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Eminent domain off the table: Plympton homes will not lose their Carver back yards

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PLYMPTON/CARVER– At a dramatic meeting of the Carver Urban Redevelopment Authority on Monday, July 18, Carver Town Planner Marlene McCollem informed the authority that it would take just a simple vote to redraw the lines of the area targeted for “redevelopment” in Carver around parcels that straddle the border, in order to get them off a list of properties slated to be taken by eminent domain.

They did just that in a shocking reversal, seemingly unaware of the ongoing discussions residents from Plympton had been having since January 2015, when they were told that they were abutters to an “urban renewal” project. Residents say they have been attending meetings for months to oppose the project, but the Plympton opposition seemed shocking to one member of the board.

Route 44 Development, the self-described “bullish” developer stated they never wanted anything to do with the Plympton parcels that showed up on a list of properties slated for possible seizure by eminent domain.

“65% of your property is in Carver, and you bought the property knowing that?” a board member asked Richard Jackson of Heather’s Path, Plympton, only to be chastised by the Carver Town Planner who noted that it, “is very common along our borders…” to have parcels in Carver and another town.

The Plympton residents have been bolstered by the support of Plympton Selectmen, and present were Christine Joy and John Traynor, who both spoke in support of Plympton residents who will be affected by the proposed large, mixed use development behind Montello Street in the north-west corner of Carver. Montello Street runs through both towns. Traynor spoke of protecting Plympton residents and Joy challenged planners to stop relying so heavily on Montello Street for their concept.

Although several residents of both towns expressed relief about the vote, many continued to express displeasure with the project in general.

One resident, from Carver, is fighting cancer right now as the developer is trying to reach a deal to buy their home. Two other residents from Carver have apparently reached settlements.

A Plympton couple from Montello Street say their mortgage is “underwater” because of the uncertainty with the project, which townspeople have said has always seemed somewhat half-baked to begin with, showing hotels on rivers that don’t exist, and so on.

Residents of Heather’s Path, all with Plympton addresses, don’t believe that any of them could sell their homes right now due to the situation and many have voiced their opposition based on the fear that their home values will plummet should the project move forward.

Benefit on Sunday to help Amy Breault

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PLYMPTON -The Amy Breault benefit event at the Upland Sportsman Club, Upland Road, Plympton, will be held Sunday, July 17, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Amy, a resident of Plympton, was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis, which progressed to secondary-progressive MS.  She has been invited to Russia to take part in an experimental treatment to use her own body’s stem cells to treat her MS.  Because this highly effective treatment is not available in the United States, Amy will go to Russia to receive her stem cell treatment.

Amy, with her companion Brendan Bibaud, invites the community to join them at the Upland Sportsman Club in Plympton on Sunday, July 17, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

There will be a DJ, raffles, and much more for a family afternoon for all ages.  There is no charge to come and meet Amy under the Upland Club Pavilion and lend support to her mission.

Optional tickets for the chicken bake dinner are $20 per person and can be purchased at the Upland Club or by calling Kim at (781) 585-5741.  All proceeds will go to Amy for her stem cell treatment in Russia.

For those who wish to help but cannot attend, donations may be made directly at http://www.youcaring.com/amy-breault-360701.

Eagle Scout Honored by BOS

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PLYMPTON– Selectmen met on Monday, July 11, and held a very brief meeting. Some topics of discussion were the recognition of Jake Ferguson for his Eagle Scout project, as well as the process for putting the town’s legal services out to bid and “office hours” for Selectmen.

Eagle Scout recognized

Jake Ferguson, of Brook Street, along with all the Boy and Girl scouts in Plympton, were honored by the Board on Monday night. Jake, for his Eagle Scout Project, designed and built a receptacle for use at the transfer station for holding old and worn out American flags before proper disposal by the Boy Scouts.

Flags that are worn out should be burned and the ashes buried, with respect and ceremony, according to the VFW.

Ferguson said the receptacle took him about 80 hours to build in his basement.

