Westport
in Brief
EverythingWestport.com
Wednesday,
March 23, 2011
Quick Article Index . . .
Traditional
New England Boating Season Starts in 1,608 Hours. Will You Be Ready?
Crash Prevention Control course at Horseneck
State Beach.
Senator Rodrigues announces his new office
locations, hours, and contact information.
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Traditional New England Boating Season Starts in 1,608
Hours. Will
You Be Ready? EverythingWestport.com Tuesday, March 22, 2011 With the start of traditional boating
season only 1,608 hours away, the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary is reminding
boaters to take a boating education course. In 2009, 86% of boating
fatalities occurred on boats where the operator had not received formal boating
safety training according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The
Coast Guard is looking to reduce boating fatalities and accidents across the
nation. Other findings from the National
Transportation Safety Board include: ·
Over the past 10 years,
more than 7,000 boaters have died - about 5,000 of them by drowning. ·
In 2009, three-fourths
of all fatal boating accidents resulted from the victims drowning. 84 percent
were not wearing life jackets. ·
Seven out of ten who
drowned were in open motorboats less than 21 feet in length. Coast Guard Auxiliary units around the
country conduct boater education courses year-round. Westport Flotilla 6-18 will be offering a
Safe Boating Course entitled About
Boating Safety. Enrollment is now
open and all interested boaters of all ages are encouraged to attend:
Westport Fire Dept., 54 Hix
Bridge Road, Westport Thursday evenings from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Course Fee - $35.00 This is a 7 week training course and a certificate will be awarded upon
successful completion. For more
information or to enroll, please email: info@uscgauxwestport.org or visit
them at: www.uscgauxwestport.org. The Above: Frank MacKinnon, Public Education
Instructor, Flotilla 06-18 Westport, instructs students in Safe Boating at
the Sea Lab School, New Bedford, MA.
Photograph by Marshall A. Ronco, FSO-PA EverythingWestport.com Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Select
Board sound bites. Selectmen voted unanimously to move the annual town meeting to May 24th.
The long, hilly, and sandy access way can
be difficult. And there are no facilities such as toilets, storage or
pavilions at the current town beach. Mr. Hancock (pictured left) proposed
utilizing vacant DCR land, east of Bridge Road, to situate a parking lot and
put to use unused Horseneck Beach for a new town beach, supplementing the
town's Cherry and Webb Beach. The noble idea must first receive approval
from the state's Department of Conservation and Recreation, never an easy and
usually a very lengthy process. State Representative Paul Schmid, State
Senator Michael Rodrigues and the Select Board have expressed an interest and
have walked the area. Bridge Road residents and the owners of
Bakers Beach, abutter to the proposed project, will have to have their say. A final hurdle will be protected dunes and
barrier beach vegetation, which are protected by strict conservation and
protection measures. Also, the end of Bridge Road is not listed
as a public way or a town landing, which could complicate the proposal. The entrance to Bridge Road is directly
across the Back Eddy Restaurant. More to come.
Above left: The entrance to DCR
land, at the end of Bridge Road, which provides a pathway to the ocean. Above
right: proposed area for possible parking area. The late
artisan Dorothy Curtis would turn in her
grave if she could see the state of her former homestead on 1813/1815 Drift
Road. The big, bad wind recently blew the remaining remnants of the Westport
Point house down. The current owner promises cooperation and a restoration
effort that appears to please the Westport Historical Commission. Selectmen
and building inspector Ralph Souza are staying on top of that effort. The proposed
town budget is already in the hole for half a million dollars,
underscored by a request of $150,000 over level funding by the School
Department. The town will still have to deal with $270,000 deficit in the
snow removal budget. State Representative/Selectman Paul Schmid,
winding down his tenure as selectman, reported that the chairman of the
State's powerful Ways and Means Committee has suggested towns and cities
should plan for a 10 percent reduction in state aid. "The good ol'
days are not coming back," Representative Schmid said. "We have to
learn how to do things differently. The money is not there." "This will be a very difficult year to
get through," he said. Jane
Duarte dba Overtime Sports Pub received selectmen's unanimous approval, contingent on
ABC approval, for an entertainment, amusement and juke box license. Thomas and
Sharon Cardoza
received unanimous Selectmen approval, granting the transfer of a six-month
seasonal trailer permit at 238 East Beach Road. Joseph Latimer was unanimously appointed as
Constable-Civil Process only. Gregory Franchetti was unanimously appointed to the
Narrows Redevelopment Committee. The Selectmen voted
unanimously to grant a request from the Westport
River Watershed Alliance to use the rear of the Town Hall for their
annual Electronics Recycling event to be held Saturday, April 16th. The Trustees of Reservations and Westport land Conservation Trust were granted a conservation
restriction on additional acreage recently added to the Herb Hadfield
Conservation area, located off Adamsville Road. Access to the 100 acre
property will now be possible off Cornell Road. Peggy Stevens announced an
opening celebration at the property for May 1st at 4:00 p.m.. The conservation restriction will cost the
town $100,000, and will come from CPC funding. Town Administrator Michael
Coughlin announced that the
draft Town Meeting Warrant was submitted to the Finance Committee. Click here to view the current draft. Wind Turbine subcontract. Westport's Energy Committee
approved a rental agreement with Second Wind for a wind monitoring system.
