Cool; I like competitions for which town is the most wacky.
The furor over David Hall's letter to the editor of the Daily News continues. Comments on the letter (10) are not close yet to those on the story covering the debacle over the "spite fence" in Rowley (30) but I'm sure there is more to come.
I don't know David Hall very well but I believe actions speak louder than the words.
The man and his family live in a house almost totally constructed from recycled materials (labelled "a shack" by someone commenting on his letter, if that's what s/he was referring to). The home is heated using water that is itself heated by solar power and, I believe, collected in a cistern. He drives, or did drive last time I interviewed him, a VW that runs on biodiesel.
You can read about his home here, in a story from the Boston Globe. Which coincidentally (?) came out some 2 weeks after a story of mine on the house came out in Merrimack Valley Mag. The magazine does not post actual stories on line, so I can't link you to my story.
He and his business partners took some dilapidated mill buildings in Newburyport and turned them into a eco-friendly shopping 'mall' called The Tannery. It's a state model for use of solar power.
Hall was also in the founding group of the Coastal Trails Coalition, a non-profit organization that is advocate for the Coastal Trails Network, a 30-mile system of bicycle and pedestrian trails linking Amesbury, Newburyport, Newbury, and Salisbury.
So I really have a hard time believing that he took snow laden with dangerous chemicals from The Tannery and dumped it at or near his home in Newbury to subsequently seep into the ground water.
I can't speak to the tennis courts built on wetlands. I was at his house more than a year ago and there were no tennis courts then, that I saw.
I know next to nothing about Joe Story, the Newbury selectman. What little I have heard is in the nature of gossip so I won't repeat it. And I'm not taking a political stand for one candidate or another in the upcoming vote for Newbury Selectman. I know even less about Mr. Story's opponent in the race.
I just enjoy the wackiness.
Amesbury sort of bowed out of this competition, by the way, by last fall replacing almost all of its wacky Municipal Council. No fun at all.
Showing posts with label Rowley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rowley. Show all posts
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Another dog attack dilemma for Rowley
What the heck is going on in Rowley? According to the report in the Daily News, the dog on April 2 ran into a neighbor's yard and attacked a 12-year-old boy.
In a letter to the Rowley Board of Selectmen, Kevin McManus said his son Patrick and several boys were out enjoying one of the first nice spring afternoons of the season when the dog approached.
The dog, a German shepherd, jumped up and bit the boy in the stomach. The boy beat the dog off but it then attacked again and attached itself to his arm. The boy's brother kicked the dog until it released the 12-year-old.
According to the story, the dog's owner was with the dog when they left their own yard but it does not say what, if anything, the owner did to detach his dog from the child.
The McManuses say although the Gavins have been good neighbors through the years and have an invisible fence to keep their dog contained, they haven't taken Bear's aggression as seriously as they should have.
The dog frequently breaches the perimeter of the fence, the McManuses say, and upon doing so has exhibited vicious behavior toward the whole McManus family — especially to Patrick.
So far no commens from readers on the DN website. But I'm sure there will be.
This follows close on the heels of the Lab who was cleared of killing goats in a pen, in a neighbor's yard. That dog was initially ordered to be put down but Rowley selectmen reversed their decision and instead ordered that the dog be permanently restrained.
In a letter to the Rowley Board of Selectmen, Kevin McManus said his son Patrick and several boys were out enjoying one of the first nice spring afternoons of the season when the dog approached.
The dog, a German shepherd, jumped up and bit the boy in the stomach. The boy beat the dog off but it then attacked again and attached itself to his arm. The boy's brother kicked the dog until it released the 12-year-old.
According to the story, the dog's owner was with the dog when they left their own yard but it does not say what, if anything, the owner did to detach his dog from the child.
The McManuses say although the Gavins have been good neighbors through the years and have an invisible fence to keep their dog contained, they haven't taken Bear's aggression as seriously as they should have.
The dog frequently breaches the perimeter of the fence, the McManuses say, and upon doing so has exhibited vicious behavior toward the whole McManus family — especially to Patrick.
So far no commens from readers on the DN website. But I'm sure there will be.
This follows close on the heels of the Lab who was cleared of killing goats in a pen, in a neighbor's yard. That dog was initially ordered to be put down but Rowley selectmen reversed their decision and instead ordered that the dog be permanently restrained.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Rowley dog gets a reprieve
I don't think I've yet posted on the dog-killing-goat issue but in today's DN it is reported the dog got a reprieve from the former death sentence.
This one was a toughie and I feel for the Rowley selectmen who had to pass judgment. I personally thought right from the start that the dog was in "protect" mode, not "kill" mode, when found in the pen with the goats.
A family dog of ours years ago killed one of our chickens right in front of us ... or just me, I don't remember. There was a lot of blood and most of it was on the dog. Knowing that a dog will shake the other animal once it has its teeth in it, the lack of blood on the dog more or less convinced me that he was not the culprit.
Plus I've seen how bold the coyotes out here can be. The Newburyport animal control officer told me that they will come out in the daytime when there's a storm brewing that will disrupt their normal nighttime feeding cycle. I don't know if there was a storm coming on the day this all happened, but I feel there was reasonable doubt.
We kept our dog, a standard poodle, by the way, even though I don't think she ever got over the blood lust for the chickens once she had killed one. She was a sweetie in every other respect.
This one was a toughie and I feel for the Rowley selectmen who had to pass judgment. I personally thought right from the start that the dog was in "protect" mode, not "kill" mode, when found in the pen with the goats.
A family dog of ours years ago killed one of our chickens right in front of us ... or just me, I don't remember. There was a lot of blood and most of it was on the dog. Knowing that a dog will shake the other animal once it has its teeth in it, the lack of blood on the dog more or less convinced me that he was not the culprit.
Plus I've seen how bold the coyotes out here can be. The Newburyport animal control officer told me that they will come out in the daytime when there's a storm brewing that will disrupt their normal nighttime feeding cycle. I don't know if there was a storm coming on the day this all happened, but I feel there was reasonable doubt.
We kept our dog, a standard poodle, by the way, even though I don't think she ever got over the blood lust for the chickens once she had killed one. She was a sweetie in every other respect.
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