Each week, City Manager Tom Aspell builds a State House dome out of charcoal briquettes and douses it with two bottles of lighter fluid in hopes of cooking up some tasty kangaroo dogs. The Concord Fire Department responds promptly to the inevitable blaze and douses it with fire extinguishers, spelling out the city memo in life-saving foam. We stopped by for some leftovers and translated it for you.
House party
Check out these new digs
The Parks and Recreation Department will hold an open house June 26 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the new community center on the Heights (formerly Dame School), located at 14 Canterbury Road, Aspell writes.
Members of the public and City Council are invited to come in for tours, face painting and to sign up for summer programs. We’d like to sign up for the summer program where we get to paint the faces of City Councilors.
Concord TV and East Concord Preschool will also be giving tours of their new spaces in the community center. Arnie’s Place will be on site providing free ice cream to all in attendance. Well, representatives or Arnie’s Place will be on hand. The actual restaurant will still be on Loudon Road.
Getting buckets
Hoops court gets facelift
The Frank Monahan Foundation and Rock On Foundation recently donated more than $9,000 to the Parks & Recreation Department to improve the basketball courts at White Park, Aspell writes. Does that mean there’s going to be a Jumbotron??!!
The new backboards at the park have been installed and are ready for use. Luke Bonner of the Rock On Foundation and Marshall Crane of the Frank Monohan Foundation delivered the donations to Parks & Recreation Director David Gill.
Take it Easement
Farms are still farmy
In the fall of 2011, Hope Zanes Butterworth (best name ever?) promised that, if the city approved funding for the Maplewood Farm Conservation Project, she would donate a 15.67-acre conservation easement on her neighboring farm, which is also on Stickney Hill Road, Aspell writes.
Last Wednesday, Butterworth fulfilled her promise and signed the documents that will forever preserve her property – like Twinkies! The conservation easement is now held by Five Rivers, with an executory interest to the city. Executory interest is slightly more binding than casual interest. Butterworth’s farm joins with Maplewood Farm in preserving the open space and history of the Stickney Hill Road neighborhood.
Give the gift of gifts
Report: People still nice
The Concord Human Services Department was the beneficiary of two donations this month, Aspell writes.
The department thanks the Unitarian Benevolent Association – the more famous of the two UBAs, the other being the Underwater Boating Association – for a generous donation that targets assisting teens at Christmas, an important cause, because the department often finds it has fewer age-appropriate gifts for teens at that time of year. The Unitarian Benevolent Association has been helping out agencies that serve families in this community for more than 150 years, since the first season of American Idol.
Additionally, staff of the Children’s Medicaid Unit delivered a very large food donation to the department’s pantry. (Well, we presume it had to enter the building through the front door first). This came at a great time, as food donations often diminish during the warmer weather, although the demand does not. The department thanks the thoughtful employees for the generous and timely donation. It is also important to once again give kudos to the Capital Region Food Program and Temple Beth Jacob, who both provide supplies for the department’s pantry on a monthly basis. Pantry shelves would not be stocked without this support.
