PLYMPTON– Plympton will hold a Town Election on Saturday, May 21, 2016, at Plympton Town House, 5 Palmer Road. Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. There are ten available elected positions up for grabs, but only one, the race for a seat on the Board of Selectmen, is contested.

The other races with more than one name listed on the ballot are for two seats– on the Finance Committee and the Library Trustees– and allow the voter to choose two candidates.

Brian Cherry, of Trout Farm Lane, a facilities director for the Town of Duxbury, and John Traynor, Jr., of Crescent Street, who has been the Town Moderator for several years and is retired, are facing off for a three-year term on the Board of Selectmen for a seat which is being vacated by current Selectmen Chairman Mark Russo.

Richard Nordahl, of West Street, is seeking a three-year term as Assessor.

Chairman of the Board of Health Arthur Morin, Jr., of Granville Baker Way, is seeking another three-year term on the Board of Health.

Four candidates are seeking seats on the Finance Committee. Marilyn Browne, of Elm St, and Eric Hart, of Marie Elaine Drive are seeking three-year terms. Browne is a candidate for re-election. Nathaniel Sides, of Winnextuxet Road is seeking a two-year term on the committee. Susan Ossoff, of Upland Road is also seeking re-election, but for a one-year term.

Miranda Anne Boyles, of Spring Street, and Christine Winslow, of Brook Street, are both seeking three-year terms as Library Trustees. Both are candidates for re-election.

Brian Wick, of Winnetuxet Road, is running for a three-year term as Town Moderator.

Deborah Anderson, of Elm Street, is seeking re-election to the Planning Board for a five-year term.

Stephanie Dome, of Pope’s Farm, is seeking a three-year term on the Dennett School Committee. She also is a candidate for re-election.

HALIFAX– With 15 elected positions open, only 384, or 7%, of 5,344 registered voters took to the polls in Halifax on May 14.

Only three races on the ballot were contested, and no candidates filed papers for several of the seats, including both three-year terms on Holmes Public Library Board of Trustees, a five-year term on the Halifax Housing Authority and four-year and five-year terms on the Planning Board.

Thomas Millias, of South Street, who also is about to begin the second year of his first term with the Board of Selectmen, was re-elected to the Board of Assessors against Michael J. Schleifff, of Paradise Lane, 238-118.

Schleiff,  who received 144 votes, also lost his bid for Constable, the two seats being won by Thomas Hammond, of Paradise Lane, and Thomas Shindler, of Ninth Avenue, with 227 votes and 168 votes, respectively.

Schindler was also re-elected in an uncontested race as Parks Commissioner with 291 votes. John L. Weber, of Cranberry Drive, was re-elected, in an uncontested race, to the Board of Health, with 286 votes.

Kim Roy, of Plymouth Street, was re-elected as Selectman, unopposed, for a three-year term, her third term on the board.

Kimberly Cicone, of Highland Circle, won a three-year term on the Halifax Elementary School Committee, 203-108, besting Robert Baker of Holmes Street.  Paula Hatch of Oak Place was re-elected for a three-year term to the Silver Lake Regional School Committee.

Patricia McCarthy, of Parsons Lane, was elected to a four-year term on the Halifax Housing Authority, unopposed.

Karlis Skulte, of Rye Meadow Lane, won a four-year term on the planning board with 17 votes, but the seat for a five-year term resulted in a “failure-to-elect” sitation where no candidate is elected.

Robert Baker, of Holmes Street, and Madeline Flood, of Twin Lakes Drive, were both elected to the Board of Library Trustees for three-year terms as write-in candidates, but two open Planning Board seats resulted in  “failure-to-elect” situations, leaving them vacant.

First Saturday at the Plympton Public Library brought many patrons to hear a classical guitar performance by Glorianne Collver-Jacobson, a recent Plympton transplant, whose considerable education in music entertained many at the library for more than an hour.

Collver-Jacobson grew up in California and received her B.A. in music from the University of California, Berkley.  She took her junior year abroad in France, and summer in Spain.

Her classical guitar studies began when she was 14 and continued in Barcelona, Spain with Renata Tarrago.  She took international Master Classes with Julian Bream, Antonio Laro, Alirio Diaz and Manuel Barrueco, augmenting her training.  She also studied lute with Eugen Dombois and Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basilliensis in Basel, Switzerland.

Glorianne lived in Europe for some time, continuing her studies in music and also teaching.

After returning to the United States, she and her husband moved to New England in the 1980s, and moved to Plympton last July.   

She has performed in concert in Europe and the United States, both as soloist and with other artists.

Glorianne is a Senior Music Performance Faculty at Wellesley College teaching guitar and lute, and coaches ensembles for the Mather Chamber Music Program at Harvard University.

She promises to keep us informed of other concerts planned in the area.

