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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)
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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.
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Fire Chief
Charlie Doody thanks firefighter/EMT Butch King for his 42 years
of servive to the town.
CFD courtesy photo
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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)
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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.
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Reverend
Bryan K. Parrish
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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)
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~ 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)
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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)
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