I was very pleased to swear in Dan Riordan as the newest member of the Melrose Police Department today. Dan was born in Melrose and attended Melrose High School, where he played on the basketball team and was co-captain of the baseball team. After graduating in 2011, he attended Bridgewater State College, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice in 2015. Dan worked for Melrose Public Works as a teenager and later worked for Mount Hood. He attended the NECC Police Academy in Haverhill. He is the first member of his family to work in law enforcement.
Last week we had our annual Kindergarten Welcome Party to welcome the Class of 2030 to the Melrose schools. Thanks to the Melrose High School athletic teams and Color Guard, who joined our younger students for the event. It was a great success! The traditional class picture is above—you can click to enlarge it—and you can get a larger version by e-mailing my assistant, Brigid Alverson, at balverson@cityofmelrose.org.
The solar eclipse will take place this afternoon. Please be safe and don’t look directly at it. Regular sunglasses will not protect your eyes. Here is some important information from the Mass Consumer Affairs Blog:
It’s not an old wives tale – staring at the sun is harmful to your eyes. If you’re one of the millions of people excited to see the coast-to-coast solar eclipse on August 21st, make sure you protect yourself and use specialized sunglasses.
Special-purpose solar filters, such as “eclipse glasses” or handheld solar viewers, are designed to allow you to watch the eclipse without damaging your eyes. However, a significant amount of counterfeit sunglasses are hitting the market ahead of the eclipse and it’s important you know how to tell the difference!
According to the American Astronomical Society (AAS), consumers can no longer just look for the logo of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and a label indicating that the product meets the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard for filters for direct viewing of the sun’s bright face as some fakes have been simply printing the logo and phony safety labels onto their products. These products will not protect your eyes and could potentially harm your eyes to the point of causing blindness
The AAS offers a list of reputable vendors on their website and consumers can purchase online. The issue has become so widespread that Amazon has cracked down on counterfeit sellers, refunding customers who bought glasses that don’t meet safety standards and sending out emails recommending that customers do not use certain products to view the eclipse.
If you want to watch the eclipse, do it safely. Never look directly at the sun. Consumers should use glasses that meet approval from the AAS, view the eclipse through pinhole projection, or watch it on the television!
If you have additional questions, contact the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation by calling our Consumer Hotline at (617) 973-8787, or toll-free in MA at (888) 283-3757, Monday through Friday, from 9 am-4:30 pm. Follow the Office on Facebook and Twitter, @Mass_Consumer. The Baker-Polito Administration’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation along with its five agencies work together to achieve two goals: to protect and empower consumers through advocacy and education, and to ensure a fair playing field for Massachusetts businesses. The Office also oversees the state’s Lemon Laws, data breach reporting, Home Improvement Contractor Programs and the state’s Do Not Call Registry.
Recording the podcast with MSO members Priscilla Hunt and John Bumstead, longtime supporter Jim Oosterman, general manager Jessi Eisdorfer, conductor Yoichi Udagawa, and Board President Kathy Radley
Next week we will be starting a new feature: A podcast about interesting aspects of Melrose. We recorded our first one yesterday, with members and supporters of the Melrose Symphony Orchestra: General Manager Jessi Eisdorfer, Conductor Yoichi Udagawa, MSO Board President Kathy Radley, MSO members Priscilla Hunt and John Bumstead, and longtime supporter Jim Oosterman. The Symphony will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year with a free outdoor Pops concert on September 9. We’ll post the podcast next week. Stay tuned!
While I was at the Farmers’ Market last week I met Andie Ettenberg and Gavin Chaires of the Collar Club, who were collecting donations of clean, used sheets, blankets, towels, and other linens for dogs at the MSPCA at Nevins Farm in Methuen. Last week they raised $100 and collected enough linens to fill two minivans. If you missed them, you can still drop off donations at 43 Stratford Road or 152 Trenton Street—and check out the Collar Club Facebook Page for more news and information!
I was happy to be at the Sally Frank’s Farmers’ Market last week to help celebrate Farmers Market Week with Market Manager Julie Unger and Market Coordinator Jeffrey Lounsbury. The Farmers’ Market has really grown and now offers more choices than ever before—fresh, local fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, baked goods, and handcrafted items. In addition, there are different activities every week—music, yoga and exercise classes, children’s activities, and more! Check out the website for up-to-date information on what’s going on this week, and head down to the market tomorrow—it runs from 2-7 p.m. every Thursday through October 26.
