Man About Canton: Canton’s Millionaires

Did you know …

According to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, 71 income tax filers in the town of Canton reported $1 million or more in income. The average income of those 71 filers was $2.5 million. In all, 12,665 Massachusetts residents earned $1 million or more in 2011, the most recent year for which the Department of Revenue figures were available. The largest number of millionaires is in Boston with 1,443. On the south shore, according to the Patriot Ledger, Hingham lists 248 filers with over $1 million in income, followed by Cohasset and Milton with 117, Duxbury with 115, Norwell with 84, then Canton with 71 and Sharon with 62. On the low end, Randolph lists only seven millionaires and Stoughton lists only six.

The average sales price for homes sold in Canton in 2013 was $440,000. In Stoughton, it was $290,000 and in Randolph it was $271,000. But the average sales price was $875,000 in Cohasset, $550,000 in Duxbury, and $498,500 in Milton.

It has been estimated that more than half of the adult population of the United States bet on the recent Super Bowl game. Approximately $11 billion was illegally wagered, while legally, in Nevada, around $95 million was wagered, according to Nevada odds-maker Danny Sheridan.

If you are so inclined to sponsor a ballot question for state approval, it is a very long process to get your proposed law on the ballot. First, you must file your proposal with the attorney general, who will determine whether the measure is constitutional. You must then gather 68,911 voter signatures by November of the previous year that the question will appear on the ballot. The proposal would then be sent to the legislature, and if it is not approved by May of the year that the question would appear, you must then go out and gather 11,485 more signatures by July in order for the question to appear on the November ballot. So as you can see, it is not easy to get a proposed question on the state ballot.

This year, 33 questions were filed with Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office proposing 18 new laws and four constitutional amendments. For the 2012 election, 31 initial petitions were submitted, but only three made the ballot.

One of the most intriguing petitions was the minimum wage question cosigned by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren that would raise the minimum wage in Massachusetts to $9.25 in 2015, $10.50 in 2016, and subsequently be tied to the cost of living.

According to Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey, “The biggest single problem we have in the office are drug overdoses from Oxycontin and heroin.” In 2013, there were 58 drug deaths in Norfolk County.

The state primary election is set for Tuesday, September 9, with the general election being held on Tuesday, November 4.

Developer Terry Conroy of Canton and his Conroy Development Company of Stoughton recently unveiled plans for its proposed Seaport District Hotel and Residential Project that will include a 246-room hotel and a 304-unit apartment building with retail space and an underground parking garage. The Mass. Port Authority (Massport) will lease the land to Conroy.

At 7 percent, the unemployment rate in Massachusetts is higher than the U.S. average, which stands at 6.7 percent.

Canton residents on the Milton side of Route 128 who have been using Milton’s water since the 1950s will soon be switched over to Canton water. Three years ago, town meeting voters approved a project that extended the water line from Elm Street across Route 128 to the parts of Canton served by the Milton water system. Commercial users, as well as 45 residential customers in the Green Street area in Canton, can now be switched over to the Canton water system.

The town of Stoughton has funded 17 projects worth $2.3 million since adopting the state’s Community Preservation Act in 2008. This year the town’s CPA committee has given preliminary support for using $500,000 as a matching grant toward restoring the old State Theatre in the center of downtown Stoughton. The friends of the State Theatre are seeking between $2.5 million and $3 million to renovate the 1,000-seat movie theatre, which opened in 1927. Supporters of the project say that Stoughton needs help for the downtown, which has been hit hard with the closing of the Honey Dew Donut shop, Friendly’s, and Shaw’s supermarket, to name a few. Stoughton has $850,000 in its CPA account for this year.

For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.

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=24296

Posted by Joe DeFelice on Feb 20 2014. Filed under Featured Content, Man About Canton, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.