Moise and Celinda Hebert, circa 1900

While doing some family history research, I found myself with a number of nearly two hundred year old marriage and birth records written in French.

Not only are they hard to read (face it, barely anybody back then could read and write, never mind they didn’t have ball point pens to write with), but I flunked french back in high school.. twice.

When I asked Town Clerk Kathy Graham if she knew anyone who did this type of research, she pointed out the people from the historic society.

When the holidays finally came to a rest, I went over this weekend to visit the museum, and got some help from Richard Harvey. Together, we worked through the records.. and the information he was able to glean out of the documents was enough to connect me with another distant relative who is working on researching the same family.

Special thanks to the Dracut Historic Society, another plus when it comes to Dracut.

I’ve always made it a point to teach the children to be on time. Five minutes early for a meeting.  Get to work before the checkin time. Arrive 15 minutes early for the appointment. Punctuality is a virtue.

Ok, now my teacher would say that I’ve buried the lead.

Last Friday afternoon — on behalf of Dracut Pop Warner –  Bob Gantz submitted a Warrant Article for the Fall Town Meeting.

This article would try to once again force the town to “allow for the lighting of the rear football field at Dracut’s Veteran’s Park.

The article stipulated that Pop Warner would cover the costs itself (with additional donations).

It went on to say that they would try to work with the abutters, and would set the time for the lights to be off at 9:00 pm.

First.. I don’t think this article is legal. “Will work” is not a legal term. All donations to the town have to go through the Board of Selectmen, not a private organization. The operations of town properties is a policy issue, not one of the legislative body.

But, more importantly.. the article was submitted two minutes too late. It was received by the clerk’s office at 4:32.. after the official office hours of the Town Clerk’s office.

Along with Bob Gantz, the voter petition did include signatures by Dan O’Connell, Mike and Mary Jo Abreu, Mark Rossetti, Paul Abell,  Cheryl Batherwich, Lisa Davey , Bob Chausse Chris Perez, Pennie Peterson from Dracut Pop Warner, and a number of others that I assume are all Dracut Pop Warner members or supporters.

I just don’t understand why they keep pushing this issue. There are people in town working to try to put together a long term permanent location for Pop Warner, and support for those efforts could easily diminish over this. Maybe another good value to learn is to “see the forest for the trees.”

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

H. L. Mencken

Sorry Jimmy, but I’m gonna comment. If I get anything wrong, feel free to respond. Its my sandbox. Brian has his, and the flake in Nashua has his.

And  sorry, but when you say “Journalistic Integrity,” I think I can point out a few examples of the local papers slipping on that point.

“So much for being all quiet on the home front”.. my latest text message.

Lights at Veterans Park

At the Board of Selectmen’s meeting tonite, after hearing once again during the community input from a number of people once again, and having closed the public input hearing at the last meeting, the board finally made a decision on this issue.

Voting on a motion by Selectman DiRocco, the board voted to accept the current lighting situation at the park, allowing for the lights at the practice field up front and the addition of lights at the baseball fields. Its now in writing.

Mr Zimini put forth a number of amendments.. one to put the issue off to a committee, another to expand the current situation to allow for walkway lights. Nobody seconded any of these motions.

The board voted 4-1 to finally put to rest the lighting at Veteran’s Park issue. Not everyone was happy, but the issue is finally over.

On to the Louisburg Square issue..

Mr O’Loughlin made the point that the BOS and the CPC committee had met and discussed 18 or 19 times about a second appraisal.

Everyone agreed that nothing illegal or improper was being done.

Mr Zimini proposed a motion to ask for another appraisal of the property at its current state, but nobody seconded that. More on this later.

Everyone claims to be speaking for the taxpayer, Mr O’loughlin pointed out. But nobody should claim so more than any other, I say.

Cox made the point that Chelmsford is building a housing unit of 37 or 38 units for about 9.4 million dollars. The fact that Dracut gets a similar number of units for about 2.5 million.. matched by the state, with an additional grant to bring everything up to code just makes the thing sound more than reasonable.

Selectman Ziimini says that the covenant on the property calls for it to be elderly housing, but Cox replies that the rents are not under the control of Dracut Housing, but a private entity.