“We have such a strong scouting program,” remarked Selectman Christine Joy as she and the rest of the Board congratulated Ferguson for his hard work.

Legal services out to bid?

For some time, Selectmen have been exploring the idea of hiring Town Counsel at a flat rate, rather than retaining legal services hourly. They say they are hoping to find savings using this method, although Town Coordinator Dale Pleau has warned, “You get what you pay for.” The Board is trying to get the number down under $47,000, what they last paid to Kopelman and Paige, now known as, “KP | LAW”, the current Town Counsel.

The process for putting the service out to bid is the same as procuring any other service or item for the town, according to Pleau. He will draw up a request for proposal (RFP), which is a solicitation for bids, and advertise the RFP in legal publications. Prospective law firms will competitively bid for the contract.

There is no final draft of the RFP yet.

“Meet a

Selectman”

Selectmen have brought up the idea of holding “office hours” individually, but this is raising some legal questions as well.

The Board is supposed to deliberate about issues in public, and post them on an agenda 72 hours before they meet. If residents are bringing up issues in private, some question as to at what point an issue needs to be deliberated publicly arose, but the Board will have Selectman John Traynor consult with Town Counsel to discuss the matter.

The Town Coordinator thinks this is a non-issue, as citizens can have private conversations with each other without bringing something before the BOS, even Selectmen themselves– as long as they are not deliberating. Unless they discover something illegal going on, he reasoned, there is no reason they couldn’t have office hours and did not think there was any need to spend Town Counsel time on the subject.

• The Plympton Police Department announced they have a new summer intern. Anthony Dimari of Kingston, a UMass Dartmouth criminal justice student, has been with the department for about a month now, and will be working until Aug. 9. 

Chief Patrick Dillon stated that the purpose of the program is to expose students to the realities of the police profession and allowing the intern to deal with “non-critical” administrative tasks.

• Plympton Selectmen will next meet on Monday, July 25, at 6 p.m., Town House

Driving us buggy Gypsy moths begin egg-laying

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Motorists may have noticed lately that they’ve been driving through flurries of moths on the region’s roadways — the latest stage of what entomologists are calling the worst gypsy moth infestation since the early 1980s.

Those moths are now laying masses of beige eggs before they die off, leading experts to fear a worse infestation next year.

Hanson and Kingston are among the state’s communities seeing spotty damage from the moths that, in their caterpillar stage, can irritate more than one’s nerves. Tiny hairs on the caterpillars can cause skin irritations for some with allergies.

There may not be much one can do to combat them at this point, however.

“It seems like the consensus is that, because we’ve had two very dry springs in a row, the fungus Entomophiaga Maimaiga … needs a lot of moisture to get going and it has to happen early enough in the season — a nice, wet April and May,” said Tawny Simisky an extension entomologist specializing in woody plant entomology with the UMass, Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment. The fungus is a natural enemy of the gypsy moth caterpillar that winters over in the soil and is most effective when it can get into the caterpillar population at an immature stage.

“Although we did see some of the fungus this year and we’ve had more reports recently about the fungus, it didn’t get kicked up into the population soon enough — or early enough — back in April and May,” Simisky said. “We didn’t have enough rain to have the fungus do enough damage to the gypsy moth caterpillars.”

Now the male moths are flying about seeking females with which to mate, as the females do not fly.

“They [caterpillars] were able to eat quite a bit,” Simisky said, noting her office has received a lot of reports about defoliation. “Unfortunately, we do not map it, but I do have some lists of towns [where damage has been reported].”

spotty damage

Besides Hanson and Kingston, there have been reports of spotty damage in, but not limited to, Sturbridge, Monson, Uxbridge, Brimfield, Charlton, Northborough, Westborough, Plymouth, Carver, Wareham, Sharon, Winchendon, Framingham, West Bridgewater, Braintree, Rowley, Georgetown, Ipswich, Newbury, Boxford, Topsfield, Gloucester, and Wrentham have reported continued and elevated caterpillar activity paired with defoliation this spring.

