And welcome once again to the Talk of the towns program. I'm Lee Kaiser, your host, and, uh, as is our customer, I'll begin the program with a short, uh, running and what's happening in the two towns and stuff like that, and, uh, then we'll spend some time talking to our guests, and we actually

do have a guest, uh, for this program. So anyways, on and off to what's going on in the towns and uh. It appears that the single fountain that we have upon is just not really working that well as far as controlling the weed population. That was one of the reasons they wanted to put the thing

in, uh, and at this point in talking to some of the people involved in the uh. DPW, they're not sure whether a second fountain would help but control it or not, but, uh, and also the comment I get from the head man at that department as well, uh, we'd like to buy one

but you know how the budgets are in the town. So one of the things that has been suggested that citizens can do, they can actually donate money for uh. Uh, to that department maybe pick up a 2nd or 3rd fountain even, but, uh, something's got to be done because that pond is

turning slowly green, and that was one of the reasons they spent thousands of dollars cleaning it up so we shall see what happens. And another item that uh a lot of motors were noticing that uh Route 1A is really not the greatest place to ride bikes and uh for joggers and uh. With the traffic, uh, not going

down Highland State anymore, um. Because of the bridge being out, that means extra traffic, and yet the bis considered to be out there. I know it's a short way to distance, so to speak, to get between two points, uh, but, uh, and as far as joggers, I think they take their life in their hands.

I know people like to exercise and ride bikes, but, uh, I wish in some ways they could take a little different route to go on. And uh maybe the boys in blue need to check them every so often as they're driving down that street and kind of warn some of the people, especially the bikers that only congregate

in twos and threes. And uh I did get another call from a gentleman who we talked, read about the story in the local papers about uh the city of Beverly taking over the school committee and the control of it and maybe running their budget instead of making it a separate issue and he wondered why they couldn't do

that and how the Wha but uh as I explained to him I said actually in Hamilton and Wenham, uh, the school committee is actually considered one of the town departments and there is control. And recently the selectmen did convene a so-called board I guess you would call it, of the uh selectmen school folks and

the finance board to work out some kind of a budget, uh, acceptable budget for the towns, although as the caller stated to me later when I talked to about this. Well, this group was charged with coming up on acceptable budget. How come we had another override? Well, he seemed to feel that other departments that have to

live with the increase. Uh, budget, uh, why is one department such as the schools allowed not to fall off the roof? I've heard this comments over the past years. If the schools ran as a business, it would be bankrupt in less than a year. Well, that's something we'd have to look into, but, uh, I

think the school boards trying to come up as much as they can and keep things moving without spending a lot of money. That's up to them. OK, uh, I think that's enough items on here and our guest this evening it was Bill Nichols, uh, it's kind of a How shall I say, have a varied role.

Uh, he's on the Wyndham town building committee, uh, member of the vocational school, uh school committee, and he's also the publisher of a biweekly newspaper, so. Uh, which one we talk about, I don't know, but I guess the important thing right and not important, but the ones to hear about is the town hall project.

Uh, what's the status on the thing? Is it, aren't they doing renovations this week or tearing the inside out, or, well, it's moving right ahead. Um, in fact, we just had a meeting last night and hopefully they'll be starting what they're gonna do, we're doing is we're going to.

Completely gut the building right at the moment um we feel that's really gonna help a lot when we go out actually for the construction bids because people will be able to see what's there rather than having it behind all the walls and everything's moving ahead. The architects coming in next week with some more.

Levels to look at and so uh hopefully we're gonna get there. The comment that I've heard from several, um, I'll call them townies or whatever as well when they strip the thing, it'll probably go like that. uh, well, there's another reason to do it just to find out. That was always some of the comments in the past.

I know when they talked about either tearing it down or renovating or something like that. Well, when you start working in an old building, you went into all kinds of unexpected stuff. And I know that was a big argument for quite a while about uh doing anything on the town hall, you know, other than

just cutting it down and starting again, but, uh, apparently all I hopefully that's down the road someplace. Well, they've the consultants or architects have looked at the building and they feel it's very, very solid, um, so as soon as we can get it cleared out, we'll keep moving ahead.

Is there any timetable as far as or is this one of those things uh, well, we're moving real fast. We're bringing on a project manager hopefully within the near future, which is required by the state and. We want to turn the first shovel, I guess sometime this fall.

