sco's blog

Attention all those who are interested in learning more about the candidates running to replace Rachel Kaprielian as state representative!

The Watertown Democratic Town Committee will be holding a forum on September 8th with the candidates for the 29th Middlesex State Representative district formerly held by DTC member and current Registrar of Motor Vehicles, Rachel Kaprielian. The event will be held at the Brigham House, 341 Mount Auburn Street in Watertown from 7PM-9PM. DTC member Dolores Mitchell will be moderating the event and we expect to have time for audience questions. We are also accepting suggestions for questions, so if there is any particular subject that you hope will be covered or you would like to volunteer to help with the event, please post below or send me a response at watertowndems@gmail.com.

Please help us spread the word! This may be the last chance for voters to directly to confront the candidates before the September 16th Primary.

Where:

Brigham House
341 Mount Auburn St
Watertown, MA
02472

When:

September 8th, 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM

Has anyone seen the Susan Falkoff's campaign video on Youtube? Check it out:

It's a great way to see why Susan is running for Town Councilor-at-Large and there are fun cameos and testimonials from Don Levy at the Town Diner and some other families in town. I think Susan's really the only candidate who has much of a website, and if you haven't seen it yet, click over to www.susanfalkoff.com right now. There is great information about who she is and why she is running for Town Councilor-at-Large.  Susan even has a  campaign blog.

Election Day is next Tuesday, November 6.  If you contact the Susan Falkoff campaign at falkoff2007@aol.com, they can help you get to the polls.

Full disclosure: I am a friend of Susan's and a volunteer for her campaign because I think she was and will again be a great town councilor. Check out her site and video and decide for yourself.

I'm not sure if this has been seen before on H2otown, but Urban Exploration Boston has a great photo tour of the rail line from Alewife through Watertown to Waltham, including the section where the new bike path will someday go.

The photos are a little old, as evidenced by such abandoned building goodness like the Hartz-Mason (now burnt down) and the Quincy Market Cold Storage (now a bunch of condos), but it's still neat to see the decaying tracks.

Via Universal Hub

[Cross Posted on .08 Acres]

As we all know, last week, H2otown celebrated its second blogaversary. While I was unable to attend her birthday party (a birth closer to home has kept me occupied) I did chat with H2otown's proprietor, Lisa Williams late last month about her experiences with this blog and her newer endeavor, Placeblogger.com, which is an aggregation of local and hyperlocal blogs from around the country. I asked her about her experiences placeblogging here in Watertown and why she thought it was becoming more popular across the country.

(As an aside, I'd like to point out that I am user #3 here at H2otown. So excited was I at the prospect of a Watertown community blog that I signed up before accounts were even working)

Q: First of all, why don't you tell me a little bit about how you got involved with Placeblogger?

Well, I ended up interacting with people interested in online journalism because of H2otown and there seemed to be such a huge pile of assertions surrounding sites like H2otown -- they were journalism/no they weren't; there were thousands; there were 12. I thought, well, this is knowable information. I was curious myself to know how many there were. Turns out there's more than I thought.

Read the rest of conversation at .08 Acres...

[Cross-Posted on .08 Acres]

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to talk with Watertown resident, former state Senator and 2002 candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination Warren Tolman. Tolman is currently spending his free time as one of the co-chairs of the Watertown Committee for Community Preservation which is seeking to get the Community Preservation Act passed in Watertown's November municipal election. I spoke with him at length on the benefits of the CPA to Watertown, and then on some issues in state politics in general.

Tolman made a number of good points about the Community Preservation Act. Firstly, under the CPA, town residents spend $3 and get $10 back. For each $10 of CPA funds, $3 comes from the residents, $2 comes from the local businesses and $5 comes from the state. That's 233% return on the homeowner's investment for the town. Since the town spends more on average than the proposed surcharge of $800,000, adopting the CPA in Watertown could shift items from the town’s capital budget to the community preservation fund, thus freeing up money for education, public works, and so on. Projects that Tolman mentioned that can use the CPA funds on include converting Victory Field to turf, rebuilding the Grove Street entrance to Fillipello Park after the recycling center is moved, restoring the Edmund Fowle House, building a regulation Little League field or helping seniors and town employees remain in Watertown. According to Tolman, there's enough money in the CPA fund on the state level to fully fund it for the next four years, using conservative economic estimates and assuming that a dozen new communities pass it every year. After five years, the town could repeal the act if the state can't continue fully matching. In addition, there is wide bipartisan support for the CPA around the state in the communities where it has passed.