Editorials
On page one of this week’s newspaper there is a story about GELD’s two offers to help the new Florence Roche School make significant strides toward reducing its carbon footprint and generally become a "green" building. At a recent meeting to consider these offers, some members of the Building...
North Central Massachusetts
Groton has grown and changed in many wonderful ways in the last 10 years. But these positive changes have also brought much higher property taxes. Of course, these taxes were approved at Town Meeting, being the will of the voters.
Voting for increased taxes is easy, paying the bill is harder....
Infrequently, when reporting the news, we happen upon a surprising sparkling gem of an observation. Such observations are usually not in context with the main thrust of the news story and, therefore, get lost orforgottenbecausethereisno‘bucket’topresent themconveniently in the paper. Yet...
Last week’s fire at Lost Lake’s Shenandoah Road [see front page] once again highlights the work Groton’s Fire and Police departments do to protect our homes. Fire Insurance is a great and wonderful thing to have, but if your house burns to the ground, having fire insurance will probably feel...
As the town begins to develop robust plans to address housing affordability, our goals and objectives need to be carefully considered and very clear. Last week’s letter by Becky Pine and Michelle Collette suggests that our main benchmark for success should be meeting state-mandated minimums for...
Even though expanding affordable housing is a town priority, and even though there are many public, private and non-profit entities working to promote affordable housing in Groton, the results have been anemic and uneven. In part, this is due to the high costs of creating new affordable housing,...
Without doubt, members of the Groton Affordable Housing Trust are honest, capable, upstanding citizens who deserve our thanks for serving on this important volunteer committee. But, taxpayers need to depend on more than good intentions when making a significant commitment of taxpayer money...
The Groton Herald recently started a Sustaining Subscriber option. By purchasing a $100 per year subscription, Sustaining Subscribers give us a financial helping-hand and improve our newsgathering capability. After less than a month, we are gratified that the following 9 people have given us a...
by Jeffrey H. Boutwell, Ph.D.
In August of 1876, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, George S. Boutwell, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, presented a 2,000-page report to his colleagues documenting the widespread murder and intimidation carried out by white supremacists in Mississippi...
After the shock of January 6 - the politically-motivated sack and pillage of the national Capitol - we must not sit passively in our comfortable homes, letting it all ‘shake out,’ wondering what we can possibly do to protect the right to govern ourselves in America. There is a lot we can do. We...