Town Of Alford

Another Fall has come to our town. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the beautiful Fall colors will be showing - reminding us all once again of how great it is to live in the countryside, especially Alford.
  
The Summer has allowed much progress on our expansion project at the Fire Station. The addition is almost complete, leaving only the roof to be finished. All has gone reasonably well, except that an inspection of the roof on the older section led to the discovery of ants, so additional work - and expense - will be needed to remedy the problem. We still anticipate completion by late Fall, however.
 
Unfortunately, there has been no news regarding the Alford Road bridge repair. We have not been able to get a date from the State as to when they may begin working on it, and the outlook doesn’t look good - given the present economic situation. We’ll keep “nagging” them and hope to have better news by the next newsletter.   Speaking of the economy, we are already working on next year’s town budget and anticipate increases due to the increased costs of everything. We’re committed to maintaining services but will try to keep the costs down as much as possible.

While I’ll leave your vote for presidential candidates to your own judgement, I would like to recommend a “No” vote on Question 1 on the state ballot. It deals with the elimination of the Massachusetts income tax. While it may sound tempting to try to do this, it is my belief (and the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s) that it will simply shift the tax burden from the wage earner to the property tax payer. It will mean a 40 % decrease in tax revenues for the State. In order to continue to pay its bills, it will cut back on funds and services it sends to the towns, forcing the towns to increase Real Estate taxes to continue to provide its services. That could cause cuts in school funding, road (and bridge) construction, etc.

On a more positive note, the November elections will also allow you to cast your votes (again) for School Committee Representatives in our School District. Thanks to a “grass roots” voter initiative which was successfully passed (with the support of the Alford Board of Selectmen) last spring, we feel this is a major improvement over the practice of appointment by the selectmen which has been the practice in the recent past. While Alford’s Board has encouraged our representative to vote their own conscience, other boards have not always. We feel this change will guarantee that they represent the best interests of the voters and children of our town. As an added bonus, you will also get to cast your vote for representatives from other towns, so your vote will potentially carry more weight.
    
Finally, we’d like to thank all the citizens of our town that give of their time and energy to help by serving on its committees and boards. Each of them contribute to making Alford the beautiful place it is to live in.     In particular, we’d like to thank two new members of our Cemetery Commission, Tim Drumm and Judy Durlack, who have been taking inventory of existing cemeteries, to assess just what is available and what is needed to meet our future needs. They have put a moratorium on the sale of new plots until they can verify what we have left. They are also looking into availability of additional land for expansion.
    

And finally, we’d like to thank our hard working road crew, Road Superintendant “Monty” Green and his assistant, Rich Robarge, for their continued dedication and quality of the work they do keeping our town in such fine shape for all of us to enjoy. Their commitment shows that they care as much for our town as we all do.   Best wishes to you all for beautiful folliage and a mild winter. May we all enjoy minimal fuel costs!!   

Charlie Ketchen, Chair
Alford Board of Selectmen