Granby01033

Be sure to check out the comment of Amherst's Larry Kelley on the town meeting vote.
I thought it was an interesting, potentially good idea, that Amherst town meeting would consider bringing two wrongly imprisoned men from Guantanamo to live in Amherst.  If served with a petition, I might have voted as a selectman to let town meeting [...] Read more »

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 Almost everyone in the country refuses to accept former prisoners from Guatanamo Bay. Leave it to Amherst town meeting members to consider bringing over innocent people held in America's kafkaesque war on terror. As nutty as some of some of Amherst's positions may seem, I tip my hat to these folks on this one. If anyone [...] Read more »

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I was pulling for Mike Kent (GHS '81) to become Amherst's Chief of Police. I had nothing against Scott Livingstone (GHS '77),  another Granby High School graduate, but Mike and I went to school together. We even played a season of junior varsity baseball together.  Mike's a class act. My guess is that Livingstone is too. [...] Read more »

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We got Cody B. from Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society when he was 3 months old. They have a nice facility in Leverett that will continue to opearate, even though they have taken over the Springfield MSPCA. Dakin also has a new mission:

NORTHAMPTON - With its expansion into Hampden County complete, the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society is about [...] Read more »

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It's been a rough couple of days. I've been to wakes for two young men under the age of 25. The sadness is cumulative. I wrote this and posted it on the East Longmeadow forum of Masslive.
I take heroism seriously. It's more than being a role model or risking your life. My student Mark Ecker, [...] Read more »

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Holyoke Police Chief Anthony Scott is at least one part show boat and other part horse's ass. His tough on crime pose makes him popular with the people. Most of his bluster is harmless.His tough on the criminal justice system pose, however, is more dangerous.
His latest demagoguery started when Judge Cornelius Moriarty threw out most [...] Read more »

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Before the anti-trapping ballot initiative, beavers weren't a problem. Now they are often a nuisance, damming up culverts, endangering wells, and even septic systems.
Trapping was never a big moral issue for me, though I suppose I'd prefer people ate, rather than wore, what they killed. That said, I have a leather jacket and don't wear [...] Read more »

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Jack Dunn has been self-publishing his work novels for 15 years. Aside from the actual writing, it's a lot of work. Before Amazon.com, it required a lot a self-promotion and going around to bookstores asking them to buy or consign his book.
The Republican has an article about him suing The DaVinci Code author Dan Brown, whose local connection is that attended [...] Read more »

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The Republican has a great story on the film collection of Springfield dentist Howard Burr.
I had the good fortune of having Burr's grand daughters in my classes. They are girls you would love to have for daughters or daughter-in-laws. Intelligent, extremely nice, and pretty, Jill, Sherry, and Dawn must have been a source of pride [...] Read more »

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The Globe has an article on some folks in Turner's Falls pushing to rename the Pioneer Valley the "Valley of the Dinosaurs." The article isn't exactly tongue-in-cheek, but it comes close. Reporter Brian MacQuarrie seems to suffers from the hub-o-centric view that Massachusetts stops around Worcester and picks up again somewhere in the Berkshires. How many of us, for [...] Read more »

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A bid to change South Hadley's town meeting/selectboard form of government to a mayoralty went down in flames yesterday. It was the second time such a proposal had been brought before the voters.
Not that my vote counted, but I thought it was a stupid idea. Town meeting gives a large number of people to opportunity to [...] Read more »

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"I did die, and they brought me back. Without their help, I'd be dead now. I'm truly thankful to them."
--Olajuwon E. Somerville-Mitchell
The Republican has a good article on the life-saving actions of off-duty Granby Police Officer Gary Poehler, Springfield fire fighter Miguel DelValle, Sabis Assistant Coach Rich Balise, and mother Nancy Anderson . They went into action when a [...] Read more »

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I ran into a former UMass student of mine. I nice young man (you're know you're old when you can say that about an adult) who teaches at the Maurice Donahue School in Holyoke. It's probably testament to my newsy unprofessionalism that I told him I wouldn't ask him questions about Lisa Lavoie, the elementary [...] Read more »

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I plugged Sheila Connolly's mystery One Bad Apple for months.  I hope some of you noticed and bought it. Sheila sets her mysteries in Granford, a town based on Granby. (You can read my previous posts here and here).  You can join her and two other mystery writers on March 16.
The Modern Heroine
Forbes Library
Monday March [...] Read more »

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If Gov. Deval Patrick's budget is passed as is (it won't), Western Massachusetts would lose its bookmobile. That's a big deal. The bookmobile turns your local library into, if not an everywhere, at least many, many somewheres. If you've ever ordered a book or movie that wasn't in your local library, it came by bookmobile.
The [...] Read more »

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If a state trooper pulled my wife over on her way to excercise class and she ended up face down on the pavement dosed multiple times with pepper spray, I'd be out for blood.  Of course, my wife  is blonde haired, blue-eyed, and 5' 2".  Aside from perhaps some emotional issues that might have complicated this very routine traffic stop, [...] Read more »

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Mug shots, I guess, don't show always show the real person. I've seen it written in two places that Lisa Lavoie, the Holyoke elementary school teacher that (allegedly) carried on an affair with a 15 year-old eighth grader and made a run for it over February vacation, as "attractive."
I don't suppose Lavoie's physical attractiveness is particularly [...] Read more »

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"We have her in custody. We have the student in a safe situation."
--Mayor Mike Sullivan
You can get a lot from a good education, but a clue isn't necessarily one of them. Lisa Lavoie went to a good high school and a good college. She passed the Massachusetts Test for Educational Licensure. She  completed a semester-long internship and passed.
But [...] Read more »

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"Whatever you've seen in (the governor's budget), there's potentially more (cuts) to come."
--Sen. Stan Rosenberg
Recently, South Hadley's state senator and representative spoke to the selectboard, school committee, and appropriations committee. The news isn't so good. Revenue is down and a lot of things are on the table.
SOUTH HADLEY - The worst outlook for state revenues [...] Read more »

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I'm not saying Mayor Michael Bissonnette stole my idea. After all, his administration followed on the heels of Mayor "No Envelope?" Goyette, ethics education makes a lot of sense. One of the first things I hope to initiate is a similar program in Granby. We may have to get some people from other towns, but [...] Read more »

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