail will be that much more
manageable.
MBTA
Continues to Meet in Salem About Garage
The MBTA continues to hold public
meeting to receive input from Salem residents about the make up and design of
the proposed parking garage to be conducted at the MBTA intermodal station in
Salem at the end of Washington Street.
City
of Salem Honored Former Mayor Levesque
On last Sunday former Mayor Jean
Levesque was honored by the city he served for a number of years. In 1973 Mayor Levesque who was serving, as he
had done in the past, as a City Councilor after a number of ballots was elected
interim Mayor to replace Mayor Samuel Zoll who was appointed a judge. He served several additional terms as
Salem’s Chief Executive. We at Salem
Five Bank worked together with the Mayor, then owners of the Hawthorne Hotel
and the city in the development of Pickering wharf. The event to honor former Mayor Levesque was
well attended by numerous City officials including five Mayors that followed
Jean Levesque. He was a most committed
man who always had the best interests of Salem at heart and was a joy to work
with on several important civic projects.
I had a conflicting event on that day and was unable to attend, but we
are certain that the event was a big success.
City
of Beverly Seeks Commitment to Finish Carriage House
Mayor William Scanlon is seeking a
commitment of $100,000 from the City Council to complete exterior work on the
Carriage House at the city owned Lynch Park.
The investment by the community will be used to replace windows and
doors on the proposed community function space. The goal of the restoration is to make the property
self sufficient by increasing rental income to cover operating expenses. Essex Heritage was one of the first local
not for profits to use the facility for an Annual Meeting and were most
impressed at that time and since then many additional improvements have been
accomplished.
Haverhill
to Improve Farm Site
The City of Haverhill where Essex
Heritage will hold its 2013 Annual Meeting has make an announcement about a
most valuable piece of open land in that community. The Tattersall Farm is
located at 542 North Broadway in Haverhill.
The farm was deeded to the City in the will of Alice Tattersall in 1999
and the bequest came with several preservation and conservations
limitations. These limitations will be
considered as part of a $572,000 joint venture between the Commonwealth and the
community. The Commonwealth has made
almost $400,000 in commonwealth finds available and $50,000 has been provided
the Tattersall Charitable Trust. The
remaining money needed to complete this project will be invested by the
community. The project will include
a playground with a water commitment,
open learning space and expanded trails.
The goal of the project is it increase the available space and to
provide some citizen agricultural uses. When completed this is expected to be a
valuable addition to the community’s open space programs
Salem
Senior Center Gains Council Approval
I have been keeping track of the efforts
connected with the City of Salem and their efforts to site and build a new
Senior Center to serve a fast growing percentage of Salem residents. I have a continuing interest in this issue as
I still consider Salem as a most important community in my life. For your information I was born in the City
of Salem and have worked and been connected with a large number of
organizations that have had positive impacts on the life of the city in the
last decades. I am fortunate to have
served as the Chairman and as a board member of the Danvers Council on Aging
that helps to manage the highly successful and inviting Senior Center on Stone
Street in Danvers. I have watched that
nationally accredited Senior Center serve a large number of Danvers residents
and regularly offer topical programs to make life more comfortable and helpful
for the ever expanding senior population of this region.
Danvers has a most competent and caring
staff that together with a facility that is spacious and welcoming plays a
major role in the success of DCOA. We
can only hope that this move to finally create a senior facility where Salem
Seniors can be proud of and will provide the needed space and programs will
soon be a reality.
My second reason for a continuing
interest in this project is my ongoing connection with North Shore Elder
Services in Danvers. I serve on that
Board of Directors representing Danvers and that organization has an ongoing
relationship with other Councils on Aging including the one in Salem. NSES voted at a recent meeting to offer
support to the project to build a new Center in the location in the Gateway
Center at a major entrance location into Salem at the junction of Bridge and
Boston Streets. I also weighed in a
past posting to this site with a personal endorsement of the project. I recently received a message from the
Leadership of NSES that follows as is provided for your information.
Great news this evening from the City of Salem. By a vote of 10 to 1, the Salem City Council
has approved the bond funding for a new senior center at the corner of Boston
and Bridge Streets. Congratulations to Mayor Driscoll for her dynamic and
dedicated leadership in seeing this project through to a successful conclusion. Next milestone – groundbreaking!
Congratulations and thanks to Senator Joan Lovely and former City Council
President Matt Veno for their leadership of the Salem Senior Center Study
Committee.
Twenty
Seats Available in Peabody Election
Nomination Papers are now available for
the November election in Peabody. To
appear on the municipal election Ballot residents must obtain fifty signatures
from City of Peabody voters. In the
November election there are twenty seats available including all member of the
Council, School Committee and other
positions.
Wenham
Finance Committee Re-Structures
The Wenham Finance committee has
reorganized after the resignation of its Chairman. In his place Mike Lucy has been named
Chairman
City
of Beverly School District Offers Survey
The City of Beverly School District will
be offering parents and guardians of students in the Beverly system the chance
to complete an electronic survey and to share feedback to city officials about
the school system. The survey will be
available at www.maparent1.com through the end of March
ST.
JOHNS PREP NEWS
Community Day of Service – March 28
Join us for the Prep's annual Community
Day of Service on Holy Thursday, March 28.
