News

Special Town Meeting is upon us. The warrant and Town Meeting info is here: https://www.actonma.gov/599/Town-Meeting. Here are some comments on the articles. Article 1: Land Acquisition – 4 Piper Lane, 6 Piper Lane, 4 Piper Lane Rear, and Right of Way over 90 School Street This will pass overwhelmingly, and rightfully so. However, it does remind me of the difficulty of creating affordable housing in Acton. The planned development was barely affordable (25% of units reserved for those making 80% of median income), but an attempt to save some of the land for a more modest and more affordable housingContinue Reading

I got this great gift in the mail from Racial Justice for Black Lives (formerly Black Lives Matter – Acton). I think every member of the Board of Selectmen got one: a copy of “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo. White Fragility by Robin Diangelo There are a lot of ways to describe the central message in this book. I think of it as a fish convincing other fish that water is a real thing. A key part of being raised white is to not think about whiteness, because the lessons we learned about how everyone is our brother and howContinue Reading

One of the first actions a new Board of Selectmen takes is to reassign who on the Board will serve as liaison to the various Boards, Committees, Commissions and other entities that the Board wants to stay in contact with. As the newest Board member, I was tentatively assigned to be liaison to the same groups as Peter Berry, the departing Board member. I made up a list of which committees I wanted to be assigned to, and the other Board members considered if they had assignments they wanted to let go of, and then we had a meeting toContinue Reading