“Defoliation (mostly oaks) was observed by motorists driving in certain areas on Route 3 (Plymouth area), I-495 (Acton, Littleton, and Worcester areas), and the Mass. Turnpike (I-90) near Charlton. However, there have been multiple reports of gypsy moth caterpillars having fed on pines and spruce this season,” according to the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment’s periodic Landscape Message. A lot of calls were also received concerning the sound of caterpillar waste — known as frass — falling from the trees.

“It’s psychologically difficult for people to deal with, it seems,” Simisky said.

what to do?

What is a homeowner to do?

Some extension services across the country have suggested soap and water as an acceptable method for removing egg masses within reach. But Simisky said that is not a very effective method, instead recommending horticultural oil applied by a licensed company.

Simisky said each cluster laid by gypsy moths contains 500 or more eggs.

“Where folks are seeing a lot of egg masses being laid right now, that’s a likely sign that next season they’ll have a lot of gypsy moths again, unless we have a wet spring,” she said. “I’ve been advising folks to make their management plans now.”

The horticultural oils suffocate the egg masses, while soap and water requires one to scrape the egg masses into a container of the solution.

“That is really, I think, futile, labor-intensive work,” Simisky said. “You have to be able to reach every single egg mass and getting good coverage with those horticultural oils can be difficult, too.”

That’s where a Massachusetts-licensed pesticide applicator is important in targeting host trees that are covered in egg masses early next spring.

According to UMass entomologist Dr. Joseph Elkinton, Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.), a low-toxicity pesticide option that only acts on moths and butterflies may be sprayed on susceptible host plants (such as oak) when gypsy moth caterpillars are still small and feeding. The compound is created from a naturally occurring bacterium that is relatively safe for other beneficial insects, but can harm pollinating butterflies.

“It is derived from a bacterium specific to that group of insects and is considered to be safe for people and pets,” Elkinton stated in a recent article. “There is nothing that can be done now to manage the adult moths.”

Wrapping trees in foil — as was the common “remedy” for saving trees from caterpillars in the 1980s infestation — is also considered ineffective today, Simisky said.

Barking dogs investigated

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HALIFAX– The Halifax Board of Selectmen met and debated a number of items on Tuesday, July 12, although half of a dog hearing, the eighth meeting with Scott Clawson regarding his horse show consent agreement, and the second part of a multi-part earth-removal hearing for the Morse Brothers Cranberry company dominated the discussion.

Dog hearing

Scott Clawson and several neighbors brought forward a dog noise complaint against Jennifer Harmon-Choate, who operates a kennel neighboring Clawson’s property.

Harmon-Choate was not available for the hearing, despite being notified, according to Town Administrator Charlie Seelig.

Despite Ms. Harmon-Choate’s absence, the Board opted to collect evidence, and then continue the hearing until she could be present.

Several neighbors spoke of excessive barking at the kennel, including Clawson, at all hours of the day or night. Clawson’s son even had made an audio recording that he played from for the board.

A neighbor spoke of her children being afraid to play outside due to the noise of barking dogs.

Selectman Kim Roy had done some sleuthing of her own as well, recording audio at various hours of the day, including a recording at 4:51 a.m. where dogs could be heard loudly barking, allegedly from the kennel and recorded at different parts of Clawson’s property.

The hearing was continued.

Fieldstone Farms

The Board and Scott Clawson are very close to agreeing on a new version of the consent agreement Clawson operates under for his horse shows at Fieldstone Farms.  This was the eighth meeting on the subject.

Although the language between the attorney for Clawson and the attorney for the town is close, they have not yet executed a contract, and Clawson sought temporary reprieve for the rest of the summer, adding two show dates, and raising the number of overnight RV’s on his property to 15 for those dates.

The board granted his requests.

Clawson was originally called before the board for advertising more shows this summer than allowed in his agreement with the town, but turned this into an opportunity to negotiate a new contract.

The Board did negotiate further with Clawson and his attorney, and they will be back to, hopefully, execute a new agreement on July 26.

