Tag Archives: town politics

Interesting results from the Charlton election

Posted on by

The Charlton town elections were this past Saturday, with some surprising results.

There were three contested races listed on the ballot. In each of them, the incumbent won. None of that was particularly surprising, although in a couple cases I personally found it disappointing.

In addition, there was a debt exclusion question to spend more money on schools. That was defeated, which was also not surprising.

In addition, there was a race for Water/Sewer Commissioner. There were two available seats, and two people were on the ballot: an incumbent, and a newcomer. Sounds like it’d be an easy win for both of them.

The incumbent lost.

Out of 1,341 cast ballots, only 317 people voted for her. A last-minute write-in campaign for somebody else received 402 votes. (And the newcomer on the ballot got 739 votes.) This campaign was so last-minute that there was no newspaper coverage of it in the days leading up to the election, and I, as a reasonably informed Charlton voter, was completely unaware of it until after I’d voted. (Apparently my mother had tried to email me about it, but I never received it. There’s also other mail that people have told me that they sent me that I haven’t received, so there may be a larger issue with my mailbox.)

(See also the T&G coverage.)

Landfill News

Posted on by

On Tuesday, the Charlton Board of Selectmen discussed briefly the possibility of an access road going through Charlton (including our land) to the Southbridge Landfill. They seemed generally supportive of the idea, which makes sense because it would significantly increase Charlton’s tax base without significantly increasing its expenses. So, that’s a good sign.

Yesterday (Thursday), there was the first of the restarted public hearings on Casella‘s new site assignment request, to change from taking in construction debris and start taking in municipal solid waste. Apparently, there was quite a crowd protesting the change. I certainly want there to be some regulation and oversight that Casella is doing what they are supposed to be, but conditions at the landfill have improved immensely since they took over from the previous owner, so I’m thinking that they want to be good corporate citizens, if only so that MassDEP isn’t always breathing down their necks. I think I’m hoping that the change happens, with correct oversight, such that Casella builds the access road, and living half a mile from the dump doesn’t become a nightmare. So, let’s hope that we can, in fact, get both.

Update on my new elected position

Posted on by

I called the Town Clerk’s office today, and apparently the Republican Town Committee is in fact a real entity, but they didn’t get their list of nominees for the positions to the state by the deadline, so that’s why all the positions on the ballot were blank. That is, all the positions were filled via write-ins, and I was one of the top 35 vote getters. The person I spoke with couldn’t tell me exactly how many votes I got since that information wasn’t readily available, but said that she would call me back tomorrow with that, and said that she knew that some people made it in with only 1 or 2 votes.

Apparently, the chairman of the committee is supposed to be receiving a list of people who were voted in, and will be contacting them at some point. So I should either wait to be contacted, or try to find contact information myself for the chairman (the Town Clerk’s office could give me the name but not much else).

Unexpected Letter

Posted on by

Letter received today from the Charlton Town Clerk’s office (with the official embossed seal and everything):

This is to certify that Peter Cooper Jr.
Was duly elected to the REPUBLICAN TOWN COMMITTEE
at the 2008 Presidential Primary held February 5, 2008 at the
Heritage School, 34 Oxford Road, Charlton.

Please appear at the Town Clerk’s Office to be sworn into office at your earliest convenience

Jessi wrote me in on one of the 35 blank lines for Town Committee, and apparently that was enough.

Now I just need to figure out what the Town Committee does, when they meet, and if there are any other members.

January 2008 Update

Posted on by

Interesting events in January, past and present:

  • January 1: While at the annual New Year’s party and my aunt and uncle’s large house in Middlefield, MA, my wife tumbles down a flight of stairs while carrying our luggage. “Luckily”, she landed mainly on her head and shoulders. She and Baby seem to be doing just fine despite the experience, although Jessi did suffer a pulled rotator cuff in her right shoulder which is slowly healing.
  • January 8: I stopped by the town hall on my way home from work to get information on an upcoming public hearing on the town’s contact with Charter Communications. I would like to send in my comments ahead of time, as well as attend the hearing. I may even try to get on one of the Cable Committees in town at some point.
  • January 19-20: The Morningtide Prerelease. I’m scheduled to be the Head Judge on Day 2, which will be the largest number of players I’ve ever head judged for at once.
  • January 29: The aforementioned public hearing on Charter.

Political Asperation & Home Network Update

Posted on by

I’ve decided not to run for Town Moderator. I don’t want to run as a write-in candidate against somebody who’d I’d be happy to have in there.

In other news, I drew a network diagram today, just to make sure I knew what IPs were where in our increasingly-complicated home network. (The router for VoIP adds another layer of NATing, and there’s now the cable-modem-to-phone-router subnet, the phone-router-to-PCPC subnet, and the main home subnet.)