I try to do my part.
"Greenfield woman wins Mass. recycling award" January 02, 2012|By Cori Urban
MONTAGUE - The Franklin County Solid Waste Management District assists 22 member towns with trash, recycling, compost, and hazardous waste.
“It helps those towns save money and deal with residents’ hazardous waste, and explores innovative waste diversion techniques such as commercial composting,’’ said Amy B. Donovan, program director for the Franklin County Solid Waste Management District who designs and writes for the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’’ Earth Day newspaper insert that details recycling, composting, and disposal options for western Massachusetts.
Aren't newspapers counterproductive to the environment, especially with all the war lies they been printing?
“Methane coming from food and paper waste in landfills greatly contributes to climate change, and when we compost our food and paper waste we are slowing climate change,’’ she said.
Oh, yeah, that. Tell it to Europe and the rest of the planet, which has been put through the deep freeze this past year. We got lucky up here.
Look, I'm not against the goals per se; I'm just instantly skeptical and suspicious of anything that appears in my paper these days.
Donovan, former cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Working Group Recycling Committee, received the MIT Excellence Award for Creating Connections in 2006.
Related: Out of Hock at M.I.T.
Elitist Globe just digging itself deeper.
A 1989 graduate of Minnechaug Regional High School in Wilbraham, Donovan, now a Greenfield resident, earned a bachelor’s degree in theater from Salem State College in 1996.
A dancer during college and after, Donovan’s dances focused on the environment before she decided to promote care of the environment through direct action....
I'm sure she is a nice girl and all; however, I want to know where the direct action is when it comes to the military machine polluting the planet. Right now that is the biggest polluter, who just so happens to be exempt from all the rules and regulations and potential carbon taxes thrown on to the shoulders of little old over-burdened me here.
Of course, I need to understand the source material I'm dealing with here.
Lessons students in the district learn about recycling and composting percolate up to their parents, Donovan said. “By starting off at such a young age with sustainable practices in daily lives, we can have more of a chance at raising environmentally minded citizens and change the culture. That is what I am trying to do.’’
Others might call it something else entirely.
Hey, I bought into it when I was back in school.
MassRecycle is a coalition dedicated to promoting the environmental, social, and economic benefits created by reducing, reusing, and recycling waste materials and by purchasing recycled products. MassRecycle has been advocating for and educating the public, policymakers, and legislators about waste reduction for more than two decades.
That's the thing about cleaning: it is a never-ending battle.
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Related: Redemption For the Boston Globe
That's the only reason I'm still here.
Hopefully you still have a home to clean 'round h're.
"Home of the housing bust; Central Mass. towns reel; no recovery in sight" February 15, 2012|By Jenifer B. McKim, Globe Staff
ATHOL - How far have home values dropped in this Central Massachusetts town? The answer sounds like the punch line to a joke, but no one is laughing: They’ve eroded so much that you can buy a house for about the cost of a Toyota Camry.
Neither am I since that town is in my county and it's consider a western part of the state.
Sometimes I wonder if the Globe even knows where it is out here, although maybe I am wrong now. Perhaps the words games are correct in a geographic fashion, I dunno.
“If [prices] go much lower, they will be giving them away,’’ said Matt Tarlin, an investor from Needham who has bought three homes in Athol and nearby Orange, where values are similarly depressed, and houses sell for as low as $20,000.
Well, if you are going to give them away I know a lot of foreclosed-upon and homeless folk who could use a bailout -- and it would cost a hell of a lot less than Wall Street.
Athol’s real estate decline has been fueled by a glut of foreclosed properties and high unemployment. The median price of a single-family home in Athol has fallen by more than 50 percent since Massachusetts values peaked in 2005, to just above $78,000 - the lowest in the state.
That compares with about a 19 percent decline in values statewide during the same period and a median price of $286,000, according to Warren Group, a real estate tracking firm.
The small town’s predicament illustrates how the housing market’s collapse hit less affluent communities harder than Massachusetts as a whole.
None of this is really news, is it? It's a one-day wonder day trip for the BG scribe.
Now, even as prices in wealthier parts of the state - including Brookline and Cambridge - move above the market’s ceiling of seven years ago, Athol, Orange, and places like them remain in a malaise.
