A candlelight vigil will be held in Shipyard Park on Wednesday, December 19 at 6:00 pm to remember all of the fallen victims from Friday’s deadly shooting in Newtown, CT.
All those interested in attending should bring their own candles. Any questions, please contact Suzanne Barrow at 508-758-4035.
On Saturday, December 15, the Mattapoisett Library held a kids holiday ornament-making day. The activity was organized by the Friends of the Library. Kids and their parents stopped by to make reindeer out of cork, stockings out of pom poms, and popcicle stick nutcracker ornaments. Check out the gallery below for photos from this fun event. Photos by Eric Tripoli.
Over 130 people attended the third annual senior citizens holiday dinner, organized by the Marion Police Brotherhood in conjunction with the Marion Council On Aging.
“It’s getting bigger and bigger,” said Officer Anthony DiCarlo who is also the union president. “It brings all the elderly people together, many haven’t seen each other all year.”
The banquet, held at the Marion Social Club on Saturday December 15, featured a turkey dinner, dessert, and coffee.
The Marion Police Department has a history of reaching out to the community, especially the older residents in town. In the past, the Marion Police Brotherhood made holiday gift baskets for local elderly residents but they found that they could serve more people with the dinner.
“The baskets sort of ran their course. We decided this was a better venue. Last year we had about 100,” DiCarlo said. “We love to have as many people as we can.”
Marion Selectman Jody Dickerson was also at the banquet visiting with the police and the dinner guests.
“It’s a great turn out. The members of the brotherhood and police department did a great job. They do so much for the community. It’s what makes Marion such a great town to live and work in,” Dickerson said.
“It’s a wonderful idea that they started this. It gets a lot of people out of the house. People really look forward to it,” said Richard Robert of Fairhaven, who suggested adding live music to next year’s banquet.
For those who could not attend, whether infirmed or shut-in, DiCarlo said that members of the COA were delivering meals to their homes. Many seniors at the banquet were able to a guest if they required assistance.
“It’s always very good. The meal is always tops here. It’s outstanding,” said Marion senior Al Berry. “We really appreciate what the police do for the town.”
For more information on the Marion Police Brotherhood and its community activities, visit marionpolicebrotherhood.org.
By Eric Tripoli
Baby, it was cold outside as the Old Rochester Regional High School music department took the stage for their annual holiday concert. Music lovers were treated to four different ensembles during the show on Thursday, December 13.
“Tonight, we’re featuring the chorus, concert band, jazz band, and jazz combo,” said ORR music director Mike Barnicle. “It’s a great group.”
The program was a mix of the familiar and exotic. The jazz band played a Latin-inspired piece named “Cuaba” and the chorus ended their performance with the classic carol “Silient Night.”
While many of the musicians were still working out last minute nerves backstage before the show started, tonight marked the end of a very long, but festive journey.
“We’ve been rehearsing holiday songs since September, so we’re relieved to be here tonight,” joked Barnicle.
The graduating class of 2012 took with it many of the senior musicians in the department. This fall, a big influx of freshmen took their places and Barnicle said he was excited for them to perform in their first holiday concert.
One of those new-comers is Mattapoisett native Zenobia Nelles, a clarinetist for five years.
“I’m happy to be playing in this group,” said Nelles. “When you get to high school, the kids who did it more as a hobby in middle school lose interest. But all the people here really care about it.”
Senior and saxophone player Mike Bliss was confident that the new students would be able to carry the torch for the out-going players like him.
“We lost a lot of seniors but the freshmen this year really brought it back. That’s good news for the music department,” said Bliss.
Though this was his last holiday concert at ORR, Bliss was focused on the moment but thankful for the opportunity to play.
“I’m sad to see it go. It’s been a long time, but I’m playing with a lot of good musicians tonight, and I feel great about that.”
By Eric Tripoli
Elizabeth “Betty” Oliva, 81, of Rochester passed away peacefully on Friday December 7, 2012.
Betty was born into the Great Depression to Margaret and Edward Brown in Ithaca, New York, where she developed her sense of adventure and her physical stamina by making her way up and down that town’s great hills. The youngest sister to Priscilla, Edward, Kenneth, Shirley and Marilyn, Betty learned to sew, while a young girl, in order to have a wardrobe that extended beyond hand-me-downs. Her zest for life and her creativity helped her forge her own path by first working as an au pair while attending Ithaca High School, and later as a telephone operator downtown, where she would go over to the YMCA and swim during her lunch breaks.
