More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.
In light of recent attack on the U.S. Capitol and continued stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wellesley Health Department is hosting an online chat via Zoom with its social workers, who will be there to listen and share tips for self-care. The event, which could become a regular thing if there’s interest, takes place on Thursday, Jan. 28 from 1-2 p.m.
To register, please email your name and phone number to Senior Community Social Worker Joyce Saret at [email protected]
Wellesley’s got new premium seating at Reidy Field for baseball fans.
The bench was installed by the town in December at the Washington Street baseball field through an anonymous donation to honor Harry Clark, an inspiring young Wellesley resident who passed away last summer. Word is that the donors were friends of Clark from youth baseball, where they were brought together.
Clark’s father, Kevin, says the bench’s appearance was a very pleasant surprise for the family. “We are so grateful and hope it keeps the wonderful spirit and actions of Harry alive,” he said.
The boil water issued by Natick on Jan. 13 after E. coli bacteria was detected in the town water supply has been lifted, and the water is now safe to drink for Natick residents as well as at some 80 Wellesley homes that were affected.
This is a notice from the Natick Department of Public Works Water/Sewer Division:
The Boil Water Order issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has been lifted for all areas in the Town of Natick. After conducting two consecutive rounds of sampling throughout the drinking water system, the lab tests showed no E. Coli bacteria in any repeat samples. As such, per the State’s review, the water is safe for consumption without further treatment or flushing in your homes and businesses.Our investigation continues as to the cause of the positive lab results.
Again, we are informing you that the water within the drinking water system and your homes and businesses is safe for consumption according to all MassDEP drinking water standards. The Town of Natick’s website has been updated to reflect this change in our drinking water status.
Wellesley’s 139th Annual Town Report is out, both online and in hard copy, and as usual it is filled with lots of interesting facts and figures.
The information in this roughly 400-page report for the period between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020 (fiscal year 2020), is sort of warped considering that it contains a solid four months of pandemic-influenced data, so that must be taken into consideration when reading through it.
Here are 10 items that popped out for us. (What jumps out to you? [email protected])
Unprecedented report: The word “unprecedented” somewhat surprisingly only appears twice in the entire report, once under Wellesley Free Library’s report and once under the School Committee. COVID appears 77 times. Disappointingly, not a single “abundance of caution.”
Affordable Wellesley. A word you might not expect to find in the report, “affordable,” actually does make several appearances, including here: “In January, the Town attained the state mandated 10% affordable housing threshold with the approval of the 40R project at the Wellesley Office Park.” Not to say the town doesn’t have plenty of work to do in diversifying its housing stock, but it’s a start, and makes it harder for developers to exploit loopholes.
Diminishing demo targets: While teardowns are not uncommon in town, there are nowhere near as many as there were just a few years ago, when anywhere between 90 and and 100 was the going rate. There were 44 this past fiscal year, down from 45 the year before, which was up a few from the high 30s the fiscal year before that.
Big earners: It’s impossible to go through the report without snooping into who is making what. A couple of town employees make enough individually to hit Wellesley’s $189K residential household median income mark, including top earner Wellesley Public Schools Supt. David Lussier. He seems to have made the right move by not leaping from his newspaper route back in the day and into a journalism career.
Wrong way carbon footprint: The Sustainable Energy Committee reports that Wellesley’s 2019 greenhouse gas emissions increased 0.5% above 2018 levels, bringing overall reductions to just under 12% since 2007. While electricity emissions decreased, commercial sector natural gas emissions jumped 36%.
Price check please: The Department of Weights and Measures checked 900 items in local retail stores to ensure they were priced (scanned) correctly (98% accuracy is the standard). Only three of eight retailers inspected passed the test. “More work needs to be done in this area to ensure correct and accurate pricing in retail stores,” the report reads. So check those receipts people!
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Wellesley Public Schools hired its first director of DEI, and among accomplishments was planning the launch of an equity toolkit for educators.
Locked in: The Fire Department section is chock full of interesting numbers, but the one that raised our eyebrows was 96 for “person locked in home, car or elevator.” What? Locked out of home or car would make sense, but…As it turns out, this number does represent a bit of both A common situation is for a kid to get locked in a bathroom, or parents to get locked out of a house and a kid get locked in and doesn’t know how to open the door.
Police get sign language training: All officers attended basic sign language training, which provided them with an introduction to American Sign Language and key phrases they might need in the field.
Wellesley Farms: The Wellesley Health department issued 23 livestock permits, up from 19 the year before.
More: 15 things I learned from Wellesley’s annual report (Jan. 24, 2020)
Natick’s Department of Public Works issued an alert to residents on Wednesday that they should boil water for at least a minute before consuming it in light of E. coli bacteria being discovered in drinking water samples collected on Jan. 12.
The issue also affects around 80 homes in Wellesley. The Town of Wellesley’s Department of Public Works warns that “This order DOES AFFECT some Wellesley residential addresses that receive water service from Natick, although you pay a Town of Wellesley utility bill. You may not be aware that your water is actually provided by Natick.”
Water should also be boiled before using it in food preparation, brushing teeth, and washing dishes, or use bottled water. E. coli bacteria can make you ill, and is a particular concern for those with weakened immune systems.
This warning applies until further notice.
According to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, “Pets:The same precautions to protect humans apply to pets. Do not expose aquatic organisms (e.g., fish) to water containing elevated bacteria levels. If you need to refresh the organism’s water, use appropriately boiled or bottled water.”
Natick has removed water sources that tested positive and has increased water disinfection treatments.
“The town hopes to resolve this inconvenience within the next few days,” according to a Natick recording.
When the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issues a public health order, public water suppliers are required to notify customers.
