Man About Canton: Blue Hills Regional

Did you know …

Blue Hills Regional Technical High School in Canton is listed as one of the top vocational high schools in Massachusetts. In fact, it was recently ranked No. 96 in GoLocalWorcester’s annual list of Top High Schools in Massachusetts. (Canton High also made the list, coming in at No. 86.) This past year, Blue Hills, with an enrollment of 842 students, had a graduation rate of 97.3 percent and an average SAT score of 1324. The 192 graduates of the Class of 2014 gave their school a “class gift” of new landscaping along Randolph Street in front of the school “to better welcome future generations to our alma mater.”

Wally Gibbs has been reelected president of the Canton Historical Society. Paul Mitcheroney is vice president, Cynthia McDonough is secretary, and Elena Gillespie is treasurer.

Governor Deval Patrick, as well as both the Massachusetts House and Senate, have endorsed a full 3 percent COLA (cost of living adjustment) on a $13,000 base for state and teacher retirees who retired before July 12, 2013. The COLA is effective July 1, 2014.

A proposal making the rounds in Congress as a solution to pay for highway and transit programs is to raise federal and diesel gas taxes. The plan calls for raising the 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gas tax and 24.4-cents-a-gallon diesel tax each by 12 cents a gallon over the next two years. The last time federal gas and diesel taxes were increased was in 1993.

The new $11 minimum wage bill recently signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick will make Massachusetts the nation’s highest minimum wage. The bill increases the state’s present $8-per-hour minimum wage in three increments: $9 per hour on January 1, 2015; $10 on January 1, 2016; and finally to $11 on January 1, 2017. That is a 38 percent increase. The measure also gradually raises the minimum wage for tipped workers from the current $2.63 per hour to $3.75 per hour, a 31 percent increase, but the first since 1999.

It looks like the South Coast Rail Project is “off and running” as the state Department of Transportation has awarded a $210 million contract for a rail project to link Boston through Canton and Stoughton with Fall River and New Bedford. The first $12 million will be used for design development, data collection, environmental permitting, and public outreach.

The following Canton school staff members retired at the end of the current school year: Nancy Mark, JFK librarian, 28 years; Elizabeth Persson, JFK grade 5 teacher, 25 years; Theresa Hagerty, GMS special education teacher, 18 years; Linda D’Attanasio, JFK educational assistant, 17.5 years; Kathleen Forsythe, GMS educational assistant, 18 years; and Janis Brandt, CHS French teacher, 9 years.

Tuition for in-state undergraduate students at UMass-Amherst will remain the same for 2014-2015 at $13,258. It does not include room and board.

If you are planning to bring the family to Fenway Park this summer, you better start saving because you will be paying the highest prices in baseball. It will cost $350 for a family of four to attend a game at Fenway Park this year, which is roughly $138 more than the major league average of $212.

The Blue Hills Reservation is spread over 7,000 acres and six towns, including Canton, Milton, Dedham, Randolph, Braintree, and Quincy. There are 125 miles of hiking trails and 22 hilltops.

The state Senate recently approved a $1.1 billion borrowing bill to fund a 1.3-million-square-foot expansion of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. To pay for this funding, the tax on hotel rooms in Boston and Cambridge many increase from 12 percent to 14 percent. In addition, a $10 fee on all car rentals in Boston will be added to help pay for the funding.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” will celebrate its 200^th anniversary on September 16. It was on that date in 1814 that Attorney Francis Scott Key wrote the words as a poem after he watched the Battle of Baltimore to honor the flag flying over Fort McHenry in what was a turning point against the British during the War of 1812. It did not become the nation’s official national anthem until 1931, when Congress approved it after a groundswell of support led by composer and musician John Philip Sousa.

Forty-five percent of the federal workforce was more than 50 years old in 2013, while only 7 percent are under the age of 30. In the private sector, more than 25 percent of the workforce is under the age of 30.

The U.S. Postal Service has lost money seven years running as electronic communications and commerce has replaced so many paper transactions. Its loss of $5 billion in 2013 was an improvement from 2012, when the service lost $15.9 billion.

And finally, from the Time Passes on Department, most of us never heard of Gerry Goffin, who recently died at the age of 75, but if you grew up in the 50s and 60s, you listened to the songs he wrote. Goffin penned more than 50 top 40 hits, including such old time favorites as “The Locomotion,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” Crying in the Rain,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Take Good Care of My Baby,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” “Upon the Roof,” “One Fine Day,” “Saving All My Love For You,” and one of MAC’s favorites, “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp).” Goffin’s legacy will live on with his songs that touched millions of people. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Look at yourself in the mirror at night. If you can say that you did the very best you could today, you will sleep well. Don’t forget, tomorrow is another day.

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

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

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=26197

Posted by Joe DeFelice on Jul 24 2014. Filed under Featured Content, Man About Canton, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.