Betty left Ithaca in 1950 when she joined the Air Force and met her husband of 58 years, Girard F. “Gerry” Oliva, while training to be a radio operator. Thus began a 21 year adventure in military life, crossing the globe while raising a family of five children on a shoestring budget, moving every couple of years, piecing together a life that was nevertheless abundant, happy and full of beauty.
Betty and Gerry settled in Mattapoisett in 1970, where Gerry taught and coached football, track and cross- country at Old Rochester Regional High School. An avid sports fan and supporter, Betty never missed a game and could commonly be heard bellowing from the stands, “Go Bulldogs!” She also did administrative work at the high school, and was an integral part of the team that founded the Mattapoisett Road Race, an event she helped run for over 30 years. In 2006, she and her husband retired to The Pines in Rochester, becoming part of a beloved community of friends.
Although Betty lost her husband and best friend in 2008, she forged ahead and continued to be the heart of her large family: her children Michael, Deborah Moriarty, Jeri-Lynne Gilling, Frank, Tony and their spouses. The cherished ‘Nonni’ to 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, she led a life of optimism, generosity, kindness and laughter.
Betty lost her heroic 34-year battle with breast cancer on December 7, and she will be dearly missed. A wake and funeral service for Betty will be held at Saunders-Dwyer Mattapoisett Home for Funerals, 50 County Rd., Roure 6, Mattapoisett on Wednesday December 19, from 3 pm to 6 pm. The Oliva family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Rochester Council On Aging, 67 Dexter Lane, Rochester, Ma., 02770.
Alfred J. Flateau, 82, of Marion, formerly of Carver and East Bridgewater, died Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at his home after a long illness. He was the husband of Jane (Maciel) Flateau.
Born in Boston, Mr. Flateau was the son of the late Frank J. & Mary A. (Pellen) Flateau. Raised in Charlestown, he graduated from Boston Trade School and Champlain College in Plattsburg, NY. He was a WWII Navy veteran serving as fireman onboard the U.S.S. Philippine Sea.
Mr. Flateau was the owner and operator of Eagle Tile Contracting in E. Bridgewater. He was the last surviving charter member of the Charlestown Eagles, a member of Rural Lodge A.F. & A.M. in Quincy, the Holy Name Society, Lions Club and the Knights of Columbus all in E. Bridgewater.
He enjoyed gardening, spending time with his family and football.
Survivors include his wife; his daughter, Claire Biever of Marion; his son, Alfred J. Flateau, Jr. of Meredith, NH; four grandchildren, A.J., Christina, Amy and Kathleen; two great grandchildren, Lilidae and Orion and his dog, Sweet Pea. He was predeceased by his son, the late Robert N. Flateau.
Funeral services and burial will be private.
Donations in his memory may be made to The Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of Massachusetts, 186 Tremont St Boston, MA 02111. Arrangements by Chapman, Cole & Gleason Funeral Home, Wareham.
An Allens Point Road resident will have to find another way to pay his astronomical water bill of $72,227.62 after the Marion Board of Selectmen voted to deny the resident’s abatement request. The decision was made during a special meeting with the Selectmen and members of the Department of Public Works on Thursday morning.
“In no way was this an easy thing to do,” said Selectman Jonathan Henry. “I really feel for the guy.”
Homeowner Nicholas Grace, who is also a member of the Affordable Housing Trust, made the abatement request in early November. The bill was so excessively high due to a crack in a water pipe and the location of the water meter on his property.
Instead of keeping the meter inside of his house, Grace keeps it in a five foot ditch about 150 yards from his house. The ditch was submerged with water causing the meter to malfunction during the reading.
“I’m still in shock of the bill,” said Selectman Stephen Cushing. “I’m having a hard time putting myself in that spot. It’s a staggering amount.”
Cushing initially proposed the town paying for half of the total bill amount, which would have been $36,616.02. However, Henry and Selectman Jody Dickerson did not vote in favor of the that proposition.
Department of Public Works Superintendent Rob Zora believes this whole situation could have been prevented.
“You shouldn’t have had that water in the pit,” said Zora. “That should have been a red flag.”
Furthermore, Zora and DPW Administrative Assistant Rebecca Carvalho confirmed that they sent Grace two letters regarding the location of the meter in the pit, but no action was ever taken to remove it.
“The pit has always been an issue,” said Carvalho. “We’ve been a little bit concerned that this is going to keep happening.”
Prior to the meeting, Town Administrator Paul Dawson reached out to Wareham and Mattapoisett to see how if and how they handled similar situations in the past. Both towns said they had never seen a bill higher than a few thousand dollars.
“In my experience, I have never had an amount like this,” he said.
