Town braces for Roseland project after state forces its hand

By Jay Turner
Citizen Staff

After seven years of mostly unsuccessful legal challenges and appeals, the town of Canton has reluctantly conceded defeat in the case of the Roseland Property Company and its bid to build a 220-unit affordable housing development on 81 acres near the Randolph town line.

It was only a few months ago that Selectman Victor Del Vecchio had publicly vowed to continue the fight against the New Jersey-based developer, which had won a favorable ruling from the state Housing Appeals Committee after Canton rejected its request for a 40B comprehensive permit in 2003.

However, since winning a Superior Court decision in 2006, the town has come up empty on every subsequent appeal and now appears to have run out of options altogether. So with a permit set to take effect in 30 days anyway, the Zoning Board of Appeals on July 15 voted to accept the state’s decision, albeit with “voluminous conditions,” according to ZBA Chairman Paul Carroll.

At this point, Carroll said the town expects Roseland and the Housing Appeals Committee to agree to most of the town’s conditions, which include a request for a traffic light at Randolph and York streets, an extensive drainage system, and new soccer fields. Under state law, a ZBA condition can only be removed if it would make the project “uneconomic to build or operate.” (Click here for full article)

Butch King, father of EMS in Canton, to retire after 42 years

By Mike Berger
Citizen Staff

After 42 years with the Canton Fire Department, firefighter/EMT Herb “Butch” King, otherwise known as the father of Canton’s Emergency Medical Services program, is getting ready to retire from his post. But King’s commitment to teaching CPR will continue, and he is currently coordinating with Fire Chief Charlie Doody to offer a monthly CPR course for residents at the fire station.

Fire Chief Charlie Doody thanks firefighter/EMT Butch King for his 42 years of servive to the town. CFD courtesy photo

In addition to the monthly course, King also plans to work for a private ambulance operator and to teach CPR in the community.

Both CPR and EMS are synonymous with King as he spent the better part of the past four decades promoting the need for emergency medical and ambulance services in Canton with five different fire chiefs. Coming off the heels of service as an Army sergeant in Vietnam, King recalled that in the late 1960s and early 1970s it was easier for an Army staffer to get emergency medical services in Vietnam than it was for someone to get emergency treatment after a car accident on Route 128.

In a recent interview, King said that while he will no longer be working for the Fire Department, he still has plans to initiate a community drive to enable the town to purchase advanced CPR equipment if a federal or state grant does not come through this year. The equipment was recently on loan to the Fire Department but has since been returned to the company. Called the “thumper,” the $15,000 piece of equipment allows continuous automatic compressions even as the victim is carried downstairs by paramedics. King said recent medical studies have shown that victims have a better survival rate when using the device. (Click here for full article)

St. Gerard's welcomes visiting priest Father Parrish back to his hometown

By Mary Ann Price
Citizen Staff

Growing up in Canton, the Very Reverend Bryan K. Parrish attended weekly Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church and did not go into St. Gerard Majella Church until he was a seminarian. But he is making up for lost time by saying weekly Mass as a visiting priest at St. Gerard’s this summer.

Reverend Bryan K. Parrish

Father Parrish, 47, moved from Stoughton to Canton when he was 3 years old with his parents, Stan and Mary, and his older brother, Mark. His two younger sisters are JoAnn and Jill. He attended the Luce School and was a member of the first class at the new Galvin Middle School.

“I remember pedaling my bike with my friends to look in the windows of our new school,” Father Parrish recalled.

He attended Xaverian Brothers High School, where his brother was already a student — a decision that his parents encouraged.

“I certainly came from a Catholic family,” he said. “It was part of our lives — a comfortable part of my life — and of a lot of my friends, also. My parents really encouraged me to go to Xaverian. It’s a good example of good parental guidance.”

In high school, Father Parrish spent time with friends, planned to study engineering in college, and worked at the family business, Crescent Ridge Dairy. He likes all the ice cream flavors, but said his favorite is pistachio. (Click here for full article)

~ Appreciation ~

For the love of the game

It’s a cool, late autumn afternoon in 1988 with the wind brisk and the skies threatening rain when a tall, white-haired woman struts across Memorial Field carrying a fold-up chair, a blanket, an umbrella and a reporter’s notebook. Players running through warm-up drills shout, “Hello, Peg!” and she smiles and waves as she makes her way to the sideline to set up her chair and get ready to cover the field hockey game that’s about to begin.

***

Peg Thurler, who passed away July 19 at the age of 92, didn’t need Title IX to tell her that girls should have equal opportunity to play sports. Because for Peg, a four-sport high school athlete herself, it was all about the love of the game — a love, she believed, that all children should have the chance to experience. And so she was there at every game, rain or shine, taking notes for her sports articles — which graced the pages of the Citizen for over a decade — and cheering for her “girls” until she was well into her 80s.

Her byline has been missing  for several years now, but Peg Thurler’s contribution to the paper — and to girls’ sports in Canton — will not be forgotten.   - Beth Erickson  

NOTE: Peg Thurler was also a member of the Canton Historical Society and a strong supporter of environmental and animal welfare causes.  (Click here for article)

Unwanted guest at Blue Hills this summer

By Jeffrey Pickette
Citizen Staff

The mile-a-minute weed, a “fast growing prickly vine” with green triangular leaves, also known as “devil’s tail,” has been spotted in Milton, Littleton, western Massachusetts and on Cape Cod, but the largest outbreak in the state is right here in Canton, according to a report on WBZ-TV.

While the name itself is a hyperbole — the mile-a-minute weed only grows up to six inches a day, according to Alexandra Echandi, a natural resources specialist with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation — it still poses a series threat to the Blue Hills Reservation.

WBZ dubbed it as “nature’s own green monster.” Echandi said the mile-a-minute weed will “entangle itself” over other vegetation, almost strangling these plants while preventing them from receiving proper amounts of sunlight. She also said it has the potential to “bring down trees if they are weak and unhealthy.”

This invasive mile-a-minute weed has been located “primarily in the Fowl Meadow section of the Blue Hills Reservation between Paul’s Bridge/Brush Hill Road in Milton and Dedham Street in Canton,” according to Echandi. The weed has spread over 50 acres of land in the southern section of Fowl Meadow near Green Lodge Street in Canton. (Click here for full article)