A glimpse into how Wellesley’s outdoor fields & courts are used; public survey remains open

November 8, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Preliminary results from Wellesley’s townwide outdoor fields and courts survey give a sense of the many ways people are using the resources, but the town is encouraging more people to fill out the questionnaire. Results will be used to help inform the town’s decisions over needed improvements, gaps, etc.

“We really want to hear from more residents,” says Bea Bezmalinovic, a Natural Resources Commissioner. “The data is most useful when we hear from a significant number users of all ages and interests.”

The data displayed here is from Question 4 of the survey, as of late October (“Select activities that you participate in, formally or informally. Select all that apply.”). As you can gather, people have a wide variety of interests that include organized as well as informal activities. The pickleball crowd came out in big numbers, but so did those who run, walk, play basketball, and more.

Changes to the town’s courts and fields have been ongoing, including improvements to the softball fields along Washington Street, the coming elimination of baseball fields at the rebuilt Hardy Elementary School, and the striping of pickleball courts at Warren Park and other outdoor courts in town.

Results of this survey will be presented at a future public meeting.

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Wellesley Natural Resources Commission makes recommendation for vacant seat

November 4, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

The Wellesley Natural Resources Commission, after interviewing 7 candidates at its Thursday night meeting, recommended that Michael D’Ortenzio fill a vacant slot until March, when the seat will be up for election. The Select Board will hold a joint meeting with the NRC on Monday, Nov. 7 to vote on the matter.

Update: 11/7/22: D’Ortenzio was approved at joint NRC/Select Board meeting.

(To really get into the spirit, I actually listened to the Wellesley Media recording of the NRC Nov. 3 meeting while paddling on the Charles River and running around adjacent trails.)

NRC member Allison Burson recently moved out of town, leaving a seat vacant. The 5-member Commission’s stated mission is “to provide stewardship, education and advocacy of the Town of Wellesley park, conservation, and open space system.”

While the headline here is that the NRC made its recommendation, this is a meeting worth watching the recording of if you missed it live and have an interest in the town’s recreation and open space. We were reminded of how many great resources the town has in its residents, from those whose expertise comes from regularly using the trails and parks to those with careers in municipal law, forestry, science, and architecture. Themes that surfaced during the meeting included the challenges of competing interests, short-term vs. long-term goals, and the importance of data collection to inform decisions.

Having a window into live interviews is fascinating enough, but hearing the deliberation over candidates was enlightening, too. Some argued for experience, others for candidates that could offer boots-on-the ground support, and others for specific areas of knowledge that could help with current NRC work, such as related to the town’s tree canopy. The meeting delved into topics like the future of the North 40 and what to do about water quality, issues that the NRC has had less time to focus on this year than it might like in the face of time-consuming issues such as the high school track and field lights.

The NRC narrowly voted in favor of D’Ortenzio over Peter D’Anieri, who described himself as a forester.

D’Ortenzio has been active in Wellesley town government all the way back to his high school days, when he joined Town Meeting in 2010. He has served on the School Committee, Playing Fields Task Force, and what was then called the Sustainable Energy Committee. He now practices municipal law. During his initial comments to the NRC during the meeting (candidates had earlier replied to emailed questions), D’Ortenzio said: “[W]hen we think about Wellesley in decades to come, this is me speaking personally, I view success as upzoning already developed areas and downzoning and preserving that rare forest land that we have that’s intact still today. I think the NRC can lead on that… I think it’s both the greatest challenge and its greatest opportunity.”

It was his focus during the interviews on long-term planning balanced with current needs that won over some NRC members. Commissioner Lisa Collins said: “Long-range planning is the name of the game. A reactive approach to our town resources has not been serving us and will continue to not serve us well, and is the crux of so much of the frustration that happens among our commission, among the town, in the past, in the present, and in the future.”

D’Ortenzio said he would plan to run for a full term come the March election. Two NRC seats will be up for grabs, so it will be interesting to see if any of the other candidates who volunteered for the current vacancy decide to run then, too.

Kids hit Wellesley trails to hunt for treasures

October 26, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Dozens of kids and their parents/guardians took to the Wellesley town forest at Longfellow Pond on Sunday to hunt for treasure boxes, collect ink stamps, and enjoy donuts and cider at the end of the 1-mile adventure. The annual Kids’ Trails Day event is organized by the Wellesley Trails Committee.