Earth-Removal hearing

The Morse Brothers Cranberry Company, represented by GAF engineering and Bill Madden, was before the Selectmen again to address concerns regarding an earth-removal permit sought by the company for their cranberry operation.

The cranberry growers claim that in order to produce a greater yield, that it is necessary to remove a particular hill and they would like to remove 41,600 cubic yards of earth from the hill in the center of the bogs.

Lingan Street would be the main route for trucks removing the earth, and neighbors and abutters are concerned about such a large amount of truck traffic. They also said they are worried about the vibrations this would cause to their homes, water mains and gas lines buried underground.

Lingan Street is very narrow, said Selectman Chairman Troy Garron, who lives in the area.

Most of all, neighbors were worried about children in the area of large vehicles. Several insisted that truck traffic only be allowed during school hours, when children are not outside playing.

Neighbors seem to be amenable to the project, several noting that Morse Brothers Cranberry Company has been good neighbors to them in the past.

The scale of the project is confusing, though, as various numbers of round-trips have been proposed, ranging from 1,600 to more than 2,000, depending on the size of the truck, and as well a loose time-frame as there is no current destination for the soil.

“It feels like the numbers are being played with,” said Rich Holmes of 13th Avenue.

The hearing was continued.

Special Town Meeting

The Selectmen have called a Special Town Meeting for Monday, July 25, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Halifax Elementary School, 464 Plymouth Street. A copy of the warrant can be read on page 11 of this newspaper or downloaded online. Warrants will also be mailed to all residents the week of July 18.

There will be a voter registration session on Friday, July 15 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Town Hall.

Plympton Girl Scout Bridging at Harry Jason Park June 17

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Friday night we had the Plympton Girl Scout Bridging at Harry Jason Park in Plympton. Daisies to Cadettes were there for the ceremony Scouts hold to wrap up the year of scouting and for a couple of the troops it was their turn to bridge to Brownies, to Juniors and to Cadettes.

After the ceremony we all enjoy some s’mores and for the second year in a row we’ve had a camp out for those who want to spend the night. We had about 15 families spend the night. It was a beautiful night up until the thunderstorm came through but it didn’t put a damper on the fun.

HOW HALIFAX REGARDS PRISON PLAN

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“They want to take our good old town of Halifax for a State prison and wipe us off the map, do they? Well, we be long-standing Plymouth Rock Yankees round these parts. There’s people that have tried to drive the Yankees before, but they didn’t drive. So they can’t drive us out of here, by gum!” said Oliver Holmes, one of the oldest inhabitants of Halifax, as he raised his voice in protest against what he terms the “terrible aggression” of a syndicate of Boston real estate dealers who have offered their holdings as a site for a new State prison instead of the island of Nashawena.

In a letter which they have sent to the members of the General Court and the State Board of Prison Commissioners, this syndicate has pointed out how feasible it is to remove the residents of Halifax, who now number about 500, from their homes and how easily the beautiful Cape town may be converted into a vast state farm of over 9000 acres of rich land, situated on the shores of the two Monponsett lakes.

The news that the town had been proposed for a prison site has stirred up the inhabitants. Few approved the idea. Many opposed it. “If those convicts land here,” said George Estes, keeper of the general store, “I would get a Gatling gun, plant it on the Methodist steeple and shot down every mother’s son of them.” A large gathering of village gossips who were in the store at the time nodded approval.

Only one man, Selectman Henry Haywood, approved of selling the town. Mr. Haywood said: “If they want to clean us off the map, let them clean away, provided they use water enough by way of compensation. By ‘water’ I mean good old greenbacks.”

From the collections of

Susan Basile

Halifax Historian

Rat infestation on Upland Road seems under control

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PLYMPTON– The Plympton Board of Health met Tuesday, July 5 and mostly heard updates on old business. Several of the more notable topics addressed were the following:

• Two houses on Maple Street need to be inspected by the assessor in order for the Health Department to ascertain the number of bedrooms, which is directly related to the size required of a property’s septic system. 48 Maple Street is refusing access while 66 Maple Street cannot find a mutually agreeable time for the inspection.