Uh, and as well I know there was some talk about the police station that seemed to come up with, wow, why are you putting up on the second floor? Why are you putting it here? Why are you putting in there in there. I think that is something that's hopefully has been worked out.

There's gonna be as of right now, the plans call for a brand new police station right behind where the existing police station is, and the chief seems to think it's gonna be a fine facility for the for the police. I don't know what the argument, I never really could figure out

what the argument was about putting on the second floor, but uh. That was the plan that before the town reevaluated and voted again to keep the town hall as it was and renovate it rather than basically rebuilding it, um. So now the plan's back to keep the town hall and build a police station.

I know there was the top there that says I think somebody didn't like the fact the way the porch was up front or they put a temporary plan showed a porch or something they said that wasn't where it belonged and I think once that's once again the old plan, not the committee as direction from the

selectmen, uh, direction from the selectmen in the town. We've got a plan that. Strangely enough, all the departments in town seem to think looks great. Finally, I mean, we begin to wonder for all this this was gonna be that ongoing saga I talked about in my column a couple times.

Well, here's the ongoing saga of the town hall, and uh right now I, I think that the answer is yes, it's over, this is what we're doing, that's it, which is great. Uh, is there anything changed as far as I know the location of the police station, but as far as any of the so-called

plans they had or they sticking with the one that seems to me I saw an original plan someplace. I don't know what plans you're talking about. The ones that the previous plan is not what's in effect. We've got, we're gonna, um, renovate the town hall, and we're gonna make everything just fine and dandy, I hope,

and there's gonna be a the as I said, a brand new police station, and it should work out very well for everybody but, uh, I know there seems to be. Uh, not that it really got much of effect on you, but the, I know the fire departments have a little problem with their building.

It seems that the ladder truck doesn't, uh, quite fit in there, that they're brand new one. Well, that I haven't heard. Um, we're not charged with

00:08:38,529	the police because I was the chief the other day. Oh, so you get your new ladder truck. Well, uh. I guess the height was supposed to be something like 9 ft and 8 inches or something like that because of the thing and the thing show and the truck shows up and it's got a plate on it

and it says 10 ft and so many so they've been talking about either doing the whole building or I don't know how that's gonna work out, but uh I don't know. I'm glad that you're probably glad I'm not on that committee. Oh, I can volunteer for it though, but anyways, that's good, uh, and.

What about uh as far as the uh vocational school, uh, what's going on there? Well, we're in the process of trying to develop a new school and merge with Essex Aggie and bring in the PeaBD Vocational school, and if we can build it, it's going to be a. An amazing facility.

The existing vocational school or technical high school is really too small to serve the needs of the 16 communities that are the members. Um, as an example, we don't have a plumbing course which to me in a technical vocational school, not having a having plumbing is extremely difficult, but we have no room

to go anywhere, um, building the new school, the programs that are gonna be able to be offered. Uh, it's just gonna be amazing, I think, and as of right now we can hold about 400, right around 450 students, the new school, if they build it, if we're able to build it and it

all comes down to funding, we'll be able to take somewhere between 12 and 1300 students. Oh, double the triple. Oh yeah, that's great cause I have a, uh, more than a pass interest in vocational schools. My son, uh, graduated from the, uh, one in Beverly. And as a carpenter and in fact he was working even before he

graduated, and that's what he's done all his life and he always attribute uh the fact that he went to that school to learn how to build houses because that's one of the things they do in Beverly is build a house every year and uh He said that's, that's where all my information came from and now

of course he's learning now over the years, you know, but uh, he said this vocational schools what did it. He came to us and I think it was the 9th grade and says, look, I'm not an A student, he says, I'm a C student, and, uh,

I don't think I'll ever get any better than that, but he says I'd like to go to the vocational school and it was the best move that we we all have made, I guess, which is great. So when they talk about. Vocational schools, I think they're wonderful.

Well, yeah, the problem is, you know, people think of it as they don't think of it as highly as going to the regular high school, but you still have to get all the subjects and everything. You have to do twice as much. You have to do the coursework and you have to do the shop

work and we have students coming out of there going right into very good paying jobs. Um, the training is excellent and the support of the local businesses. You know, something we you might not really think about, but the automotive companies that are stressing, you know, they're they're putting in equipment they're developing,

helping develop programs Cisco Networks put in a networking center to train so to train people in how to run computer networks, and it's, it's really a good education and it's a really a good school. At least in my opinion, yeah, well, as I say, you got my vote.