The Clean Energy Center, which is providing the grant, said the system would
provide a cost effective approach to getting the data needed to complete the
feasibility study. In more wind turbine
news it was announced by Selectmen Brian Valcourt
that the FAA has limited the hub height, reducing the proposed altitude from
100 to 85 meters. "We were disappointed but ok with it," Selectman Valcourt said. Crash Prevention Control course at
Horseneck State Beach. EverythingWestport.com Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Each four-hour course
is $299 (Save $50
with coupon code Westport 2011.) Registration required.
To register please call or click (888) 301-SAFE (7233) or visit www.DriveInControl.com. Courses are open to
students of all ages, but you must have at least a
learner's permit with a minimum of 10 hours experience, or a driver's
license. The Westport Police Department was able to
support this program with the assistance of the Department of Conservation
and Recreation, along with the Westport Community Schools. Police Chief Keith
A. Pelletier became aware of the program after a recent Massachusetts chiefs
of police meeting. "Recent traffic
fatalities involving juveniles both in Westport and surrounding communities caused
us to take a look at hosting an in-house program, but it became
cost-prohibitive," Chief Pelletier said. The course has no
financial impact on the police department. Drive In Control
provides a safe Facility to learn the skills necessary to react in a car when
something goes wrong. The program is geared to inexperienced drivers, but anyone can participate. In
Massachusetts, graduates qualify for auto insurance discounts up to 10
percent. "The other kids say my daughter saved their lives.
She says she owes it all to your program and my insistence that she take it. Senator Rodrigues
announces his new office locations, hours, and contact information. EverythingWestport.com Friday, March 25, 2011
“I have always believed it is
critically important to maintain direct and efficient lines of communication
between myself and my constituents. I will continue to remain fully
accessible as I have always done.” Senator Rodrigues’ District
Director, Pedro Amaral,
holds office hours on Mondays and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. at the Somerset Town Hall, 140 Wood Street
in Somerset. The office phone number is (508) 673-8408. Pedro also maintains office hours on
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9:00 a.m. -5:00 p.m. at the Fall River Government Center, room
235. The office number is (508) 646-0650. “I have always maintained a full
time district office, and will continue to do so in my new role as Senator.
However, with an expanded district, I now have established office hours in
the northern communities of my district; Freetown, Lakeville and Rochester.
The office hours are all located in each town’s Council on Aging buildings. On the fourth week of each month,
Maria Connors, part time District Liaison holds office hours in Rochester, 67 Dexter Lane on
Wednesday from 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.. Maria will be in Lakeville, 1 Dear Crossing on Thursday from 9:30 a.m. - 11:30
a.m., and Freetown, 227 Chace Road on Friday 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.. Senator Rodrigues’ new State House
office is located in room 213-B. His office number is (617) 722-1114. The
Senator can be reached by email at Michael.Rodrigues@MaSenate.Gov
or on Facebook at “RodriguesforSenate”.
Alternatively, www.MichaelRodrigues.org is the Senator’s official webpage. EverythingWestport.com Sunday, March 27, 2011
Their virtuoso performances of stage
favorites like Carmen, Romeo and Juliet, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Yerma, and Oklahoma showed their passion
for singing, physical flexibility, and credibility as actors. Bravo. Featuring the
glorious voices of rising stars of the opera world, the Opera Institute’s
bi-annual visit has become a tradition at Concerts at the Point. http://www.bu.edu/cfa/music/opera/
William Lumpkin
(pictured below, left), Music Director/Conductor of the Opera Institute and
conductor at Boston Lyric Opera as well as the Opera Theater of St. Louis,
accompanies the singers. Under the guidance of Sharon Daniels, Director of
Opera Programs, and Phyllis Curtin, Artistic Advisor, along with a
professional faculty that includes many guest artists, the Boston University
Opera Institute sponsors and trains outstanding young professional singers in
the crucial years between university and career. Opera singers
today are breaking all stereotypes. All over the world, people flock to
HD broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera and European companies, productions
that call for remarkable voices, and accessible human beings who can act as
well as they sing, and who are physically credible for their roles.
These Four young rising stars with all
these qualities presented a program of arias and ensembles from musical
theater and standard opera, accompanied by Conductor/Music Director of the Opera Institute
William Lumpkin. They shared the stories of the scenes they perform,
and the stories "behind the scenes" of their lives as they prepare
for the world stage. The four singers
shown below from left to right are: tenor John Irvin, soprano Chelsea Basler, mezzo-soprano Rachel Hauge,
and baritone Christiaan
Smith-Kotlarek.
http://concertsatthepoint.org/ Click
here to review CAP's 2011/2012 concert season. © 2011 Community
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