While the skies were gray, the trails were hopping, not just with the kids and adults on the treasure hunt, but by a good number of dog walkers and anglers.

Wellesley Longfellow Pond town forest kids trails day — The Trails Committee thanked Whole Foods for donating cider and donuts

Kids’ Trails Day in Wellesley: Sunday, Oct. 23

October 18, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Kids’ Trails Day

Sunday, Oct. 23 – (1:30-3 p.m.) – Town Forest

Join the Wellesley Trails Committee in celebrating fall and get your kids out into the woods to have fun and explore nature. Children will look for treasure boxes using letterboxing (written clues). Refreshments served at the end of the activities.

No registration is required and no fee is charged.

Children must be accompanied by an adult. Meet at the Longfellow Pond parking lot, located on the left side of Oakland Street 0.9 mile south of Route 9. For additional parking, use Jackson Road across from the parking lot.

Activities take place unless it pours rain or there are high winds.

Participants will be required to follow Town guidelines for COVID-19 for outdoors group events. If the walk is cancelled because of the pandemic, a notice will be posted.

Wellesley invites you to weigh in on playing fields & outdoor courts

October 7, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Wellesley has launched an online survey to get a better sense of how people are using playing fields and outdoor courts in town, where improvements need to be made, and what’s missing. Included are questions about tolerance for amplified sound at outdoor sports facilities.

A lack of playing fields for high school teams was one reason cited by proponents of lights at the Wellesley High track and field. Some against the lights argued such a study should be done before lights would be allowed to determine whether there was really a lack of resources or just a need for better scheduling.

Results of this survey, available through Nov. 1, will be presented at a future public meeting. You can fill it out anonymously.

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Beyond Wellesley—we visit the beautiful Cornell University area

September 16, 2022 by Deborah Brown 2 Comments

Ithaca, N.Y., is the kind of destination where the usual summer fun is on tap—there are plenty of spots to hike, bike, swim, shop, and dine—yet the two-college city (Cornell University and Ithaca College) feels homey, a place where its 30k+ full-time residents and the student population work, play, and live side-by-side. Fortunately for the 1.6 million visitors between May 2019 and 2020 to the Commons, the area’s busiest shopping and dining district, the locals like to share their secrets.

We booked an Airbnb for a few nights in early September and drove the 5.5 hours from Wellesley. Our goals: to see Ithaca’s famous gorges, enjoy some good meals, bike the safe and scenic Rail Trail up to Taughannock Falls (the tallest waterfall on the East Coast), hike the beautiful Robert H. Treman State Park, visit the Johnson Museum of Art on the Cornell University campus, and more. You don’t go to Ithaca to experience the fall “shoulder season,” that period of time after the crush of tourists has gone home and you can finally get into all the cool restaurants and attractions. You just go to visit Ithaca. If you want a party scene, it’s there for you, somewhere. Certainly the red solo cups littered around student rental houses after a Saturday night debauch attest to that. It’s just not in your face, demanding your attention and participation. (We’re still kinda exhausted from last year’s adventure to Block Island, a rock-on place if ever there was one.)

Working out the kinks

After being in the car for so long, we were eager to stretch our legs. We went straight to the Fall Creek Gorge suspension bridge, a part of the Cornell campus, where we walked 140 feet over the rushing water, alongside students on their way to class. There’s a small parking area at 310 Fall Creek Dr. After walking over the bridge, there are plenty of paths along the water for additional exploration.

We were told ahead of time that the beauty of the bridges was marred by fencing and safety netting that was put in place in 2010 after a long history of people jumping from the Fall Creek Gorge and other nearby bridges. We found that the unobtrusive netting couldn’t grab attention from the roar of the water and the natural beauty of the scene. When you consider that before safety measures were installed, 27 people died by suicide between 1990 and 2010 (including 15 students) by jumping from the five area bridges, the protective measures seem a small price to pay.

The Commons, dining and shopping

Ithaca Commons is the area’s hot hangout scene, a place to catch a movie at the Cinemapolis Art House Theater, or visit Buffalo Street Books to browse volumes on two floors, and their basement collection of vinyl. We peeked into the iconic Chanticleer, but the landmark corner dive-bar looked too cool for the likes of us. We didn’t want to go in and risk altering the vibe. Lots of indie shops and restaurants gave the two-block pedestrian mall an authentic feel. You couldn’t just as well have been in Faneuil Hall. The Commons is all Ithaca, from the head shops to the outdoors store to upscale artisans shops and restaurants. Not much in the way of chains here.