Wellesley has many beloved and frequented restaurants, some of which sell booze and some of which don’t. But town officials recognize that it could boost Wellesley’s economy and energize its dining scene if even more restaurants could be encouraged to open here.
Among the possible Annual Town Meeting articles being discussed is one that would reduce the number of restaurant seats required for an establishment to apply for a license to serve alcohol from 50 to 30 or even 25. This could appeal to smaller existing restaurants and attract the sorts of boutique restaurants that residents often need to head out of town to find currently.
Wellesley Executive Director Meghan Jop said during this week’s regular Select Board meeting that the town has the authority to issue 29 all-alcohol and 6 beer-and-wine licenses, but that 16 of those aren’t being used (Wellesley also has licenses for clubs, like Wellesley Country Club, and grocery stores.)
Wellesley voters in 2012 approved the reduction in seats required to apply for an alcohol license from 100 to 50, but Takara is the only eatery in town to take advantage of that rule since then.
The question is whether restaurants with between 30 and 50 seats might be game for applying for alcohol licenses if they qualified. This could include businesses like Cafe Mangal, Old School Pizzeria, Coconut Thai, and potentially newcomers.
Board member Beth Sullivan Woods and Assistant Executive Director Amy Frigulietti have reached out to restaurant owners and landlords in town, as well as the the president of the Newton-Needham Regional Chamber, to get feedback on this topic. They’ve also been researching the latest practices in other communities.
“[T]here really is a trend moving towards smaller restaurants,” Frigulietiti said during the Select Board meeting. It’s not just smaller restaurants, but more of a mix, from taco shops to bistros serving high quality food from new chefs, she said. “They’re just looking for a small footprint to do that work,” she said.
In talking to landlords, the town is finding that Wellesley is missing out on opportunities to fill vacant storefronts, since its regulations don’t fit with restaurants’ plans. Not to mention that taxes and rents are high, and business restrictions exist such as requiring patrons to buy food if they want alcohol (aka, “intent to dine”).
“You’re seeing a move out of the cities and people are looking as they come out into the suburbs for… small restaurant experiences and not traveling so far,” Sullivan Woods said. “So we are losing our residents going to other communities to dine.”
Research continues into this issue, including whether the magic number for restaurants seats is 30 or something else.
Board member Colette Aufranc commented that from her research into how other communities handle liquor licenses she has seen that they really treat them as an essential element of economic development. “I think this is one of the tools in our toolbox that we can use to help our downtown,” she said, noting that alcohol sales are a proven way for businesses to improve their profit margins. Increased restaurant sales wouldn’t hurt the town’s coffers either, she said.
The proposal to reduce the number of seats required to serve alcohol was not intended to change the town’s current rules requiring patrons to buy food if they want to consume alcohol on premises, Sullivan Woods emphasized. But discussion of the proposal at the board meeting did expand into a broader one.
Board Chair Marjorie Freiman said she understands the appeal of attracting small cozy restaurants, but said something about all of this doesn’t add up and that she’d like to hear more. Among other things, she wonders why more restaurants haven’t applied for licenses at the 50-seat-and-above-level.
“I would also like to know where this is all headed as a package deal (sorry for the pun),” she said. “But I’d like to know what the plan is for this writ large, as opposed to doing it incrementally. Because if that’s the objective, to get rid of ‘intent to dine,’ and have places where people can just have a snack and drink, I would like to know, and I think we should be transparent about it…”
Board member Tom Ulfelder also raised the issue of how any such changes could also affect the town’s development agreement with Linden Square property manager Federal Reality, and the mix of restaurants allowed there. Freiman followed with: “I think we need to look at how it would impact every class of establishment that can, or may, serve alcohol.”
This entire discussion might invite the town to revisit the “intent to dine” rule in town that requires patrons to order food if they want to order drinks. This restriction has put the kibosh on possible business ventures in town, said Jop, including an Eataly-like outfit at The Belclare and a Kings-like entertainment venue where the VW dealership operates.
“As models have sort of evolved, we can’t accommodate those business models. So it is something I would say the board should consider because there are a lot of models out there…,” she said. “I’ve said it before, Economic Development… 101 the #1 rule: When in doubt, add alcohol.”
Jop said you could have imagined having a craft beer truck hunker down at the Shared Streets parklet the town set up over the summer at Clocktower Park, giving people an option to grab a brew to go along with food from nearby restaurants that don’t serve alcohol. “You could imagine it anywhere else but here,” she said.
This all goes back to gauging the public’s appetite from moving further away from the town’s historically conservative approach to alcohol sales.
Though as Sullivan Woods noted, at least for now, due to state rules during the pandemic, everyone is operating on an intent to dine basis. “So it’s not as abnormal as it was a year ago,” she said, and that makes it “not as bad” for property owners to market Wellesley to restaurants.
The Select Board is looking to sign the Annual Town Meeting warrant on Jan. 25, so it will be determined then whether the article on seat reductions will go to Town Meeting.
Wellesley’s Town Clerk Wednesday released the list of candidates for open town-wide elected offices, with a mix of contested and uncontested races featuring familiar and new names for the March 2 election.
All available offices have at least one candidate, and a number of incumbents are seeking election unopposed, including Mark Kaplan for moderator and KC Kato for Town Clerk.
Contested offices are:
The last day to withdraw a nomination is Jan. 29. A random drawing for ballot order will be conducted on Jan. 28 at 10 am and will be available for viewing on Wellesley Media.
Due to COVID-19, all voters may request a Vote By Mail ballot. Residents who wish to vote by mail are encouraged to do so as soon as possible. In-person voting will be available on election day at polling places outlined in the election warrant document embedded below.
