Wellesley
Yeah, so? We're talking about Kathy Carr, wife of Man of the People Carr, who penned a hate letter to Wellesley parents. Why Wellesley? Oh, that's where the Carrs live. What? You expected they lived in Dorchester or Chelsea? The Swellesley Report notes the absence of any reader comments on the online version of the column; there apparently were a ton, but they were so negative GateHouse took them down and told people to write a letter to the editor on paper. Presumably with a quill pen.
"Not very professional" axmen who were supposed to take down two damaged trees on land belonging to an NBA owner instead whacked down 90 trees along a path on Wellesley conservation land, Wicked Local Wellesley reports. The town's now deciding what sort of fine to levy against the property manager for Atlanta Hawks owner Steve Belkin.
From the annals of history:
Genteel Chicago suburb rages over MR. T's tree massacre.
Via the Swellesley Report.
If they had a Pulitzer for the best two-sentence news story, this Wicked Local dispatch would win.
Xconomy pumps out the news on NormOxys, which is working on drugs it hopes can get red blood cells to release oxygen to O2-deprived tissue, such as the heart muscle of patients with congestive heart failure.
The Swellesley Report informs us even Wellesleyites no longer immune.
Turns out that one of Wellesley's two rabbis is from New York, while the other is from Pennsylvania. They have a bet.
Fortunately, there was a pane of glass between Bob Brown and the preying mantis waiting for lunch on the side of the Wellesley library the other day.
Hey Uhubbies, If you're not going out with Suldog and Eeka (and my heart is breakin' cause I cannot!) Please consider coming out and seeing one of our final shows in our run for "Twelfth Night." We'll be at Warren Park in Wellesley, and will most likely be staging the show ON the playground equipment there, because Illyria needs a slide or two.
Look for a gaggle of strangely dressed high school students. Show is at 5pm. The park is at 90 Washington Street (rte 16), and the show is FREE. Read more
Seems somebody's discovered a lot of people in this leafy suburb don't lock their car doors at night and so is going around stealing GPS units with little trouble, leading police to urge residents to lock their cars when they get home.
That's what they did in Wellesley, which has its own giant hole in the ground (where the Wellesley Inn got torn down for condos that never materialized). The Swellesley Report notes the developers actually agreed to do something to keep part of the town from looking like London after the Blitz:
... We'll miss seeing the tumbleweeds blowing across the vacant lot, but I guess we can't have it all. ...
Wellesley Police explain all those calls we've been getting from "your local chimney sweep" that sound like they're coming from a boiler room: It's a scam:
... The caller was given a very low verbal quote for the chimney sweeping, being told she would receive a considerable "Senior Citizen" discount. The price quoted was $49.
Once the victim agreed to have the chimney swept, two individuals began the work immediately. While the workers were there, they began to tell the victim that much more work was needed, including additional parts and labor. The victim refused to agree to the extra work. When the workers finished, they informed the victim that they had performed the work anyway, and the bill would now be $2000. A preliminary review of the work done shows that nothing significant, including sweeping, was actually done. Additionally, the workers did not clean up, and left trash at the house. ...
Via the Swellesley Report. Read more
He will, of course, be punished if found guilty, but in a caring and nurturing environment, according to the Swellesley Report. Also: Middle-school students come up with the most amazingly incorrect rumors.
Or as the Swellesley Report puts it after two fake 911 calls were called in from Wellesley Middle School, following two phony bomb threats over the past week: Insanity continues at Wellesley Middle School.
Tough kids, huh? They should ship 'em over to the Irving Middle School in Roslindale, where, Wicked Local Roslindale informs us, a young miscreant was arrested inside the school on a charge of assault and battery. I suspect those Wellesley kids wouldn't last 15 minutes (more of what the suburbanites would face).
A bear was spotted in the woods in Wellesley on Saturday.
No word on what it was doing there, but police officers gave chase, which somebody with a fevered mind might imagine started a chain reaction in which a deer was so frightened by a rampaging bear charging it that it started running and didn't stop until it got to the Prudential tunnel in Boston, where it would sadly be hit by a car.
A couple who met on a Worcester Line train are getting married on the train today, the Globe reports:
... Richey, 36, and Miller, 40, will exchange vows on the inbound P556 between Southborough and Wellesley Farms as the train rolls along on its normal schedule. ...
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today a nonexistent road at the Weston/Wellesley town line can't keep a man from building a house on a nearby lot.
Seems back in 1940, a developer proposed a subdivision straddling the town line that included a road between the two towns. But he never built the Wellesley end of the road, the town of Wellesley never voted to accept it and Wellesley residents put up both a wall AND a stockade fence at the town line (you know how those Westonians get) and eventually extended their lawns and yards onto the theoretical road.
In 2002, Robert Carlson bought the house at 107 Manor Ave., with plans to replace it with a new house. He says (see comments below) he knew about the paper road and bought the property intending to go to Land Court to get it declared evaporated because, well, the law generally frowns on building houses in the middle of the street.
Although the town of Wellesley had no objections to deleting the road from its maps, Carlson's neighbors, the Fontenellas, did, to the point of successfully using the claim that their deed gave them specific rights to use the non-existent road, that they certainly hadn't abandoned it - even though they had incorporated the land meant for it into their side lawn. A lower-court judge agreed with them that "the evidence of abandonment was insufficient."
In its ruling today, the appeals court reversed the ruling, essentially arguing: Who are you kidding?
At the point on Carlson's northerly boundary line where Tyler Road theoretically crosses into Weston, it is blocked by a stone wall that has existed since 1940. In addition, private parties have constructed a stockade fence that makes passage between the two towns at that juncture impossible. The entire area at issue, furthermore, has been fully incorporated into the lawns of both parties. In Carlson's case, Tyler Road also crosses over a portion of his driveway.
However, one judge did dissent:
Generally, intent to abandon requires affirmative actions by the dominant owners inconsistent with use of the easement. In the instant case the only affirmative act by the dominant owners was extension of their yard into the portion of the easement that falls on their property. I am aware of no Massachusetts cases in which this type of lawn enlargement was found sufficient to establish abandonment.
The complete ruling: Read more
Over in Wellesley, developers replaced a perfectly fine inn with some serious negative space.
100 fall ill; college seeks to sterilize entire buildings.
After all, attendees at the college's annual BioIndustry Forum next week would probably not appreciate the irony of coming down with the awful, if rarely fatal, infection.
South African MBA student gets word out about lockdown.
Rte. 16 shut down, commuter-rail trains weren't stopping, bomb squad called in. Wicked Local Wellesley provides the blow by blow.
The Boston Globe may be cutting back local news coverage in the city, but out past 128, they've just added a new Your Town page.
Wellesley Police report you can once again get off Rte. 9 at Rte 16. Woot!
Via the Swellesley Report, which is beside itself in amazement.
Wellesley Police have a spiffy new Web site (but where's the police log?). They've posted this video of some of the excitement in town during yesterday's storm:
Via The Swellesley Report.
Video of a burning, collapsing cell tower in Wellesley off Rte. 9 eastbound today.
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