Taylor Bottomley ’02 and other members of the Alumni Board invite alumni
to join them and participate in the day with faculty, students and parents. If
you would like to be a part of the day, register here if you are a Prep parent, please register using
the form in the Parent Portal.
The volunteers that the school gathers
for this event have done some wonderful work on numerous projects including
some knitting for the retired Xaverian Brothers that live on campus. One year, as an example the group was
involved in a much needed painting project at the club facilities at the Boys
and Girls Club of Greater Salem that was much appreciated by the leadership of
that organization.
Essex
County Jail Projects Progressing
On the grounds of the twenty year old
county jail facility in Middleton there are a couple of new projects being
completed that will bring the jail that serves the thirty-four communities located
in the region known as Essex County.
This two-decade old jail was constructed to replace two really old and
out of date jails in Salem and Lawrence.
The old Salem facility that was beyond repair as a jail was taken over
by the City of Salem who then found a developer. The site has converted with a large infusion
of cash into market housing and a reasonably successful restaurant named
appropriately the Great Escape, complete with some remaining jail cells and the
cell doors that were used in the previous iteration and gives the location
authenticity.
On the Middleton site a new prisoner
intake area is being completed and will be ready for use at the end of this
year. The present intake area will be
converted to a female incarceration area. This facility will serve as a
transition location where prisoner decisions on moves directly to Framingham or
to a county location in Salisbury.
The most far-reaching improvement on the
site is a regional new dispatch center that will handle 911 Emergency calls for
a number of communities in the region.
That site is now being completed with telephone equipment as expected to
be in service this summer for the communities in the region that have signed up
for the collective shared effort. This
is a most interesting cooperative effort undertaken by a number of forward
thinking municipalities. In general when
these improvements are completed with the work on the adjacent regional
Technical School the area and the region will have undergone a radical
transformation.
Medical-Senior-Disability Matters
Ski
Event at Loon Mountain
The COPAA amputee support group
sponsored by Cornell Brothers in various regional locations held a very
successful ski event for disabled members at Loon Mountain in New
Hampshire. I am pleased to note they
have done some work to help them raise some much needed seed money to support
the rehabilitation efforts and they have received monetary gifts from two local
financial institutions. Thanks are offered
to both Eastern and Salem Five Banks.
Adaptive
Sports Fairs for Disabled on Cape Cod and the North Shore Presented by Spalding
Hospital
Spaulding Adaptive Sports Centers on the
North Shore and Cape Cod are pleased to present two adaptive sports fairs this
Spring! These fairs are the perfect
opportunity to come out and see our equipment first hand and ask all of your
program questions. Get the dates on your
calendar.
CAPE Cod on Saturday, May 18th from 11:00 AM until 3:00
PM at Spaulding Cape Cod 311 Service Rd.
East Sandwich
NORTH SHORE on Saturday, April 13th From 1:00 PM Until 3:00 PM at Lynch Van Oterloo from YMCA, 40 Leggs Hill
Rd, Marblehead
People in the News
North
Andover Teacher Honored
Judith Chmielecki, a teacher in the
Northern Essex Community College for the past 13 years, has been honored by
receiving the Staff and Organizational Development Award for Excellence that
recognizes the work of teachers in the community college system.
Peabody
City Employee wins Peabody Chamber Award
Ms. Maria Ferri, Director of Vocational
Education in the City of Peabody has been named the Mary Upton Ferrin Award for
demonstrating leadership and serving as a role model and champion of humanitarian based efforts.
Personal Observations
Local
High Schools Successes
Congratulations to the Danvers High
School basketball team that successfully defending their State Basketball Title
and the School’s Hockey Program competed most effectively as well. The Girls Hockey group from St. Mary’s in Lynn
also won a state title, and Swampscott High School Hockey entry went all the
way to the finals.
Spring
Starting Soon
On the day after the most recent winter
snowstorm, the calendar noted that we were then on the first day of
spring. It is certainly not spring out
my front door as we are experiencing cooler than normal weather and the warmer
nicer weather cannot come fast enough to satisfy me. I am using the local retail malls as a
location to continue my personal walking program and can’t wait to get back
outdoors.
One
last Winter Storm?
Are the snow storms that we have been
experiencing, the final grip of Winter or are the disturbances that are being
reported as lurking down the coast a sign of more stormy weather still to
come. Are we caught up in the winter
storm track? Will we continue the 2013
winter of snow and colder weather or are we poised to move into the next
season? I, for one, would like to spring
arrive and the snow disappear!
Current
Inspirational Book Read and Enjoyed
From time to time in this space, I have
reported on some of the books that I have read. I was born in 1937, so I was alive for all
of the World War that was fought from 1941 through 1945. I wanted to be exposed to almost anything
that I can read about that time of my life to fill in blanks from that
period. I have just finished reading
a book about that war called “ A Higher Call.
This incredible true story of combat and chivalry in the war-torn skies
of World War ll was written by Adam Makos.
It is the incredible story of two
flyers, a German Fighter Pilot by the name of Franz Stigler and an America,
B-17 Bomber Pilot by the name of Charlie Brown and a rookie crew who met over
the skies of Europe during the war. The
German Pilot that had a chance to shoot down and destroy an American Bomber
but, in fact escorted the American air plane back to safe haven in
England. The story continues to a
reunion four decades after the encounter.
Great story of an exciting time, and an excellent read.