• A rat infestation on Upland Road seems to have abated. A neighbor moved a wood pile where rats seem to have been living, and the properties will be monitored.

• An inspection of a septic system was conducted by a licensed inspector on Bradford Road, but the inspector was not licensed in Plympton. Not all towns require local licensure; many just require state licensure, according to Cathy Drinan, Health Inspector. The Board will fine the company that the inspector works for $150 for the unlicensed inspection.

• Someone sold a Grove Street property, but the culprit cannot yet be ascertained. They left a dumpster in the driveway. The dumpster company was apparently never paid, so they dumped the contents on the driveway itself and left the pile of refuse. The Board of Health isn’t sure who to take action against– normally it would be the buyer, said Drinan, but the dumpster company should not have left the trash on the driveway. Because this was an anonymous complaint, the Board’s options are limited at this point in time.

• The sale of the property at 59 Parsonage Road from the federal USDA Farm Service to Richmond Poole has not closed yet as Mr. Poole’s attorney is traveling in Europe.

Halifax fireworks go off without a hitch

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HALIFAX– While the afternoon activities scheduled on the Town Green almost didn’t happen due to a lack of funding, the Halifax Fourth of July celebration went off as scheduled thanks to a generous last-minute donation from the Halifax Country Club.

The activities included bouncy inflatables, a petting zoo, a balloon artist, face painting, a DJ, as well as games for children. There were also snacks and an ice-cream truck.

Later on in the evening, a large crowd gathered on the lawn behind Halifax Elementary School in preparation for the big fireworks show. Although some of the earlier activities were still available, as the evening got darker townspeople entertained themselves.

Shortly after 9:15 p.m., an approximately 20-minute firework spectacular began to cheers from the crowd. While it was only 20 minutes, the colorful display felt like it lasted for hours.

The only downside was the intense traffic on Route 106 after the celebratory day ended. All-in-all residents from Halifax and surrounding towns appeared to have a wonderful time taking in not only the fireworks, but all of the other happenings offered.

“Not only petty but spiteful”: Jeff Randall’s daughter on neighbors

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PLYMPTON– After a hearing on a gravel removal permit which, due to a clerical error, referenced an incorrect map from nearly a decade ago and will be reissued, Meaghan Randall, daughter of Jeff Randall, wished to let her neighbors know: “stop harassing my family.”

In an emotional statement, the daughter of the farmer who in the last six months has brought the town apparently full-circle in proposing a medical marijuana “grow-facility”, a Chapter 40B mixed-income housing development and finally back to the cranberry and horse-boarding business, accused her neighbors and former friends of “retribution” and “harassment”.

Randall, who lives at Hayward Farms with her parents, stated that she was afraid that the harassment would go on unabated until her father is caused financial hardship through their opposition to various activities that go on at Hayward Farms.

To bolster her claims that these regular complaints to Town House were retribution for the proposed grow facility, she read from a  May 9 e-mail from Sharon Housley of Ring Road that Housley wished to, “establish a record that Mr. Randall does not follow regulations put forth by the town.”

She called the neighbors on Ring Road, three couples which she specified by name, “not only petty but spiteful,” and stated that she worked with High School students that had better manners.

She also accused them of spreading false information, eye-rolling, laughing at her parents, and ‘snarky’ comments.

Chris Housley of Ring Road responded briefly and mentioned again the history of trucks bringing dirt onto the farm, something that had been discussed in terms of the gravel removal permit, although the dirt has nothing to do with gravel removal, says Jeff Randall.

Randall says that dirt is brought onto the farm, mixed with horse manure, and sold as compost. For that operation, Randall has agreed to limit truck traffic, although he asserts that he does not have to because it is an agricultural by-product. Neighbors are complaining of truck-traffic very early in the morning, which Mr. Randall denies.

The Selectmen are clarifying that assertion.

One neighbor said that they had been “letting this go for years.”