Man About Canton: Interesting Facts

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The following are some interesting items and statistics out of the Boston Globe:

Massachusetts is one of the few states nationwide that does not set a cut-off age for students to earn a high school diploma, leaving it up to local school systems to decide. The Boston School Committee passed a policy in 1999 that calls for ejecting students from high school on their 22nd birthday. At the time that policy was passed, Boston had more than 1,000 students over the age of 20, with immigrant students making up a large portion of the over-20 population.

There are 1,525 firefighters in the Boston Fire Department.

Firefighter recruits can apply starting at the age of 19 and must be younger than 32 on the day they take their exam.

There are nine female governors in the United States, including Janet Mills of Maine and Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island. Also, there are now 127 women in Congress.

Authorities in Iran are preparing to block access to Instagram, extending their crackdown on social media to the only major platform still freely available. Instagram would join Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram in being banned ostensibly for reasons of national security.

MAC doesn’t want to leave the other Boston paper out of the loop, so the Boston Herald reported, according to columnist Howie Carr, that Governor Charlie Baker, with his $100,000 raise in salary and benefits, is now one of the highest paid governors in the United States. Baker’s base pay increased from $151,800 to $185,000.

Amazon, which owns the Whole Foods grocery chain, is planning to expand the number of stores and may add gas stations in 2019. It is also looking into experimenting with entirely cashier-less grocery stores.

According to the Boston Herald, the new minimum wage requirement that has taken effect in Massachusetts and 19 other states has caused fast food restaurants, pharmacies, and big box stores to invest in automated self-serve technology to replace as many workers as possible.

The 2018 $11 hourly minimum wage climbed to $12 an hour on January 1, 2019, and will continue to increase in 75-cent annual increments until it reaches $15 in 2023; i.e., in 2020 it will be $12.75; in 2021, $13.50; 2022, $14.25; and 2023, $15.

New York City has raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour as of December 31, 2018. This is the sixth time New York’s minimum wage has risen since 2013 when it was $7.25 per hour.

CHS seniors Maggie Malloy and sophomore Maria Femia were named to the Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Girls Field Hockey Team. Both players helped drive Canton (15-4-1) to the Division 1 south quarterfinals, losing to eventual state champ Somerset-Berkley’s coed team.

Erin Devine, Canton’s 6’3” senior middle blocker, and senior setter Nicole Brown were both named to the Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Girls Volleyball Team.

Canton High School placed two seniors on the Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Boys Soccer Team: Griffin Roach and Paul Corcoran, who led the Bulldogs (10-5-4) to the Division 2 south playoffs.

Aiden Sprague, a 6’2” senior at the Blue Hills Regional Technical High School in Canton, also made the Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Boys Soccer Team. Aiden was the MVP of the Mayflower Athletic Conference Large Vocational Division. He set the school’s record for career goals with 80.

Sarah Collins, a 5’4” CHS senior, was named to the Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Girls Soccer Team. She led the Bulldogs to a spot in the Division 2 south playoffs.

Robie Peter, principal of the Dean S. Luce Elementary School, will retire at the end of the school year in June after 32 years of service.

Will Theodore, son of Selectman Tom Theodore, was recently appointed as a full-time Canton police officer.

Selectmen recently appointed three new Canton firefighters: Mike White, Ryan Gormley, and Justin Tilley.

Selectmen recently accepted several donations and payments, including $18,750 from Outfront Media for quarterly use of the I-95 billboard and $10,000 from the Simoni Foundation for design, fabrication, and installation of interpretive signage at the Paul Revere Heritage Site. The Simoni Foundation also donated $6,800 to fund live training for the Canton Fire Department’s new recruits and $8,000 to the Canton Police Department for the K-9 Riggs fund. Selectmen also accepted two $500 donations from Pulse Systems to the police and fire departments and $100 from Barry and Judith Teplow to the Canton Police Department for the K-9 fund.

We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities. –Josh Waitzkin

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

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

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