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?