That's what drove your economic recovery and all the fancily-funded numbers, dear and beloved reader.
Many here, including Stephanie Pandiscio, president of the North Central Massachusetts Association of Realtors and a longtime Athol resident, are girding for a lengthy recovery period in a community they value for its close-knit feel, natural beauty, and safe streets. Even then, Pandiscio doesn’t believe prices will ever “come back to what they were in 2005.’’
No doubt, Athol - with a population of 8,265 - faces major economic obstacles. The median household income is $43,071, compared with a $64,509 state median, and the December unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, more than a third higher than the 6.5 percent statewide figure, according to state and federal data.
Not only that, their high-school basketball team finished at the bottom of the division -- in a WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS LEAGUE!
As the state’s housing boom accelerated in 2004 and 2005, the town attracted a wave of first-time buyers, many of whom borrowed too much money.
There they go again, blaming you for wanting the American dream as the thieving banks bundled up your loan and played both ends against the middle for enormous profit.
In a hot market, Athol was still comparatively cheap and loans were easy to come by. And as happened elsewhere, demand quickly drove up values.
“It was crazy. The prices were so high,’’ said Pandiscio.
But when the economy faltered, many newer residents of Athol and Orange had little or no financial cushion. Some were forced to sell at a loss, others couldn’t manage their hefty mortgages and went into foreclosure.
Were those robosigned or.... ?????
“Less qualified buyers were driving the prices up. They were the ones that ended up in foreclosure,’’ said Rick Healey, owner of Foster-Healey Real Estate Inc. in Athol.
“It’s disproportionately low- and moderate-income families who saw these massive asset losses on their home,’’ said Barry Bluestone, founding dean of the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. “The communities with good schools and good services are going to be able to continually attract upper-income families.’’
Wees still good peoples!
In October, 106 Athol homes were in the foreclosure process or bank-owned, placing it at number 11 on the nonprofit Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s list of communities with the highest concentrations of distressed properties.
Bank-owned properties weigh down values of better kept homes in low-priced communities such as Athol and Orange. Some of those homes are neglected and in serious disrepair, while others are on the market for less than $40,000, but require only new carpeting and fresh paint.
Well, you know where the banks are NOT putting the bailout and profit money.
According to housing researcher Tim Davis, nearly half of all home sales in Athol last year were bank-owned homes or short sales - meaning a homeowner sells a property for less than the mortgage balance, with the bank’s permission. Like Tarlin, many buyers plan to renovate the houses and offer them as rentals until the market improves.
See: Rents Rising in Boston
Real estate agent Anthony Paoletti said most of his Saturday showings require a flashlight and boots to maneuver through darkened homes that were long ago shuttered by lenders.
“There was a day where we used to wear shirts and ties; now we use insulated long johns and boots and hats,’’ Paoletti said. “The homes are vacant and there’s no heat.’’
Prospective investor-buyers understand the region won’t be experiencing a new housing boom anytime soon, according to Paoletti.
“If they fix them up, they are not going to be flipping them’’ at a huge profit, he said.
Pandiscio, who bought a house in Athol in 1976, said it was heartbreaking to see some of her neighbors walk away from their homes when mortgage balances outstripped property values.
“These all were beautiful homes. All of a sudden nobody was there,’’ she said. The bargain hunters at least give her some reason for optimism.
“Thank God there are some people out there getting the lower-end deals,’’ Pandiscio said.
Yeah, somehow it's all turned out for the good(?).
One of them is Scott Parker, 47, who recently bought a three-bedroom house on a placid street in Orange after waiting until the asking price dropped tens of thousands of dollars. Parker paid $36,500 for a property he believes can eventually be resold for about $100,000, after about $15,000 in renovations.
“I don’t think I can lose with what I’m buying,’’ he said. “I’ve done pretty well in a depressed area.’’
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At least Mahar H.S. teams won their divisions again this year and will once again likely get a top seed in the upcoming Western Mass. basketball tournament.
Also see: Welcome to My World
Yeah, I will be taking some time away from the blog over the next few weeks to attend some high school basketball games -- the best two weeks of the year, and perhaps the last two weeks before the world turns to shit and we are plunged into WWIII.
