• Who is overseeing the wireless permits?
• If we know we have unenforceable bylaws, why haven't we fixed them?
• Did the Planning Board send a letter to cell phone companies regarding the pending moratorium vote?
• How was a cell phone tower built near Atkinson School that violated our bylaws without abutters knowing? 

Who is overseeing the permits?  And did the Planning Board send a letter to cell phone companies regarding the pending moratorium vote?

Community Development Director Curt Bellavance stated that the wireless permits were allowed to expire prior to his and current Building Inspector Gerald Brown’s employment with our town.  As soon as Mr. Bellavance and Mr. Brown became aware of it, they sent proper notice through the Planning Board to permit holders, requiring them to appear before the Planning Board to renew their permits.  Town attorney Tom Urbelis confirmed that all renewal permits have either been applied for or granted.  Mr. Bellavance went on to say that his office had created a master file containing dates of issuance and expiration dates for all permits, which makes the records easily accessible, a great improvement over former recordkeeping that disbursed records in multiple files.  He also said that he is working on implementing new software to manage the data efficiently, so that notices will be generated six months prior to permit expiration dates to remind permit holders that they must appear before the Planning Board to renew their permits. 

North Andover United believes this approach to fixing the problem was reasonable, it followed the notice requirements contained in our bylaw, and NAU believes these records are now in very capable hands.  We applaud Mr. Bellavance’s efforts.

We are continuing to build new capabilities that allow us to progress towards our goal of providing North Andover with Honest Answers To Honest Questions.    Our latest feature is videos.   Click on this link to view video relating to each question that was asked.    You can provide comments for each question or enter our Discussion forums to express your opinions.  

Also, click here to subscribe to our newsletter and Sandy's blog of 'Just In Case You Missed It...' and stay updated with news involving our town. 

We have closed out the survey for the event but feel free to drop us an email with any comments.

If you missed the forum and would like to view it, North Andover Community Access and Media (CAM) is rebroadcasting it three times in the coming weeks on Government Channel 8:   Saturday, 11/17 at 10:00 a.m., Sunday 11/18 at 8:00 p.m. and Friday, 11/23 at 10:00 a.m.   Feel free to take the survey after watching the event.

Also, we continue to expand our communications electronically by growing our email and newsletter memberships.   You can subscribe by clicking the link www.northandover.org/email.    You can unsubscribe automatically at any time and your email is not given away or sold.   Sandy and others invest a lot of time summarizing meetings and other pieces of information around town and periodically forward the information to you.   Sandy's blog "In Case You Missed It..." is informative, entertaining and really helps you keep plugged in to what is going on around our town of North Andover.

It's a very active time around town with the upcoming elections and major issues that we all face.   Everyone needs to stay engaged and participate to help move North Andover in a positive direction.

As promised we will be getting a listing of the questions and answers covered during the forum tonight as well as those that were submitted by not presented.    We need some time to consolidate what we have and to reach out and make sure the other questions get answered.   The questions and responses will be displayed on this site as well as distributed through our email newsletter that you can subscribe to.   We will move as fast as possible to get these to you since we know you are interested in the results.  

Thanks for contributing your questions for the upcoming State of North Andover Government Forum on November 15th.  We're now collating them for the panelists and will post them on our website soon.  In the meantime, we encourage you to continue to submit questions.  We will be happy to present them to the panelists and urge them to provide answers during regularly scheduled meetings.  We'll also post them along with the questions previously submitted.

READ MORE...

North Andover's Finance Committee, Board of Selectmen, School Committee, and State Representatives and Senators will come together for a panel discussion about our current state of affairs.  Panelists will address questions about government at both the local and state level, as well as offer insight into the upcoming 2009 budget process.

Have a question you've been dying to ask??   CLICK HERE to submit your questions! 

Submitting questions in advance via the website will ensure an opportunity for greater community representation, allow the panelists to answer a broad spectrum of questions, and facilitate making efficient and effective use of the under 2-hour time limit.   Any unanswered questions will be given to panelists to address during the course of their regularly scheduled meetings, as well as posted at http://www.northandover.org/.

* Questions may also be mailed to NAU, 81 Prescott St., North Andover

Representatives from citizen groups such as NAU, Seniors, NATA, TUFF and ABC will work collaboratively to select questions of wide interest to the community.    Questions may be submitted from October 1 through 14th, 2007.

Please join us for this unprecedented opportunity to become better informed about your town!