“We’re treading in unknown territory, so to speak,” said Cushing.
While there are no specific rules regarding these types of situations, especially with a bill of this caliber, Zora said if the water passes through the meter, it is the homeowner’s responsibility to pay the bill.
Zora also wondered how other residents, who have applied for much smaller abatements in the past but were denied, would feel if a bill of this magnitude was abated.
The Selectmen did not offer any other abatement amounts during the meeting. Grace will have the opportunity to appeal the decision in District Court if he chooses to do so.
By Katy Fitzpatrick
Beating cancer once was difficult enough for Mattapoisett resident William Huggins. After an exhausting battle with Colon Cancer a few years ago, Huggins thought he was in the clear after receiving clean scans. However, just a couple years later, he received news that the cancer had metastasized to his liver. Now, he continues to fight against the disease with the help of very supportive friends and family.
“He just finished his chemotherapy on Friday, so now they have to wait and see,” said Julie Sherman, who has been friends with the Huggins family for about 10 years. “I think there is a lot of worry there. There are worries that the scans are coming up next month. There is always a mental hindrance.”
Anyone who knows Will knows that his family, friends and business are of the utmost importance to him. He owns Form Custom Building in Renovation in Mattapoisett, where he was able to practice his love of carpentry before getting sick. Due to the various procedures and treatments he has undergone to defeat this bout of cancer, he has been out of work since the summer, only recently returning to work in the past few weeks.
With the daunting task of paying for medical treatments and trips to and from Boston, that’s when the community stepped in to help the family in need. Friends of the family, including Sherman, decided to sell bracelets in order to raise money for Will. Sherman and Will’s wife Michelle used to make jewelry together, so they designed a wooden-bead bracelet with the saying “I Will” to sell for their fundraising efforts.
“It was a friend of Michelle’s named Desmond who saw Michelle one day and saw that she was very stressed out,” said Sherman. “Desmond said, ‘Michelle, don’t worry about him. He will be fine. His name isn’t Will for nothing.’ We just kind of stuck with that.”
Initially, the women, with the help of their friends Cindy Pemberton, Kellie Hornell-Crete and Hope Perkins, made 100 bracelets to be sold at local businesses for $10 apiece. But due to the popularity of the cause, the ladies have made 500 of them and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future to help the Huggins family with medical expenses.
“It just helps to reassure me that people are giving and have kind souls,” said Sherman. “It just feels good to know that people support this and are excited about it.”
Bracelets can be purchased at Mahoney’s, Isabelle’s, How on Earth, Sister’s Hair and Skin Care and Hangman Coffee Hut. For more information on the “I WILL” bracelets, visit www.facebook.com/iwillhuggins.
By Katy Fitzpatrick
The Old Rochester Regional School Committee granted the Junior High cheerleaders permission to travel to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for a national cheerleading competition, as well as to fundraise for the trip, at their regular meeting on Wednesday, December 12.
Members of the cheerleading team, which is largely composed of students from the Junior High but partially the High School varsity team, were attending the meeting along with parents and ORR Cheerleading Coach Patricia McArdle.
“They won a regional contest,” said Michael Devoll, Principal of ORRHS. “It’s a tremendous achievement. The intent is that this be at no cost to the student.”
The team hopes to raise $12,000 to fund the trip. Currently, the team is not sure which type of fundraiser they will pursue, which temporarily stalled the Committee from approving a blanket fundraising request.
“Our way of doing things in the past has been approving specific fundraisers,” Superintendent Douglas White advised the Committee, “but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t give some leeway.”
Committee Chairman Peter Bangs asked McArdle to list the fundraisers the team might pursue. McArdle suggested pancake breakfasts, dances, discounted legal services and an adults-only trip to Foxwoods.
Devoll informed the Committee that, if they approved fundraising, he would work with the team in refining their list.
“I know what you’ve approved before, I know what you didn’t approve,” Devoll said.
Ultimately, the Committee voted to approve the fundraisers mentioned by the team provided that any additional fundraisers are under the discretion of both White and Devoll and that the team works in respect to other school groups who might be fundraising.
The Committee also approved a fundraiser proposed by Kevin Brogioli, Principal of ORRJHS. The fundraiser would allow parents to order novelty items decorated with their child’s artwork. The funds raised by sales would directly pay for the school’s art supplies.
Elise Frangos, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the district, introduced the district’s new English Language Learner instructor, Teah Mazzoni, to the Committee. After discussing her work for the district, in which Mazzoni teaches and monitors students who speak another language at home and are learning English, Mazzoni explained the new endorsement requirements for teacher licensure.
