Dear Friends,

First, I want to thank all of you who watched and/or attended the forum!  Don’t forget to fill out the online questionnaire!  The questions were great, and we’ve posted them on www.northandover.org so you can read the full text of all the questions received.  I’ve also sent the full set to all of our panelists, with the request that they answer the ones we didn’t have time to address.

Next, North Andover United and the local non-profit citizen group, "ABC" - A Better Community of North Andover, have merged to form a new non-profit corporation: North Andover United, Inc.  As Chair of our new corporation, I’m so grateful to be working with a spectacular group of dedicated volunteers, and I am confident that our financial, marketing, business and volunteer skills will combine exceedingly well to support our commitment to advocate for accuracy and accountability in municipal government. 

Our next project is to launch a state-wide citizen coalition, armed with accurate facts and figures, to focus Massachusetts legislative attention on critical issues such as increasing funding for special education.  Reaching out to all 351 Massachusetts communities requires funding.  A very generous corporate donor has pledged to match, dollar for dollar, the first $2,500 that NAU can raise from now until the close of December.  Please  send donations to:  North Andover United, Inc., 81 Prescott Street, North Andover, MA  01845.  Publicizing our coalition goals and contacting legislators will cost money - think of it as a gift to the future of your town!

As for upcoming matters of importance, try to catch the broadcast of Congressman Tierney’s visit to North Andover on the local cable stations.  Susan Bozorth and I attended on behalf of NAU.  We were struck by the difference between attendance at the Forum and attendance at this gathering.  Whereas we had 90 attendees [average age of 45 to 55] at the Forum, there were about 60 attendees [average age of 75] at the Congressman’s gathering.  Clearly, the older North Andover population seemed to be more aware of Federal politics than the younger voters of our town.  I was disappointed at the gathering - I found the tenor to be one of beating up the president, rather than standing accountable for the lack of action and bills passed by Congress.  I’m a registered fence-sitter, because I like to vote on issues rather than party lines [if I have to pigeonhole myself, I’d say I’m a liberal republican].  I left the gathering feeling that I’d just attended a democratic fundraiser without the hat being passed... no real substance, no real plan for the future, and empty promises [I asked him what good passing laws to fund teacher training in science and technology was if we couldn’t afford to hire them... He responded that the blame lies at the feet of our Massachusetts senators.]  Ellie Pye said she’s going to try to broadcast the Boxford cable station’s tape of the event.  Watch it for yourself - let me know if you feel any more satisfied with Congressman Tierney’s responses than I did.

And finally, the start of the holiday season is probably the worst time of year to urge attendance at public meetings, but we’ve got some important meetings coming up before the year ends. 

First and foremost, please make the effort to attend Monday’s special town meeting at 7:00 pm in the High School Auditorium.  There are four articles, two dealing with liquor license issues, and one that’s pretty much an article to clean up old accounting business.  The main article asks us to approve a moratorium on the permitting of cell towers until the Wireless Committee makes its recommendations on our wireless bylaws at the annual town meeting in May.

Let me make NAU’s position on the wireless article clear:  we have taken no position, because we’ve seen insufficient explanatory information from either the proponents or the opponents to this article.  As for Sandy Gleed’s opinion, I’m sympathetic to the cancer concerns (when I was 11 my mother died of cancer - she was 41), but I don’t make decisions based on fear.  Instead, I have questions I’m waiting to hear the answers to:  Does the Wireless Committee authorized at the last town meeting to review the wireless bylaws support this article [the petition was sponsored by members of the wireless committee, but not the committee itself]?  I have heard that the town counsel has opined that a moratorium will open the town to the risk of lawsuits, because it contradicts federal law; is this true?  When other Massachusetts towns have approved wireless permitting moratoriums, were they sued?  If not, what’s different about North Andover’s proposed moratorium?  Have we enforced the current wireless bylaws, and if not, why not?  Have we missed out on cell tower revenue that should have been collected but wasn’t?  Is this situation reflective of  us hiring insufficient personnel to do our municipal paperwork?  And one final question:  if the potential risk of lawsuits would indeed exist, why can’t we focus on ways to enforce the current bylaws NOW, without a moratorium [eliminating the risk of lawsuits], and then clean up our bylaws in six short months at town meeting?  As I said at the start of this paragraph, there’s not enough information for me to feel comfortable making a decision as of this date. 

As for upcoming board meetings, there’s both a school committee meeting and a combined BOS/Fincom meeting this Thursday evening... I’ll be watching tapes again to try to catch up.  All of these boards will be discussing budget issues of great import in the weeks ahead.  At our Forum, Selectman Rosemary Smedile suggested that citizens concerned about the tax rate split between residential and commercial taxes may want to listen to their board debate this very issue in December. 

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Sincerely,
Sandy Gleed