Walpole Planning Board Master Plan Meetings
The planning board is launching a series of meetings to review and perhaps adjust Walpole's master land-use plan. Several reasons have been cited for the review, including growth pressures, the need to strengthen the tax base, increasing economic pressures squeezing the town's farms and open space, and the need to review and possibly revise our zoning regulations. The public meetings to review the plan probably will be held as planning board work sessions on the fourth Tuesdays of the months ahead, but that arrangement isn't set. Other meetings might supplement or replace those sessions.
As part of THIS Tuesday's regular monthly meeting--7:30 p.m. at Town Hall--the planning board will discuss how to proceed with the review including the need to elicit and include a range of views from Walpole's residents.
Please consider taking part. The more people who attend these meetings, the wider the range of views that will be represented, and the more accurately the resulting master plan will reflect the wants and needs of the town.
Paquette Speaks to Walpole Leadership Academy Session
Lt. Michael Paquette, second in command of the Walpole Police Department, gave an excellent talk Saturday morning to the Walpole Leadership Academy on the organization and activities of the department. Paquette reported on rising rates of crime in and around Walpole and the number of serious crimes in 2006. He also explained how the Walpole force of three full-time and six part-time officers are organized and respond to calls for police assistance. The Leadership Academy, sponsored by the Walpole Grange, the Walpole American Legion Post and the Walpole Foundation, has five more sessions over the next two months and a closing dinner for faculty and participants with Dr. Helen A. Giles-Gee, President of Keene State College, as the speaker in April.
New Ramp at Burdick's Grocery
Did you notice that Burdick's Grocery yesterday installed an attractive, custom-designed ramp to enable customers to enter the store more easily? The ramp, designed and built by Bob Taylor of Alstead, fits with existing iron railings.