Posted by Dennis Herrick on August 03, 2008 at 22:47:04:
In Reply to: Plaistow's Three Amigos And Their Circle-of-Friends. posted by Dennis Herrick on August 01, 2008 at 08:19:50:
Hey Compadrie
I was just over at the town website and the Planning Board hasn't posted anything on their recent meetings with Testa. I have no town contacts or know any "friendlies" in Town Hall that can provide me information like the Grants get over in Atkinson, All I do is read the papers, read the meeting minutes and try and imagine what's going on. My sister isn't even helping, but that may be for the best. She and her husband will probably be the ones to deal with our land on Sweet Hill. I'm still hoping we can sell it to the neighbors as a single tract conservation area or chop it into 19, 1 acre lots and sell them each an acre so no one person will have enough land to build a house on unless a few of the neighbors cooperate. Funny thing, folks don't seem to mind it when a house appears next door or across the street, but when they start to pop up out behind them, they start getting nervous. To do things like this we will have to have Dorman's cooperation and the cooperation of the Planning Board. Right now, I don't think either would give me a permit to build a dog house on Sweet Hill. These changes are way off in the future when property values come back anyway.
I didn't get to do anything with the Three Amigos post that I started earlier this week. I think I'd like to tie it in with the newspaper article on Plaistow's drop in population. I think I can use that angle. No Wang, no Digital, no Lucent, no Prime and no Data General, Pollard School's test scores are the lowest in the district and the quality of education at Timberlane is sliding. The build up of Route 125 is pushing folks out of their neighborhoods. Garden Road is almost 100% commercial. And the same for a hunk of East Road. 50% of Old Road is commercial and it's the wrong 50%. It should be the Route 125 side. The folks on Red Oak dislike Hoyt's business condos. Soon Westville Road will be taken over by more of Hoyt's business condos. Then it will be Walton Road and North Main Street going over to the dark side. Soon the commercial creep will strike Chandler Ave and Old County Road. Folks are being driven out of town by a special circle-of-friends and their facilitators in Town Hall. Why hasn't the Planning Board asked for more 2 and 3 story buildings on Rt 125 to shrink the footprint and stop commercial sprawl from advancing into the neighborhoods? Could it be that the Town Planner's time is being monopolized, doing tasks for the select few as they continue to pit their business interests against the wishes of the towns people? Shouldn't the Town Planner be given more time to work on the Master Plan to protect us from these idiotic developments. Instead they've got her working on round-abouts for Main and Elm Street. And the other lead in Planning is all tied up with this feel-good train station that will probably never materialize. Last time I checked, there was no train that could pick me up at my home and drop me off at work in the same amount of time it takes to drive. The time was double. And it's not surprising with the required line transfers in Boston and a half mile walk to and from Islington Station. It's not like the days when the shoe shops were going gang-busters or when Western Electric was in downtown Haverhill and you could get public transportation right at your door step that took you right to your job a few miles away. Other than retail, education, government and medical there are no jobs around here. Under all these conditions, who in their right mind would stay in Plaistow, only a die hard Plaistow loyalists. Check out the New Hampshire Sunday News. They had an interesting article about the drop in population in several towns and cities. I'll post it, if they have it online.
Dennis