HALIFAX– Halifax Selectmen met on Tuesday, April 12 and two major items dominated the meeting: an attempt to negotiate with Scott Clawson and Fieldstone Farms regarding an update to the 1993 legal contract with the town to give him more flexibility with his horseshows, and some bad news for Robert Bergstrom, who found out that due to zoning regulations, his planned “music event” to be held at Fieldstone Farms was not an acceptable use of the property in an agricultural zone, effectively ending the project as conceived. MudFest, held at Nessralla Farm, is also now in question, as the board may have erred in providing permits for the event previously, according to Robert Piccirilli, Halifax Building Inspector on advice of Town Counsel. The news was also not great for Clawson, who has been looking to diversify the events held at his farm.

Fieldstone Farms legal agreement

Scott Clawson, proprietor of Fieldstone Farms, was again before the board with his attorney, this time attempting to negotiate modifications to a years-old legal agreement that he and the town entered into in 1993 allowing him to hold commercial horse shows. The legal agreement was necessary because commercial horse shows were not considered an allowable agricultural use of the property at the time, which is in an agricultural/residential zone in Halifax.

Clawson wishes to add to the total number of shows per year that he can hold, but claims that for at least a few years they will not increase drastically. He also wants to allow more RVs to house staff –  (up from 5 to 25) that often accompany the valuable horses on show days. His attorney also debated with the Fire Chief, Jason Viveiros, over the type of medical personnel necessary at the shows, at one point even questioning Viveiros as to who he had spoken to at the state-level for his information.

Viveiros took the questioning of his authority in stride, but appeared visibly surprised at the remark. Selectmen Chairman Kim Roy made it quite clear that speaking for herself, not the whole board, that she would take the advice of Chief Viveiros on that matter.

Clawson, who was recently called before the Board for advertising more horse shows than were in his agreement, did not escape a rebuke from Selectman Troy Garron during the negotiations, who reminded Clawson, “You do remember how we got here, right?”

Two neighbors were present, and another who was not present wrote the board, all with noise concerns, as well as a concern about trash after the shows. Clawson stated that he will do more to control noise in the future and will work with neighbors on any issues they have.

The board will continue to negotiate the draft agreement with Clawson, but is seeking input from abutters, neighbors and the public before approving any changes and moving forward with the legal process of changing the agreement.

Bombshell Dropped On Bergstrom

Charlie Seelig, Halifax Town Administrator, delivered some bad news to Robert Bergstrom, who is known for his MudFest truck-racing event and more recently for planning a large-scale two-day concert to be held at Fieldstone Farms this summer.

Seelig and Building Inspector Robert Piccirilli had done some further zoning research, and consulted Town Land Counsel, and all agree that commercial or entertainment events cannot be held on property in an agricultural zone.

Thus the concert will not happen without a change in zoning by-laws, which require both the planning board’s approval and a 2/3 vote at Town Meeting, which cannot happen this year given how quickly town meeting is coming up. Seelig said that zoning by-laws are notoriously difficult to change, even for a future year.

MudFest, held at Nessrella Farm, is now being called into question as well. Seelig stated his belief that the board may have erred in their decision to permit that event previously, as they didn’t have that information at the time.

Selectmen Roy and Garron expressed that they wished they had had this information earlier, and Piccirilli stated, “This was not my intention. I was really looking for a way to fit you in [to the zoning by-laws].”

The only hope for MudFest is if the area of the property where it is held happens to be in a “conservancy zone”, but other zoning challenges exist, such as crossing differently zoned property to get to the event.

Bergstrom has worked diligently with the board for several years to put together the MudFest event that the board was initially skeptical towards, but has been increasingly popular and well-known, and the board did come around to support it in the past. Sadly for Bergstrom, it may need to find a new home.

In other news:

Town Clerk Barbara Gaynor is requesting that all Town Census forms, which were due in late January, be returned to Town Hall as soon as possible.

PLYMPTON – Shane Patrick Sullivan, 25, of Boston, continues to be held at Bridgewater State Hospital, now under a suicide watch, after a Plymouth District Court judge ordered him evaluated following charges that he allegedly attempted a home invasion on Brook Street, Plympton, Sunday, March 6, according to court documents.

Sullivan, whose arraignment was twice delayed directly following the alleged crime, was last to be arraigned Monday, March 28, but that was postponed at the request of the hospital, which is a secure mental health facility located at the Bridgewater Correctional Complex in Bridgewater.

The fourth attempt to arraign Sullivan will occur on Thursday, April 14 at 9 a.m. at the Plymouth District Court, 52 Obery St., Plymouth. He will remain in the custody of Bridgewater State Hospital until that date.

The hospital is conducting a forensic evaluation to determine Sullivan’s competency to stand trial and his criminal responsibility (known as a 15B evaluation).

Sullivan made headlines recently for allegedly leaving the Brook Retreat, a “sober-living” facility located at 55 Brook St., and attempting to break into a neighboring home on Brook Street with an icepick.

He is well known to police, law-enforcement officials have said, and court documents indicate a lengthy criminal record.

Sullivan was located when the victims called the Plympton Police, and according to the police narrative, he was making bizarre statements and was barefoot when found.

Sullivan told paramedics, who told police, that he had ingested drugs, although the veracity of the statement is not clear due to his behavior at the time police took him into custody and medical privacy laws.

Sullivan is charged with felony vandalizing property, felony home invasion, misdemeanor disturbing the peace and misdemeanor resisting arrest.