A hesitant Marion Zoning Board of Appeals reluctantly approved an application for the conversion of a one-family to a two-family dwelling in a 4-1 vote on May 12 after initially denying the special permit back in December. Owner of 444 Front Street, Chris Shachoy, appealed the board’s decision at Plymouth Superior Court, which remanded the […] Read more »

Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School and Rochester Memorial School are hoping to share a full-time dedicated school resource officer, and on May 16, Rochester Police Chief Paul Magee strongly advocated for one before the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee members. “The things going on today in the schools, you read about in […] Read more »

There were only three contested races in the 2016 Mattapoisett Annual Election – Tree Warden, Mattapoisett School Committee, and Community Preservation Committee – and the man of the hour was definitely Tree Warden Roland Cote who was waiting on May 17 at Old Hammondtown School when the polls closed to hear if he would continue […] Read more »

With a decisive vote, Stephen Gonsalves was elected to the Marion Board of Selectmen on May 13, beating opponent and fellow Planning Board and Conservation Commission member Norman Hills 686-413. “It’s very humbling. Wow,” said Gonsalves. “When I sat down and heard the numbers, I nearly fell off my chair.” Gonsalves said he was speechless […] Read more »

A multi-alarm fire broke out just after 6:00 pm on Friday night, May 13, at the Zero Waste Solutions facility located at 48 Cranberry Highway in Rochester. The $27 million, 100,000 square-foot trash, debris, and recycling sorting facility fire was called in at 6:12 pm, according to Rochester Fire Chief Scott Weigel during a follow-up […] Read more »

Town Moderator Kirby Gilmore sat on the old wooden benches of the Rochester Town Hall and sighed. He, along with several other town officials, waited for the appearance of the Rochester Board of Selectmen, who had estimated that their general meeting on May 10 would begin at 7:00 pm. At 7:10 pm, however, there was […] Read more »

So far so good, said school administrators at Sippican School after the school’s first week of PARCC testing for fifth-graders, who completed the ELA portion of the exam last week. This being the second time Sippican students have performed the online standardized test that replaced the old MCAS, technical glitches this time around were fewer […] Read more »

Sick. Scrawny. Inadequate. These are some of the adjectives that members of the Rochester Planning Board used on May 10 to describe “the trees with teeny tiny sticks on top” selected by Clean Energy Collective and its contractor, Gehrlicher Solar, for the screening around the solar farm project off Perry’s Lane. Solar developer Jay Myrto […] Read more »

Stressing the importance of recess, the Rochester School Committee on May 5 asked Rochester Memorial School Principal Derek Medeiros to run down the school’s policy on recess – how much and how often. As long as the temperature doesn’t dip below 20 degrees with the wind chill factor, recess is held outside, he said. But […] Read more »

Before the voters of Mattapoisett could get to the 28 warrant articles, Town Moderator John Eklund invited Finance Committee Chairman Pat Donoghue to make comments. After thanking the Town’s department heads for their careful use of budgets and “watching the pennies,” she then launched into her “disappointment” at the ORR budget process and “at the […] Read more »