I know that speaking of that, some of the people, uh, in the different towns say, how come it's cost us so much money and, uh, hey, everything is going up. Well, it's not necessarily that and the cost is is completely understandable, but. We're right, it's about $14,000 give or take this year per per

student and I'm just using that number as the average overall and if you think of it, we're not only running a school like the Hamilton Wanham Regional High School where, you know, it's about $7500 I think. OK, so we're running that school. We're also running a full shop school which has frame straighteners. We have the electrical programs.

And in order to be the requirements are very strict as to who can instruct it, the the background and. In order to be able to provide the programs, it does cost more. We're basically running two full schools rather than one to the benefit of each student. Yeah, no, I remember when, uh, my son was in school, his

teachers, uh, uh, gentlemen have been in the carpenting business all their life, the union members and stuff like that, and, uh, but they wanted to help the kids. They want to see this thing coming along and, uh, which is great. Oh, that's good. As I say, there seem to be kind of the gray area every time

somebody mention vocational school. Oh, I don't know why should we pay for that type of thing, you know, I bet most of the people in town don't even know where it is. That's what I mean

00:13:42,500	and I know a couple of times that it's ups and oh they're just sending us a little bill. Why should we pay that, you know, we're already paying for the schools and Hamilton did have quite a um. Increase in the student population and it's based on

the number of students that you send to the school and I think the reason that. Hamilton had the increases more students are interested in a vocational background, uh, vocational training. So as the more students went, I think Hamilton's up to like 12 or 13. I'm not really sure the cost goes up.

Yeah, oh yeah, uh, and because they say vocational school, and I say, well, what's that, what about the girls? Well, they're there too. I was just gonna say because they're teaching, I know, beauty stuff like that and, uh, I don't know that type of work and uh well, the culinary arts department is very big there too yeah.

And the funny part is they're finding every so often they go into an automotive place and here's some girl working on a car. I mean, she's a, it isn't the case anymore. The boys do this and the girls do that type of thing, so, which is great. And OK, one of the.

Things, uh, that, that, uh, I know you're involved in quite a bit is, uh, doing newspaper. Well, I put out a little paper. It's called the Planet North Shore, um, which started off as a hobby because I had some free time. And now I do 9000 copies every other week and it pretty much

covers the North Shore starting a rally going down to Marblehead and Danvers all the way out to Cape Ann out to Rockport and Gloucester, and it's been an awful lot of fun. I, I wanna take it to the next level, but, uh, with the grand number of employees of one, it's a little, it's a little

there's only so many hours in the day in the week and the month and. We're a little undercapitalized I guess is the saying would be so trying to move forward, um, getting your having being having the opportunity to publish your column is great. I'd love to have somebody in each one of the towns we

service that would write that type of a column because then we could have a real newspaper that.

00:15:51,370	Excuse me, that would provide interest to people all around and plus I wouldn't mind reading about what's going on Salem or somebody from somebody that's just, you know, taking the attitude of, OK, they did a good job cleaning the streets doesn't always have to be horrible news. It can be good news.

Well, that was one of the reasons that, uh, I was writing, uh, years ago before we well we asked what this program kind of went defunct, so to speak, when Comcast didn't bother supply anymore. Help and stuff like that, so we went off the air and I switched

the writing for the uh that weekly paper and uh because the daily paper and the weekly paper really didn't cover stuff and they didn't cover like you say, the so-called. Stuff over here someplace they come about oh they want news like murders and suicides and fires and stuff like that and

yeah what about uh well the thing I just talked about here about uh Weaver Pond and stuff like that because people said hey, what's going on with that pond they spent thousands of dollars. Why is it turning green? And uh things like that and the uh little things going on like the pile of dirt is behind the

police and fire station in Hamilton. I don't know if you've noticed it but it's about an 80 ft pile of loom sitting out there now because it's stripping everything to put the new building in and uh people, what are you doing that for? So you put that stuff in the cold. And the thing that uh.

I guess that's why your paper that I've probably heard about, uh, and I told you about that, well, the only hard news is my call. If you want to call my name hard news, so. And I think the other comment would be they like to see

something on out letters to the editor, so maybe they can but I know it's the difficulty in publishing letters to the editor is I have to get some. that's very good. I know. I have plugged it a couple of times in the past, but we maybe do some more plug in on the thing.

