For most members of this graduating class, Monday’s triumphant ceremony marked the end of an arduous journey, one that required them to overcome many obstacles along the way. On a still-sunny early evening in the packed garden of the Plymouth Public Library, 14 students received diplomas for having passed the General Educational Development test, or […]
Author Archives: Fred Thys - Independent Staff
Posted inCulture
Committee balks at acknowledging the Wampanoag tribe was here first
A proposal to acknowledge the Wampanoag people as the original inhabitants of Plymouth has met with skepticism from some members of the Plymouth Committee of Precinct Chairs. The committee voted 14 to 4 on June 20 to send town counsel Kate McKay a proposed statement acknowledging that the town encompasses what was once Wampanoag land. […]
Posted inCulture
With full fanfare, a topping off at the Spire Center
The wind was blowing from the north-northwest at The Spire Center downtown on Friday afternoon, and for the first time in a long while, people walking by could use the weathervane atop it to determine its direction. To the tune of Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” blaring from loudspeakers at street level, Ricky Lynn placed […]
Posted inGovernment
Community Preservation Committee wastes no time in moving on
Two days after the Select Board voted not to reappoint Bill Keohan and Allen Hemberger to the Community Preservation Committee, the newly formed lineup did not wait for the two men’s terms to end June 30 before electing architect Bill Fornaciari as its new chair. Former fire chief Edward Bradley was elected vice chair […]
Posted inGovernment
Keohan ousted from Community Preservation Committee
The Select Board on Tuesday voted to remove Bill Keohan from the Community Preservation Committee, which he has chaired since its inception in 2002. It also ousted committee member Allen Hemberger, a supporter of what Keohan has characterized as an effort to keep recommendations on spending Community Preservation funds independent of town politics. They were […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Discolored and smelly. That’s how some Ponds of Plymouth residents describe their water.
Celeste Harrington, a Ponds of Plymouth resident since 2003, remembers when the water was fine. “Until Aquarion,” she said. “You could drink it out of the faucet. It tasted good.” Now, however, her water is “sometimes brown,” Harrington said, and “it always smells like bleach.” Other residents of the massive South Plymouth subdivision say […]
Posted inGovernment
New committee will weigh where Plymouth’s wastewater should end up
The Select Board Tuesday selected six members for a committee that will advise it on a proposal to discharge treated wastewater at Camelot Park instead of in the harbor, where most of it goes now. Joshua Bows, Mark Champagne, Bill Doyle, Martin Enos, Rose Forbes, and Hampton Watkins were selected from a pool of 11 […]
Posted inEducation
Rising Tide aviation students have higher aspirations
In a hangar at Plymouth Municipal Airport, students from Rising Tide Charter Public School were pushing and pulling a Piper Cherokee onto three scales, one for each of the plane’s landing gears. “We spend a lot of time on the weighing of planes,” said Jack Connolly, a junior. Planes are weighed to make sure they […]
Posted inGovernment
Who really cares about a town election?
The anemic 13 percent turnout for last Saturday’s town election was no outlier. While this year’s annual election largely lacked drama – there was just one candidate for Select Board, arguably the town’s most powerful committee – it’s probably not the prime reason why people didn’t bother to vote. Most years since 2013 – […]
Posted inGovernment
As Harry Helm prepares to leave Plymouth, he worries about the town’s future
Harry Helm’s long connection to the Plymouth area is about to become a long-distance relationship. After 30 years of living in town and 11 serving in local government, Helm is moving to Maryland with his husband, Tom. But leaving isn’t easy. Had he decided to stay in Plymouth, Helm says, he would have run […]