Man About Canton: Westwood Station News

DID YOU KNOW…

Westwood Station, now known as University Station, is back in the news. A special town meeting is scheduled to convene in Westwood on February 28 to consider adding a layer of new zoning for the 140-acre industrial tract on University Avenue. Westwood town meeting participants will also vote on the development’s first phase, which includes a Target store, Wegman’s Grocery Store, and 450 units of one- and two-bedroom housing. For the project to go forward, two thirds of the town meeting must approve the new zoning changes. The new, scaled-down version is about one third the size of the original proposal. A team of developers will be led by the New England Developer Company, who purchased the 140-acre Westwood Station site from Cabot, Cabot & Forbes for $45 million. The property is located on the Canton town line next to Interstate 95 and the Route 128 railroad station. It includes a little over one acre in the town of Canton.

Last year, Chris Sullivan became the first Canton High School wrestler to win a state title as a sophomore. Chris is undefeated this year and has a career record of 71-5.

Tommy Arico is the new manager of the Bay State Wine & Spirits Store located at 2740R Washington Street. Tommy was a standout softball player in the Canton Softball League and was formerly associated with Caradonna’s Liquor in Canton. The liquor store is located on Route 138 across from the Blue Hills Reservation.

Wind gusts at the Blue Hills reached 74 mph during the rain/wind storm on Thursday, December 27.

Paul Hannigan is the executive director of the Canton Association of Business and Industry. CABI has represented the Canton business community since 1972.

The town of Milton is looking at a proposed 300-unit Chapter 40B development on approximately 19 acres on Brush Hill Road, near the Canton town line. Milton has only a 4.5 percentage of homes classified as affordable. Towns in Massachusetts are required to have 10 percent of their housing units designated as “affordable” under the 1969 Chapter 40B Law. The town of Canton has over 10 percent of affordable housing units.

On the topic of Milton, did you notice that Governor Deval Patrick has put his longtime residence at 75 Hinckley Road on the market for $1.5 million? Patrick bought the property in 1989 for $560,000. The stately colonial-style house was built in 1923.

The Canton High School class of 1973 is planning its 40th reunion and needs help locating alumni from the graduating class of 350. Alumni can email Dennis Eary at dennis@denniseary.com or Steve Tomasi at stomasi@ajtomasi.com.

This week’s trivia: On New Year’s Day, 1/1/13, ten states increased their minimum wage. Washington state will once again have the highest minimum wage in the nation at $9.19 an hour, after a raise of 15 cents for the new year. The federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour. The last raise of the federal minimum came on 7/24/09. Massachusetts remains at $8.00 per hour. The federal minimum wage for restaurant servers and other tipped employees remains at $2.13 an hour before tips. Massachusetts’ tipped employees may be paid up to $2.63 per hour. Our neighboring state of Rhode Island set a minimum cash wage for tipped employees at $2.89 per hour.

In the 2008 presidential election, George Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore 50,999,897 to 50,456,002, but he beat Gore in the electoral college 271 to 266 to become the president of the United States. Massachusetts is one of eight states that voted to elect the president by popular vote instead of through the electoral college system, but 34 states are needed so that a constitutional convention would be called and 38 states are needed to ratify the new proposal.

It’s not what you have in your life, it’s who you have in your life that matters.

This is all for now folks. See you next week.

Joe DeFelice can be reached at manaboutcanton@aol.com.

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