But uh no, I'd be happy to because I mean those those are the things that are of interest to people and you know the paper just keeps growing. My very first issue I did 700 copies and I'm up to 9000 and It's not the type of paper that people are really pick up, but

once they do pick it up, they pick it up every single issue they're looking for it at that point. I every once in a while with weather or something, I'll be a day late getting the paper distributed. I got telephone calls. That was the scariest part when I found out because I always

write a bunch of things that are of interest to me. And that was the scary part when I found people actually read it, you know, OK, OK, well, funny I'll give you a Last night we were open, we were trying to find a place to prime example.

00:18:33,400	eat because uh all the moving our kids and stuff like that going to Florida, so we went up the Northubway to, uh. The pizza place behind the gas station there, Harry's, I think it is, and there's a stack sitting there. So we're sitting there having a pizza and then a couple of women came in. They're walking in.

They're carrying the thing with them. In fact, my wife stopped and talked them and said, Oh, you enjoy. Oh yeah, we read all the time. And well that was my husband, the right to call him just walked out of here, uh. So as I say, I know people are reading oh they do

that's what you're hoping that, uh, as they say, I don't know, you keep plugging at it and hope along the line someplace will read it. I know when I ran the uh. Uh, in the weekly paper, every so often somebody say, hey, I saw that thing about the cow that you had in there or something like that.

Why did you come up with that? I've had the police department a couple of times they asked me about the brown cow I talked about and so we know what people are reading it, so. And it's really popular and I enjoy doing it and plus no matter what I write about or

how I write it, it always gets published.

00:19:41,470	I think you know somebody on the staff as they say, yeah, the management, yeah. I know I was kind of surprised when I, you know, first got involved and I'm thinking what's your background? I don't have 10, that's nice because usually somebody does the newspapers either well like I did work for most of my life

in the newspaper business and you figure, OK, this is going to be a different side of it. And uh well, it was just like the gentleman that you mentioned to me, Frank Gard. Uh, as far as he's concerned, I was a photographer. And yeah, what are you doing?

That was in part because when you worked in newspaper, you had a guild and it says you're a reporter, you're a photographer, you have both. And so you either did one or the other, you couldn't switch them back and forth. So I know I've run in a couple of people that either the Salem

News or the item that And you say, what are you doing? It's still photography. Yeah, but I'm writing more. What are you doing writing for? That's not your background and. I grew up in it. My father wrote stuff like that in the newspaper and I was involved in the newspaper business all his life, so I

could just came natural and I can sit and and uh write stuff, take 2 or 3 items and. That's one thing you learn about in the column a lot of times. Well, I got to get 1000 words. Well, I can, I can start doing this stuff, you know, and I can pad it.

You learn how to stretch things very quickly. I just make the fonts bigger. And uh Oh, it's, uh, it's, I think it's a need. Let's put it that way, and that's why I write the column anyways. I think there's a need in the towns so to put in the stuff

that the other papers don't for some reason don't want to cover and, uh, as I mentioned to you, especially when I see the daily paper and I pick it up to read the column and all there is is names for the kids that are honorable, fine, but I don't

think it belongs as the entire uh entire column or something like that. I'll put it as a beside the column or something like that, but. That's a personal opinion in case anybody thinks that shouldn't have the kid's name in there. I think they do, but as I say, there's also stuff going on in the town.

um. Any other comments you'd like to make or anything like that, uh, as far as what's going on or anything you'd like to bring up? I've lived in town all my life and I'm fascinated by what goes on in it. Um, I'd like to see more people get involved in the town

because it seems to be pretty a lot of times the same people are always volunteering their time and. The more people that are involved, especially in a small town, the more they can get it can get accomplished, and it's, it's actually kind of a lot of fun. But it is time consuming. Well, we discovered that, um.

I can remember when my father and mother who uh were here and he got involved in the town uh in the background as he called it, working on committees and stuff like that, and he said this is your way you're kind of give back to the time what they've given you.

And uh when they first started talking about cable, I got on that committee and I spent 15 years on that committee, part of most of us as chairman and uh And that ended and I figured it's time for new blood to get on there and um somebody says well look we got a vacation uh

opening on the housing board, so I've been on there for 7 years and this is the 3rd time I've been chairman. Uh, well, I walked in the town hall a while back, right, we got an opening on the was it disable Access Committee. Good. Now I'm on that.

So it's like I say, I've learned that is one thing you have to watch out for once you volunteer wants, hey. Um, It's like you have to learn to say no.