Funny point here, when Zimini tells the others that maybe they should read the covenant, and Chairman Malliaros ultimately implies that it is more than a simple covenant if it is hundreds of pages long.. all I could hear in my head was my fellow conservatives…

“READ THE BILL.. NO PUBLIC OPTION!”.. sorry Jim.. just my own little aside.

Zimini is obviously becoming marginalized in this board.

If you look at the way he was seated, separated from the rest of the board, you could tell something was up.

Then there was the sideways comment about politics coming from Chelsea.

Not only did he consistently make proposals that the entire board rejected, he continually gets into disagreements with the chairman, and then repeatedly makes offhand remarks and side remarks that are obviously unprofessional and show lack of respect to his colleagues.

This is not the John Zimini of a couple years ago.

This ultimately got to the point where Selectman O’Loughlin made a motion to ask District Attorney Leone come in to question Selectman Zimini on his statements during the Housing Authority meeting where he said that members of the board were carrying the water for a connected local developer.

Selectmen Cox and DiRocco took direct offense to this, and joined Selectman O’Loughlin in support of his motion.

And to once again make their point, the board did not second a motion by Zimini to ask the recreation director to “reconsider” her decision regarding permitting only 4 Pop Warner teams for Veteran’s Park.. yet they voted to accept O’Loughlin’s motion to ask the rec director to meet with the Pop Warner President to review his application and possibly come to some consensus.

Zimini seems to have lost a lot of friends on this board…

By Bridget Scrimenti, bscrimenti@lowellsun.com

DRACUT — Seniors living on fixed incomes sometimes have to choose between medication and food.

Senior housing units at Louisburg Square on Mammoth Road will hopefully ease that burden.

“Our seniors deserve it,” said Selectman Joe DiRocco, who serves on the town’s Affordable Housing Partnership Committee. “They work hard all their lives and, at the end, they don’t have anything.”

In December, the town will purchase an apartment building at 1476 Mammoth Road, with 38 existing senior units. The Dracut Housing Authority will manage the building.

Seniors who live in the apartments will pay 30 percent of their income, which includes deductions for prescriptions and medical bills.

“It’s much more feasible for people,” said Housing Authority Executive Director Mary Karabatsos. “It makes sense that someone on a fixed income will pay a fixed rent.”

(more…)

April 18th and 19ths, RAIN OR SHINE

308 Wheeler Road in Dracut

Boys and Girls of all Ages welcome.

Prizes, Trophies, and raffles..

For more info, call 978-452-8095 and check out http://centralvillesportsmansclub.org.

You are invited…
Had enough? Want to change Massachusetts for the better?

We need some good people to run for office!

If you have ever thought about being a candidate, then you are invited to join me and Michael Graham for a free campaign school on April 25th from 8 to 10am at Ken’s Steak House in Framingham. To reserve a spot, please email me your name and town.

Now is the time. Your state needs you!

Hope to see you on April 25th.

The Dracut Garden Club has announced that April 18 th this year will be the date of the 7th Annual Arbor Day celebration.
They will simultaneously hold the 4th annual Earth Day celebration.

Everything will be happening that morning, from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon at Veteran’s Park.

This is a great way to celebrate the beginning on spring. Come on down.

Here’s a real easy way to donate to the Dracut Scholarship Foundation without costing you anything!  Instead of using Google or Yahoo (or whatever other internet search engine you use), do all of your internet searches through Goodsearch.com (which is powered by Yahoo).  All you have to do is go to Goodsearch.com, then type in Dracut where it says “enter your charity here..”, then press verify.  Dracut Scholarship Foundation will then be displayed.  Every internet search done through Goodsearch.com results in one cent being donated to DSF.  Okay, I know, ONE CENT?  But it can really add up if lots of people use it.  If 150 people did just four searches a day, the Foundation would be able to fully fund a $2,000 scholarship!

To make it easier, you can set Goodsearch.com as your home page.  Directions are on the bottom of the screen when you go to Goodsearch.com.

I got an email yesterday from our own American Legion.

The entire Veteran’s group seems to be up in arms over the effort by the new President to cut back on Government responsibility for disabled Veteran’s returning from war.

Update: They sure backed off on that one pretty quickly