Cha-riho
Good ridance! That’s what I say to Charlestown’s latest effort to leave Chariho.
Seriously, we complain about how unfair the tax equalization is between Charlestown and Richmond/Hopkinton. With Charlestown gone, we won’t need to update our facilities to accommodate more students, we won’t have as big operating costs (I’m thinking of heating, etc on top of less teachers and so forth). I’m sure the ratio of operating costs will be somewhat higher, but not high enough to warrant paying millions to build new structures. The kicker is… Charlestown will get hammered with huge up-front costs to build their school system. How’s that for tax equalization?
The one remaing factor to consider is a new name… Riho is just not right – I can think of too many jokes at our children’s expense. What do you think the new bi-town school distract should be named?
216 – the new number for evil
Forget 666 – 216 is far worse.
I was recently driving down route 216 between Ashaway and Bradford/Alton. Now I know how scarred up this section of road is – and I know all the little spots where you have to drive on the other side of the road (the wrong side, facing oncoming traffic) to avoid nasty, deep potholes – but even this knowledge did not prevent me from nearly wrecking my car.
I was driving along to Walmart in the middle of the night (as that is the best time to go to such a place – no fighting hordes of overweight, buck-toothed customers to buy a single item) to buy an airconditioner (It was one of those oppresively hot and sticky nights, and my old AC was just not cutting it). The dummy coming at me had their high beams on and refused to lower them no matter how much I flicked my lights at him/her. Luckily I saw the deer on my side of the road (it was foggy out, but I could make out it was about halfway out of the breakdown lane into my lane) so I swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid it (I still had enough time between me and the oncoming moron) – but immediately felt this huge crash reverberate through my car.
I first thought I must have run over a second deer, but then realized I had steered right into an enormous pothole. Had that popped my tire I most assuredly would have been a sitting target for the (possibly drunk) idiot gunning toward me. I was amazed at how hard my car hit that hole and amazed more that I didn’t pop a tire (thanks to Goodyear Triple-Treads for that save).
The worst part is that this road has been like this since I moved to Hopkinton a few years back – and it’s only gotten worse. I recently found out on another blog that this road is maintained (or rather – not maintained) by the state of Rhode Island/NOT Hopkinton. So what do we do with barely any representation up on Capitol Hill? Are Brian Kennedy and Senator Breen listening?
Public email for our councilors and officials?
I recently wanted to email the town councilors about a concern I had. I went to the Hopkinton town website and was annoyed to find that none of their email addresses were listed. Our town manager’s email address was available, so I emailed him and requested him to email me back to let me know that he forwarded my concerns on to the council members. He never replied to me.
I decided to go on a search for the council member’s email addresses using various search engines and a little ingenuity to weed through all the trash. I successfully located four of the five councillor’s addresses (this was not an easy task) and sent them a copy of the concerns I had sent to the town manager. Unfortunately, one of the councillor’s addresses bounced immediately and the only response to the remaining three emails was from Barbara Capalbo.
She verified the other two addresses I had used were indeed invalid addresses and provided me the correct email addresses of Tom Buck, Bev Kenney, and Vinny Cordone. I then sent another copy of my concerns to the correct addresses and received a pleasant reply from Bev, but I never received a reply from Tom or Vinny.
Apparently Sylvia does not like her email being given out… and I can completely understand this. That is why I propose that the town provide publicly known email addresses for the town councillors and the other town officials both elected and not. They already own the domain name hopkintonri.org and the manager has an address already, so why hasn’t this been already done?
Ashaway library gets long needed raise
I just wanted to express my gratitude to the town council for listening to my concerns as well as many other townsfolk in requesting additional funding for the Ashaway library. The library had not been given an increase in it’s operating budget for three straight years… something in this time of increased operating costs due to inflation and high oil prices… could have crippled, maybe even bankrupted the institution. The library was given a raise of two thousand dollars in the budget and this in addition to increased private donations has really reduced the level of concern we were all feeling. Thank you town council.
A variance… to build a deck!?!
Okay, so I am just amused. The contractor I hired has told me I need to get a special administrative variance to build a 12 foot by 17 foot deck – less than a foot off the ground – off the back of my house. So now I have to inform all my neighbors, run an ad in the Westerly Sun, and pay additional permit fees to build said deck. The best part is – I’m lucky. If the decrepit old deck that I dare not walk out on were not already in existence off the second story of my house (the deck does not have stairs down, it is merely a 6 by 4 foot deck hanging off the upper floor of my house) I would have had to get a full blooded variance.
Why you ask? Something to do with not having 100 feet of land in front of my house. The kicker is… I have a six foot tall fence around the back yard – no one will ever even see the deck I am building from the front of the house (the deck won’t even have railings as it is so close to the ground). The only bit of new construction they will see is the updated/replaced/shiny/new deck off the second story and a stairwell going down to the new deck.
Oh, and when we had the fence built – I was told by town officials that no permit is required for a fence.