Down the street a couple of blocks from The Commons is the famous Moosewood Restaurant, which we tried out our first night in town. The vegetarian eatery is under new ownership since earlier this year. Danica Wilcox and her husband Nicholas, after living in Spain for many years, came home to take over the restaurant where Danica long ago was hired for her first job in the Moosewood kitchen. We sat outside on the lovely brick patio and watched the street scene go by. Our servers, both local students— one experienced and one in-training acolyte—were attentive and able to answer our questions about the dishes on the curated, seasonal menu. The choices included five apps, a few salads, several mains, and three side dishes, all vegetarian, with vegan and gluten-free options. I tried out the strozzapreti pasta (similar to penne) with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, baby spinach, sherry cream, gremolata, and parmesan. The dish, unfortunately, was bland and barely sauced. Moosewood is the kind of place where there are no salt and pepper shakers on the table, and I was determined to eat dinner as it was served for the purposes of this story. I doggy-bagged most of the meal and doctored it the next day on my Airbnb’s hotplate. A dash of seasoning and a little cream brought the strozzapreti to life, making it what it surely would have been if the chef’s final tasting hadn’t somehow been missed. Mr. Swellesley dared try his historic first black bean burger, and lived to tell about it. Who knows what the future could bring for his limited palate.

The lemon tahini broccoli and the spicy coconut curry we’re told are two must-try items. Homemade desserts include their famous fudge brownie. Wines and beers, some local, as well as a selection of creative non-alcoholic drinks such as ginger tea and fresh-squeezed lemonade, are available in this restaurant, which offers nice ambience in a convivial downtown location.

It’s all uphill from here

We made a quest out of our desire to see Taughannock Falls, a 215-foot waterfall billed as the highest vertical drop waterfall in the northeastern United States. Ithaca Bike Rental, located in view of the 45k-acre Cayuga Lake, outfitted us in good-quality bikes up to the task of taking us along a scenic paved

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Wellesley aqueduct bathroom open for business

September 15, 2022 by Bob Brown 6 Comments

You no longer have to “hold it” while at the Hunnewell Field complex, as Wellesley has opened its new bathroom facility along the Cochituate Aqueduct.

The building stands 26′ x 30′ and features a 3-stall women’s restroom and 2-stall, 1 urinal men’s restroom on the west side, plus 2 accessible, 1-stall universal rooms on the east side. It will be open 6:30am-9:30pm from March-November.

The bathroom was a long time coming, with a 2003-2004 plan identifying the need to replace the 1950s facility to, among other things, make it accessible.

Wellesley Natural Resources Commission Director Brandon Schmitt shared a timeline of more recent years that included a Town Meeting request rejected in 2016. At the 2017 Annual Town Meeting, the Department of Public Works requested $300,000, to be borrowed inside the levy, to replace the existing facility. Town Meeting approved $180,000, of which $30,000 was used by DPW to get municipal water and a sewer line to the site; that left $150,000 to offset the cost of the request. The previous bathroom facility went out of commission in 2017.

At the 2018 Town Meeting, $525,000 was approved for team rooms and bathrooms at the track and field facility. The hope was that an Aqueduct Bathroom Project would be able to use the same construction methods and material as the track and field team rooms/bathrooms facility in the future. However, bids for the team rooms/bathroom project came in twice as high as anticipated, thereby stalling that project as well as the aqueduct bathroom project.

In October 2018, the DPW piloted a portable trailer bathroom facility, although this was not deemed a permanent solution. In addition, the NRC did not consider this an adequate approach for many reasons including appearance, susceptibility to vandalism, serviceability, and storage capacity.

Finally, the new bathroom facility was installed entirely by the Community Preservation Committee, and the final cost was around $350,000. The pre-cast modular building was delivered this summer to Hunnewell Field in three separate sections, lifted into position on a prepared concrete foundation and connected together.

Organizations involved in getting this job done included the DPW, NRC, CPC, Town Meeting, Design Review Board, Building Department, and others.

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