Editorials
When Mike Bouchard was newly elected Town Clerk in 2008, it was impossible to predict what a godsend his
steady hand would be for our town. We could not have predicted the turmoil of the 2016 or 2020 national presidential elections. We could not have imagined what damage a partisan - or...
Groton Town Meeting voters have been patient and understanding, putting up with three rushed, uncomfortable outdoor meetings since the start of the Covid pandemic. These outdoor Town Meetings have been difficult for many voters, having truncated consent agendas to shorten time spent outside and...
Transforming the open space in front of the Prescott School Building, making it a more welcoming and useful public space, is a great idea. This small scrap of land on Main Street is precious, precious because it belongs to the people of Groton - a place where people can organize car washes,...
The Planning Board’s insistence on imposing their own plan for the intersection at Old Ayer Road and Rte. 119 is unfortunate. In our view, the Planning Board, like many others in town, must have missed the basic conclusions of the traffic engineers who crafted the original traffic plan for this...
The resurgence of Covid-19 in Massachusetts is perplexing, unsettling and discouraging. By now, many of us had anticipated that life would be returning to pre-covid patterns and rhythms because we followed the rules of masking and vaccines. Instead, we seem to be entering an era whereby our...
On page one of this week’s newspaper there is a story about GELD’s two offers to help the new Florence Roche School make significant strides toward reducing its carbon footprint and generally become a "green" building. At a recent meeting to consider these offers, some members of the Building...
North Central Massachusetts
Groton has grown and changed in many wonderful ways in the last 10 years. But these positive changes have also brought much higher property taxes. Of course, these taxes were approved at Town Meeting, being the will of the voters.
Voting for increased taxes is easy, paying the bill is harder....
Infrequently, when reporting the news, we happen upon a surprising sparkling gem of an observation. Such observations are usually not in context with the main thrust of the news story and, therefore, get lost orforgottenbecausethereisno‘bucket’topresent themconveniently in the paper. Yet...
Last week’s fire at Lost Lake’s Shenandoah Road [see front page] once again highlights the work Groton’s Fire and Police departments do to protect our homes. Fire Insurance is a great and wonderful thing to have, but if your house burns to the ground, having fire insurance will probably feel...
As the town begins to develop robust plans to address housing affordability, our goals and objectives need to be carefully considered and very clear. Last week’s letter by Becky Pine and Michelle Collette suggests that our main benchmark for success should be meeting state-mandated minimums for...