By 2016, Mazzoni said, core academic teachers may not teach ELL students without having an endorsement, which simply means the completion of ELL professional development. Both Mazzoni and Frangos are working on professional development plans so that all district teachers will have the endorsement.
Committee members asked Brogioli if he had any comments about recent editorials that have appeared in local newspapers, including The Wanderer, regarding the school’s annual Thanksgiving dinner for senior citizens.
“The goal was not to create an adversarial relationship with teachers,” Brogioli said. “The kids did the right thing.”
Brogioli declined to say anything more on the subject.
Committee members also questioned Devoll about recent press coverage that indicated some teachers were fulfilling the bare minimum of their contract requirements. The chief concern was that some teachers might have been offering after-school extra help for only one hour on only one day of the week, which is the contract requirement.
“I hope that’s the minority of teachers,” Devoll said. “I’ve never heard a teacher say ‘I’ll stay one day’ and stick to the contract.”
Devoll added that all teachers in his building would not refuse to help a student who requested academic assistance.
According to the Superintendent’s report included in the meeting’s documents, “The agreements with the Old Rochester teachers, custodians/cafeteria workers as well as the Marion custodians/cafeteria workers are very close to being finalized.”
In his report, Devoll commended the new co-ed swim team for their first win, which was also their first meet.
Devoll also commended ORR English teacher Kathleen Brunelle, who has announced the publishing of her second book, which is entitled Cape Cod’s Highfield & Tanglewood: A Tale of Two Cottages. Brunelle’s first book, Bellamy’s Bride: The Search for Maria Hallett of Cape Cod, was published in 2010.
The School Committee closed the meeting by discussing the upcoming budget discussions, as it is nearing FY14 budgeting season. White said that he is working on streamlining the budgeting process and will have more information for the Committee at the next meeting on Wednesday, January 9 at 6:00 pm in the Conference Room of the Superintendent’s office.
By Anne Smith
The Marion Conservation Commission voted in favor of a project to eradicate the invasive phragmite plant at 32 Beach Street. The plant has taken over much of the land and is encroaching on an intermittent stream as well as a wetland line that was delineated in the mid 1990s. The applicants are Shay and Christine Assad.
“In that area you can see that it’s overgrown with phragmites. In addition it’s gone over this historic wetland line from 1995. We’ve got about another 3,600 square feet inside the buffer zone that has an invasion,” said engineer Rick Charon on behalf of the Assad family.
All told, there is over 10,000 square feet that has been overrun by the species. Once the phragmites have been removed, Charon said they plan to revegetate the area with non-invasive native species.
“We might put bayberry or winterberry. If there were other suitable species for that area, they would have to be salt-tolerable,” Charon said. “We’re like to get something in there to take the place of the phragmites and create a little more diversity there.”
The Commission was amenable to the project, but Ray Pickles, an abutter, said that he and some other neighbors support the plan but would like to see the new plants maintained at a maximum height of six feet.
“We would like to see it limited by the Conservation Commission in the velocity zone,” Pickles said.
Commission Clerk Norman Hills was not in favor of limiting the height of the new vegetation.
That sentiment was not shared by Vice Chairman Lawrence Dorman, who suggested it was out of the purview of the Commission to make that decision.
“I think it’s up to the home-owner to decide how high they should be,” said Dorman.
Commissioner Steve Gonsalves suggested creating a list of suitable plant species and allowing the applicants decide and confer with their neighbors.
Hills said before the work could begin, he would like to see the old wetland line re-established.
“I want permanent markers there so there’s no question,” he said.
Charon said that they would prefer to re-establish the line and was open to ideas on how to mark the area.
“Maybe a stone marker. I’d like to put something in there that looks nice,” he said.
Dorman then offered an order of conditions that would require the wetland line be marked prior to the cutting of the phragmite.
“I think we’d like to see the markers done before the work, therefore, we’ll need to do a site visit before you start,” Dorman said.
The Commission unanimously voted in favor of the NOI.
In other business:
•The Conservation Commission issued a Certificate of Compliance for a garden shed constructed by A. Neil Pappalardo of 90 Moorings Road.
•The Commissioners held a brief informal discussion with Frank Cerkovitz regarding the conversion of a cranberry bog on Cross Neck Road to a conservation restricted wetland. Cerkovitz is still investigating the process and had no plans to submit for the project at this time.
•A public hearing scheduled for Sanford Russell, Jr. of 5 Main Street was continued until the next meeting of the Marion Conservation Commission on January 9, 2013, per request of the applicant.
By Eric Tripoli
