Town Meeting: No Conservation Restricton or Bus Depot on Landfill Site

On an opening night that drew nearly 1,000 voters—most of whom stayed until midnight—annual Town Meeting worked through budget business, school transportation articles and its consent calendar.

  In a five-hour opening night, Concord’s annual Town Meeting on Monday  voted to put neither a conservation restriction nor a bus depot on the landfill site at Walden Woods. It did, however, approve a non-binding petitioner’s article requesting the town’s school committees to keep Concord’s school bus transportation department on the grounds of Concord-Carlisle High School. Here’s a quick rundown of the actions taken at Town Meeting on Monday, April 22. Be sure to check back on Patch for more in-depth coverage of the meeting and, in particular, the school-transportaiton related articles. Article 2, Consent Calendar In one sweeping vote, Town Meeting unanimously approved articles 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31…

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Landfills, Buses, Bottles and Cats: What's Your Top Issue at Town Meeting?

Concord's annual Town Meeting begins at 7p.m. tonight, April 22, at Concord-Carlisle High School.

Hot-button issues aplenty at Concord's annual Town Meeting and at least couple of them could come up tonight. After the early-agenda budget business comes a cluster of high-intrest articles that could impact school transportation in the immediate future. In Article 12, which the Walden Woods Project has been pushing pretty hard on of late, Town Meeting could authorize the selectmen to sell a land-use restriction to Walden Woods along with a commitment to limit future activities at the landfill site. Following that is Article 13, which would authorize the use of monies to develop a transportation building on the former landfill site – a use that wouldn’t fly if Article 12 is approved. Sticking with the schools, Article 15 is a petitioner’s …

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Reverend E. Raleigh Pimperton III

9:02 am on Monday, April 22, 2013

Patrick, The water bottle ban sets such a good example; the practice should be institutionalized at Town Meeting. In other words, the Selectmen should pronounce this week that something will be banned at each Town Meeting; it will be up to the citizenry to pick the item. We should not waste time banning no-brainers such as nuclear weapons. Like single-serve water bottles, the selections should …   more ›

Patch Facts

5 Things: Dawn Salute Firing This Morning

A quick look at what you need to see, do and know on April 19 in Concord.

1. Dawn Salute: In recognition of the start of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775, Concord will hold its annual Dawn Salute at 6 a.m. this morning on the Buttrick Hillside. The ceremony includes a 21-gun salute using both muskets from local Minute Man companies, as well as cannon volleys by the Concord Independent Battery. 2. Today in Public Meetings: According to the town website, the only public meeting posted for today is a 7 a.m. site visit by the Board of Selectmen to McGrath Farm at 449 Barretts Mill Road. 3. Article 12 Information Session: This one's actually tomorrow, April 20. At 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, at the Concord Free Public Library, the Walden Woods Project team will host a coffee and conversation for folks to learn more…

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Letters to the Editor

LETTER: Walden Woods Defends Stance on Bus Depot

Walden Woods Project Executive Director Kathi Anderson responds to a recent letter from members of Concord's Citizens Transportation Committee challenging her organizations stance around the proposed bus depot.

To the Editor, The Citizens Transportation Committee (CTC) recently claimed the Walden Woods Project misrepresented the CTC report on the bus depot.    The report very clearly and repeatedly (p. 27, p. 33 & p. 37) states that the location on the campus of CCHS that had been used for many years met the criteria for a bus depot better than any other available site the Committee considered. Furthermore, when the CTC ranked locations in a chart titled “Committee’s Priority Order” (p.33) they ranked the current location of the depot as the first priority and the CCHS student parking lot as the second priority. To see the referenced report, click on the PDF posted to your right. Members of the CTC recently changed their minds about the …

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Letters to the Editor

LETTER: Citizens Transportation Committee Members Rip Walden Woods Bus Depot Ad

With a "they said, we said" debate brewing, CTC members write that they don't appreciate the Not In My Back Yard attitude Walden Woods has adopted when it comes to the possibility of a bus depot on the landfill site.

To the Editor, We were surprised to see the following statement on a recent postcard from Walden Woods titled "A Bus Depot in Walden Woods?" An independent Citizens School Transportation Committee Report concluded that the bus depot should remain at the Concord-Carlisle Regional School campus. This is not an accurate reflection of the CTC's conclusion nor of the current situation. CTC's report says: The transportation department should reside in a central location that can support all the necessary functions--maintenance, administration, fueling, bus parking, etc. The current location, on the campus of CCHS, meets these criteria better than any other available site the Committee considered. And CTC's presentation to the School Committee …

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CCHS Building Committee Says 'No' to Keeping Bus Depot

Keeping the bus depot would be too costly, the committee says.

The Concord-Carlisle Building Committee on Wednesday said “No” to building around an on-site bus depot, which would allow the district’s transportation department to operate there. A week after it voted unanimously to allocate no more than $50,000 to study the possibility of keeping the bus depot on site, the CCHS Building Committee decided it would be too costly to design around the bus depot in terms of dollars and the potential impact on getting the project back in position for state reimbursement. According to the presentations on Wednesday, Sept. 12, demolition of the bus depot was presumed in the already over-budget project costs, and potential expenses accrued through altering the design plans would have had to be absorbed by the …

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