Lieutenant Colonel and firefighter Bob Driscoll, chairman of the Melrose Veterans Advisory Board, came by to thank the students for their work.
Over the summer, a group of high school interns were busy in City Hall with a very important project: Keeping alive the memory of Melrosians who served in the armed forces in World War II,
Under the supervision of Melrose High School history teacher Lisa Lord, who also oversees the Melrose Veterans Memory Project, the students are compiling a database of Melrose residents who served during the war and writing biographies that will be posted on the Memory Project website.
The students began by researching the 100 soldiers on the World War II Honor Roll, which commemorates those who died in the conflict. “We started by taking a group of students to the Gene Room at the library to try to find information, particularly high school yearbook records for those individuals,” Lord said. While they were poring through the old yearbooks, the students were also learning about the local history resources available in the library, she pointed out. “In the process of looking things up, they would see something and it would spark their curiosity,” she said, and some of them went on to do further research and share it with the group.
The students also saw that many students who were listed in the yearbooks as freshmen, sophomores, and juniors were not there their senior years. “The question became, did they leave school to go to war?” Lord said. Indeed, in many cases, that is what happened.
In addition to the biographies of individual soldiers, the students are also compiling a database of every Melrose resident who served in World War II, working from records that are currently kept on index cards. “In the long run, we would like it to be searchable,” Lord said, “and eventually we will link it to copies of documents from our files as well as photos and other information we find through our research. We would like to do this not just for casualties but for everyone who served, and create a publicly available database that students can use for school research and historians, family members, and friends of the family can use to learn more about that person’s service.”
I want to thank all the interns who came to City Hall this summer. This is just one of the many projects they worked on, while learning job skills and earning community service hours. The work they do really makes a difference for us, and I hope it was a good experience for them as well.
One of this year’s Junior Police Academy classes, holding a flag that was used by the Melrose Junior Police in the 1970s.
Over 100 Melrose youths aged 8 to 13 took part in this year’s Junior Police Academy, which the Melrose Police Department offered for the fourth summer in a row. The one-week class, organized by Sgt. Chuck Byrne, School Resource Officer Jimmy Applegate, and Patrolman Al Brown, has become so popular that police now run three sessions.
“It’s an investment in the youth in this community,” says Brown. “It lets them know they can talk to us and that we are approachable.”
Each day starts with physical training, followed by classes on topics such as K-9 policing, motorcycle policing, patrol procedures, and detective work, taught by members of the Melrose Police Department; the Melrose Alliance Against Violence also helps out with information on bullying and cyber-bullying. Some of the students who have taken the course in the past return to do it again or to help out as squad leaders—that gives them an opportunity to take on a leadership role, Brown says—or as volunteers.
“It’s very refreshing for us because we generally don’t get to meet the average person, so now we are meeting them on a different level—we are being involved with educating them,” he says. “It’s a great experience for everyone involved in the program.”
Last week, Brown was riding his motorcycle down the Lynn Fells Parkway when he encountered a school bus filled with campers—some of whom were his former students. “I’m hearing “Hi Officer Brown!” he said. “That’s huge. These kids are growing up, and hopefully these are 100 kids who will be making better decisions down the road.”
I want to commend the Melrose Police Department and the officers involved in this outstanding program. It shows clearly the Melrose Police Department’s commitment to our youth with innovative programs that educate our children and are an investment in deterring crime in the future. Thank you Sgt. Byrne, Officers Brown and Applegate, and Chief Lyle for your leadership and commitment to our children!
Junior Police Academy students do PT under the supervision of Officer Nik MacIntoshJPA students learn about motorcycle policing from Officer Al Brown
Crews are continuing to work seven days a week on the expansion of the Winthrop and Hoover schools and the renovation of the Horace Mann. We have seen about 15 weeks of work done in a 10-week span, and crews continue to work aggressively toward the first day of school on August 30. We look forward to a grand opening and an exciting new start to the 2017-2018 school year. Enjoy the final two weeks of your summer vacation!
Horace Mann
Kindergarten 1 ClassroomKindergarten 2 ClassroomNew front entrance and administrative suiteLibraryMusic and Art Room
Winthrop
Kindergarten 1 ClassroomKindergarten 2 ClassroomAdditional playground areaAddition and entrance area
Hoover
Addition and entrance areaKindergarten 1 ClassroomKindergarten 2 ClassroomKindergarten 3 ClassroomCity Planner Denise Gaffey and Architect Charlie Hay of Tappé Architects survey the work at the Hoover School
Mayor Infurna's Blog 