00:23:23,930	It's, but uh. We saying I forgot one more time I thought we had so. Anyways, no, that's one thing I, let's thank you. I'll see if I can remember that to put up my next column talking about uh volunteering because that's right, uh. And all you got to do sometimes is I know uh every so often I

was plugging, well, some vacancies and the finance board and one on there's something else they had 3 or 4 vacancies. He's got a couple of things. And speaking of that, there's one thing that I don't think people realize that it's still going on is a program for seniors that can work for the town part-time and they got

money taken off up to $750 off of their tax bills and uh. Every time I talk to somebody either town, oh, we still got some openings, we still get openings. I don't know people what the story is, what the hangup is, but. With the bills and stuff like that going up, you don't almost

think, hey, if I can get $750 off my taxes, so I put a few hours a week, big deal. That's one thing I've also discovered that uh um. But you're talking about you're retired. Oh, I got to look at all the time I got. I got less time now than I ever had

and I was working 40 hours a week in the newspaper business and then switching that to the hospital business and uh. Ah yeah, but that's only because when you're working at a regular job, you have a beginning and an ending. When you're working for yourself and doing your own stuff, there is no beginning and no end.

Oh, I know that, but as I say, I don't know, I've

00:25:06,970	seen most of the United States and part of the one of the service and yet. Uh, and people talk about living in the city and so we live in Salem, everything is there, we live in Boston or something like that, but. Uh, I don't know, maybe I was just alarm that it grows on

you, I guess, but I'd rather be living here. I can't think of any other place else. I mean, maybe I'm prejudiced, but yeah, come February I can think of a lot of places, but we've been to Florida and, and I spent some time down there and it's a nice place to visit just like when I was in

the army and I was in Staten Island and it was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live in that area. And talk to my son that's been back and forth to Florida a couple of times and he talks about the traffic and he says forget it, how do people do this?

And so there's a different atmosphere. It's almost like you learn. Things aren't the same if you lived in Salem and you moved to Hamilton or you live in Boston and you move to this town, I don't know, things are done differently. And uh Well, it's, uh, to me it's a nice life, and I used to think

when I worked the newspaper business, politics, oh, there's Saman Pe Beverly come down here. There's more politics in this town. If you're paying attention and people, I don't see any politics, yeah, well, they they uh. And uh so we'll see you're on the building committee. What's your next step? You must be running for something.

No, I, I, I ended up on the regional school committee because I ran for cemetery commissioner and lost, so that's where how I ended up on. I think 2 committees is enough for me at the moment. Yeah, I know, and I figured, well, I get the housing mode that's enough on, uh.

00:26:54,730	That should do it, but the 12 of us being on the housing committee, that meant when the Community preservation Committee came along, guess what, we need somebody from the housing here I am. So now on that committee, but uh that's another thing that I hope we can really start pushing is just uh getting

people to apply for stuff like that and uh. There's money out there and there will be money out there, every single, well, in fact look at in Wha,

00:27:22,000	look at Japan's the town hall, you're using CPA money. Yep, that's part of it, um.

00:27:30,099	And Hopefully we'll be able to use some some of that money every year to pay it down uh it it can help quite a bit. And the thing that we've run across in Hamilton is that Uh, the housing Board has run for some reason these gentlemen in the state house don't get the drift.

Uh, you can't run the same budget year after year after year. We're running on a 02 budget and you can't do that. So, we're trying to figure out how to replace all the kitchen units and stuff like that in the town. We finally had to reapplied for CPA money and the town voted it, so which is great.

But uh I'm not sure how we're doing on time, but uh we're still trying to stretch it a little farther and uh

00:28:20,200	Uh, I don't know of anything else that's going on in the two towns. Uh, it's funny we're talking about the fact that as you get older and how the time fleets, you know, we're talking about July 4th and the next it's going to be Labor Day, and I used to hear my father talking about that.

What are you talking? Of course it doesn't speed up. Well, I'm now at that age and I'm saying, yes, it does, and So you anything else you wanna cover or? I think the CPA's gonna do great for both towns once we I mean, we're both on our first year, I think, aren't we? get used to it.

00:28:56,799	Yeah, funny thing, we kind of screwed it up, uh, on that, and we have to go for another vote in September and to get it legally. We voted for stuff and it was 46. OK, I guess that's going to do it for now and ah thank you

very much for being on the program, and I thank my viewers and we'll be back on sometime shortly and thank you again for watching. That's it. Bye-bye.